Françoise Bettencourt Meyers may not be a household name, but her fortune is one of the largest in the world. The French billionaire, aged 72, is currently worth an estimated $95 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaire rankings.
That immense wealth makes her the second richest woman on the planet and the 20th wealthiest individual overall. Unlike many of the world’s other top billionaires, her fortune has not been built from the ground up, but inherited from one of Europe’s most famous corporate dynasties.
Bettencourt Meyers is the only daughter of André and Liliane Bettencourt. Her mother, Liliane, was the sole heiress to her father’s empire, built by Eugène Schueller, the French chemist who founded cosmetics giant L’Oréal in 1909.
When Schueller died in 1957, Liliane inherited his fortune, and when she passed away in 2017, that vast wealth passed to her daughter. Today, Bettencourt Meyers is L’Oréal’s largest single shareholder, owning roughly 33 percent of the global beauty company.
Though her riches come from inheritance, Bettencourt Meyers has not remained in the shadows. She sits on L’Oréal’s board of directors and serves as chairwoman of the family’s holding company, ensuring her influence in how the business is run, per Fortune. L’Oréal itself continues to thrive, with expansion in emerging beauty markets, the rise of e-commerce, and sustained global demand for its products steadily increasing the company’s value, and in turn, her fortune.
Despite her staggering wealth, Bettencourt Meyers has kept a relatively low public profile compared to many other billionaires. She is married to businessman Jean-Pierre Meyers, whose grandfather was killed at Auschwitz during World War II. Although raised Catholic, she converted to Judaism upon her marriage, and she and her husband raised their two sons, Jean-Victor and Nicolas, in the Jewish faith. Beyond her business responsibilities, she is known for her intellectual pursuits. Bettencourt Meyers has authored works on Greek mythology and a multi-volume commentary on the Bible and, according to Fortune, is apparently an avid piano player.
The sheer scale of her wealth is difficult to comprehend. To illustrate, it has been estimated that she could afford to buy every person in the United States a ticket to an NBA game, along with an official game ball, and still retain tens of billions of dollars. Yet for all the eye-catching figures, Bettencourt Meyers remains a relatively private individual, rarely seeking the spotlight and avoiding the celebrity culture embraced by some of the world’s richest people.
Her fortune does fluctuate, largely tied to the stock performance of L’Oréal, as well as broader economic factors such as exchange rates and market conditions. Forbes currently values her at $95.3 billion, while Bloomberg places the figure closer to $97 billion. Regardless of the precise number, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers stands as one of the most powerful figures in global business, a woman who inherited a legendary empire but has also quietly shaped its future.