Richest woman lives in a private building, fought with her mother and is not vain

Anyone who passes by a three-story building in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a quiet suburb of Paris, would not imagine that the richest woman on the planet lives there. According to the new ranking by ‘Forbes’ magazine, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers has 99.5 billion dollars, equivalent to R$502 billion. She ranks 15th on the list of the world’s biggest billionaires.

She leaves the house very little. She was never seen shopping in the city’s luxury stores. She doesn’t like parties. Going to the hairdresser? Never. She prefers to read, write and play the piano in the privacy of her apartment.

Françoise, 70 years old, is the opposite of her parents, Liliane and André Bettencourt, from whom she inherited 33% of the L’Oreal group, a global leader in cosmetics. They loved social events, hanging out with celebrities and enjoying the luxury that money could provide.

An only child, the billionaire grew up like an ‘ugly duckling’. She did not have the same vanity as her mother and preferred to talk to the employees of the mansion where they lived than to socialize with the artists and politicians who attended the dinners.

After completing high school at a private school, he enrolled in Mathematics, but soon abandoned the course. She married businessman Jean-Pierre Meyers in 1984 and became a housewife. They had two sons, Jean-Victor and Nicolas.

Raised as a Catholic, Françoise chose to educate her boys in Judaism, her husband’s religion. She became a biblical scholar. She wrote books about passages from the holy book. She has also published on aspects of hearing and deafness.

Her father, with whom she was close, died in 2007. Her relationship with her mother was always cold due to the conflict of personalities. The matriarch was cheerful, festive and elegant. The daughter, extremely introspective, laid-back and averse to sophistication.

The two spent years without speaking to each other due to a legal war. Upon learning that profiteers were taking millions from Liliane, the daughter asked for her ban in court. The case became a national scandal as it involved clandestine donations to politicians.

After going back and forth to court, Françoise obtained authorization to manage her mother’s fortune, who was diagnosed with mental problems resulting from her age. Famous socialite Madame Bettencourt died aged 94, from Alzheimer’s, in 2017.

Available on Netflix, the documentary series ‘The Billionaire, The Butler and the Boyfriend’ tells in detail the final conflicts between mother and daughter.

Economical with personal expenses, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers is generous with donations. She helps hearing-impaired people get hearing aids, collaborates with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders and helped financially with the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, destroyed in a fire in 2019.

The lack of special care for her long hair made the L’Oreal shareholder become a meme on social media. Most people don’t understand how the richest woman on the planet lives in such a simple, discreet and unglamorized way.