Liliane Bettencourt, World’s Richest Woman, Dies at 94
Local Editor
Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the French L'Oreal hairspray empire and the world's wealthiest woman, who was at the center of a long-running French courtroom saga over alleged hangers-on who took advantage of her frailty to elicit money and gifts, has died aged 94.
Bettencourt, whose net worth was estimated at about €33bn [£29bn] this year, was the face of one of France's biggest cosmetics conglomerates and had once captured the public's imagination as the nation's poor little rich girl.
Bettencourt hit the headlines in 2007 when members of her entourage were charged with exploiting her failing mental health - leading to a vast inquiry that threatened to engulf the then-president Nicolas Sarkozy.
When Bettencourt's husband, the politician André Bettencourt, died in 2007, their daughter Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, decided to take legal action against her mother's eccentric best friend, François-Marie Banier.
Bettencourt had been declared unfit to run her own affairs in 2011 after a medical report showing she had suffered from "mixed dementia" and "moderately severe" Alzheimer's disease since 2006. She was rarely seen in public after leaving the L'Oreal board in 2012.
"Liliane Bettencourt died last night at home," her daughter Françoise Bettencourt Meyers said in a statement. "My mother left peacefully."
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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