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The Bettencourt Affair: The World's Richest Woman and the Scandal That Rocked Paris
Was the world s wealthiest woman Liliane Bettencourt heir to an estimated thirty-six-billion-dollar L Oreal fortune, the victim of a con man? Or were her own family the real villains? This riveting narrative tells the real-life, shocking story behind the cause celebre that has captivated both France and the world.
Liliane Bettencourt is the world s richest woman and the eleventh wealthiest person on the planet, as of 2016. But at ninety-four, she s embroiled in an incredible controversy that has dominated the headlines and ensnared a former president of France in the controversy. Why? Thanks to an artist and photographer named Francois-Marie Banier, who was given hundreds of millions of dollars by Liliane. Liliane s daughter, Francoise, considers Banier a con man and filed a lawsuit against him, but Banier has a far different story to tell. It s all become Europe s biggest scandal in years, uncovering a shadowy corporate history, buried World War II secrets, illicit political payoffs, and much more.
Written by Tom Sancton, aVanity Faircontributor and formerTimecorrespondent currently living in France, The Bettencourt Affairis part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; part business narrative of a glamorous global company with past Nazi connections; and part character-driven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart."
Liliane Bettencourt is the world s richest woman and the eleventh wealthiest person on the planet, as of 2016. But at ninety-four, she s embroiled in an incredible controversy that has dominated the headlines and ensnared a former president of France in the controversy. Why? Thanks to an artist and photographer named Francois-Marie Banier, who was given hundreds of millions of dollars by Liliane. Liliane s daughter, Francoise, considers Banier a con man and filed a lawsuit against him, but Banier has a far different story to tell. It s all become Europe s biggest scandal in years, uncovering a shadowy corporate history, buried World War II secrets, illicit political payoffs, and much more.
Written by Tom Sancton, aVanity Faircontributor and formerTimecorrespondent currently living in France, The Bettencourt Affairis part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; part business narrative of a glamorous global company with past Nazi connections; and part character-driven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart."
13 pages, Audiobook
First published August 8, 2017
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October 24, 2017
With the recent death of Liliane Bettencourt, the heir to the L’Oréal fortune, I thought this newly published book (August 2017) about her was a good time to learn more about this reclusive woman.
The book reads like a novel as Liliane falls victim to a con man. One of the questions brought up was it actually her family that was the real villain. You will need to read the book and make up your own mind.
Liliane’s daughter, Françoise Bettencourt Meyer, filed a lawsuit against Liliane’s friend Francois-Marie Banier. The lawsuit accused Banier of exploitation of a weakness. This was in 2007 just at the onset of Liliane’s Alzheimer’s disease. Liliane gave Banier approximately one billion euros. I found it interesting that Liliana’s father was anti-Semitic. Then his granddaughter, Francoise, married a Jew and is raising her two sons in the Hebrew faith.
The book provides insight into the French judicial system which is based on Napoleonic code. It is a system that seems made to delay final decisions as cases wind their way through the different court systems. The book is well written and meticulously researched. It is easy to read and entertaining. I found the information about how the French courts work most interesting and I am glad I live under the American system of law.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is fourteen hours long. Amanda Carlin does a good job narrating the book. Carlin is an actress and longtime audiobook narrator.
The book reads like a novel as Liliane falls victim to a con man. One of the questions brought up was it actually her family that was the real villain. You will need to read the book and make up your own mind.
Liliane’s daughter, Françoise Bettencourt Meyer, filed a lawsuit against Liliane’s friend Francois-Marie Banier. The lawsuit accused Banier of exploitation of a weakness. This was in 2007 just at the onset of Liliane’s Alzheimer’s disease. Liliane gave Banier approximately one billion euros. I found it interesting that Liliana’s father was anti-Semitic. Then his granddaughter, Francoise, married a Jew and is raising her two sons in the Hebrew faith.
The book provides insight into the French judicial system which is based on Napoleonic code. It is a system that seems made to delay final decisions as cases wind their way through the different court systems. The book is well written and meticulously researched. It is easy to read and entertaining. I found the information about how the French courts work most interesting and I am glad I live under the American system of law.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is fourteen hours long. Amanda Carlin does a good job narrating the book. Carlin is an actress and longtime audiobook narrator.
September 16, 2018
Liliane Bettencourt was the richest woman in the world with a fortune of somewhere in the neighborhood of $36 billion. As sole owner of the L'Oreal cosmetic/perfume giant, she kept a tight rein on the business although she did place family members in positions of power. At the time of the scandal described in this book, she was in her eighties and starting to exhibit the symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease. Enter Francois-Marie Banier, a popular gadfly in Paris society who, although his antecedents were rather vague, knew everyone who was anyone and moved in the highest artistic and political circles. Something about this man, who was in his mid-forties, attracted Liliane, much to the dismay of her only child and heir Francoise Meyers. And thus began the convoluted tale that led to several trials and family hatred.
Liliane gifted unbelievable amounts of money on Francois-Marie as well as great works of art, stocks in L'Oreal, real estate and anything else that she felt he would enjoy. And he accepted them gladly and as he later stated, it made her happy to share her wealth with him. What exactly was their relationship? Her daughter saw him as an interloper who was taking advantage of her mother's deteriorating mental condition and eventually took him to court. The court battles which escalated and included various others including politicians who were influenced by Banier, takes up the latter half of the book which does tend to slow down the narrative.
The author avoids making this story a gossipy tell-all and sticks to the facts as much as possible. It leaves the reader with this question.......was Banier a con man or just someone who kept a lonely old woman entertained and feeling needed?
Liliane gifted unbelievable amounts of money on Francois-Marie as well as great works of art, stocks in L'Oreal, real estate and anything else that she felt he would enjoy. And he accepted them gladly and as he later stated, it made her happy to share her wealth with him. What exactly was their relationship? Her daughter saw him as an interloper who was taking advantage of her mother's deteriorating mental condition and eventually took him to court. The court battles which escalated and included various others including politicians who were influenced by Banier, takes up the latter half of the book which does tend to slow down the narrative.
The author avoids making this story a gossipy tell-all and sticks to the facts as much as possible. It leaves the reader with this question.......was Banier a con man or just someone who kept a lonely old woman entertained and feeling needed?
January 27, 2018
This was a very interesting books as it dealt with the Loreal billionaire and how her family obtained their fortune , and the scandal that she was involved at an advanced age because her daughter thought she was being abused and taken advantage of because of her weak hold in reality due to her age by Banier , an eccentric character who ingrained himself to the family when young and was the recipients of gifts by the heiresses from then on till the end in the amount of 450 million euros , was he actually a con man? Or was he just the victim of a greedy daughter who finally wanted to take over the family business by declaring the heiress senile and take over her charge? Then judgment is up to you. Real slow till page 120 and then extremely interesting up to page 250-260 , and then a little slower . You’ll get to know the intricacies of the French judicial system as a bonus.
June 19, 2018
Well researched and not badly written but this is really a verrrrrrry long Vanity Fair article.
December 22, 2017
Interesting and detailed book about the bettencourt family and the family firm and the scandal which rocked the family
August 16, 2017
The Bettencourt Affair is hard to give a star rating to. Like the French attitude that it mentions, it's hard to feel sympathy for the ultra-rich when there are so many people that live in poverty. On the other hand, the view into just how different the French justice system is from the U.S. was fascinating. Also, learning more about the WWII machinations of L'Oreal's founder, Eugène Schueller, was eye-opening and while I am all for the idea that the kids are not responsible for the parent's foibles, I honestly don't think I will ever look at their products the same way again and already wasn't in the habit of buying them because there are other product lines that I like better.
While not important to the case, I'm offended that Lillian just accepted her father's racism and still adored his memory, especially after her only child married a Jewish man. Call me crazy, but all of that money given to some useless gadfly could have done so much more trying to educate people of our terrible history of racism and attempt to open their hearts to all.
Lastly, there is family strife and Alzheimer's. As Tolstoy said, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The person in my family that was the strongest, that we all respected, and looked to for direction was laid low by Alzheimer's. Lillian Bettencourt seems to have been an even powerful force now laid low by the same disease. While it seemed like money grubbing to many, I applaud her daughter for her years of work and court cases. I wish they could have found more common ground when they were both younger and it mattered, but in the end, her daughter was protecting her mom. I can't fault that.
The book was ultimately readable and as I said, the wheels of French justice are so different from ours, that it was interesting. My only complaint is that there were a lot of players in this saga, however, Sancton did a really great job of keeping them all straight for his readers without being condescending or a creating a flowchart.
In the end, there was a lot more to like than to dislike, so I gave it 4 stars. Most non-fiction isn't for every reader and this is true here, but that doesn't mean it is a "meh" book.
While not important to the case, I'm offended that Lillian just accepted her father's racism and still adored his memory, especially after her only child married a Jewish man. Call me crazy, but all of that money given to some useless gadfly could have done so much more trying to educate people of our terrible history of racism and attempt to open their hearts to all.
Lastly, there is family strife and Alzheimer's. As Tolstoy said, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The person in my family that was the strongest, that we all respected, and looked to for direction was laid low by Alzheimer's. Lillian Bettencourt seems to have been an even powerful force now laid low by the same disease. While it seemed like money grubbing to many, I applaud her daughter for her years of work and court cases. I wish they could have found more common ground when they were both younger and it mattered, but in the end, her daughter was protecting her mom. I can't fault that.
The book was ultimately readable and as I said, the wheels of French justice are so different from ours, that it was interesting. My only complaint is that there were a lot of players in this saga, however, Sancton did a really great job of keeping them all straight for his readers without being condescending or a creating a flowchart.
In the end, there was a lot more to like than to dislike, so I gave it 4 stars. Most non-fiction isn't for every reader and this is true here, but that doesn't mean it is a "meh" book.
March 12, 2025
Aside from a few summer afternoons earlier this century when I could not help but hear my former neighbor and her teenage daughter screaming at each other, I have had very little personal involvement with dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships. However, I have come to understand from my television viewing that such toxic relationships are fairly common. And now Tom Sancton has written this book indicating that even the world's richest woman had a daughter who felt unloved and with whom she barely spoke over the last quarter century of her life, despite living across the street from her. Fortunately, Sancton is a journalist who gathered his information on this relationship from interviews which he and other conducted with the principals and from very unemotional court documents. The reader therefore avoids much of the wallowing in such relationships as they are presented in (hopefully) fictional descriptions of such relationships which often degenerate into contests to see which participant can be the most petty or vindictive.
Sancton focuses mostly on how this mother-daughter relationship spilled over into the French legal and political systems of the first two decades of the current century. Fighting over all that money (Mom left an estate of almost 50 billion euros) had repercussions that reached the highest levels of the French political structure. However as an American reader, I was struck by how little money was needed to create a political scandal in France. The family reaped a lot of influence from funds that were usually distributed in envelopes of 50,000 euros each to favored politicians. American politicians have higher standards. 50,000 euros wouldn't buy even one of those gold bricks that Bob Menendez was apparently using as door stops at his New Jersey residence.
Sancton focuses mostly on how this mother-daughter relationship spilled over into the French legal and political systems of the first two decades of the current century. Fighting over all that money (Mom left an estate of almost 50 billion euros) had repercussions that reached the highest levels of the French political structure. However as an American reader, I was struck by how little money was needed to create a political scandal in France. The family reaped a lot of influence from funds that were usually distributed in envelopes of 50,000 euros each to favored politicians. American politicians have higher standards. 50,000 euros wouldn't buy even one of those gold bricks that Bob Menendez was apparently using as door stops at his New Jersey residence.
March 6, 2018
The last time I read such a gossipy journalism piece was a popular biography of Princess Diana—awhile ago. In addition to excellent research and writing, this book is fascinating because of the prominence and influence of the Bettencourt family and the legal battle that captured the attention of all of France for most of a decade surrounding the world's richest woman, Lilian Bettencourt, and her artist-companion, François-Marie Banier.
The Bettencourt family are the heirs of L'Oréal/Lancôme fortune. Since the beginning of the L'Oréal company before WWI, Lilian's grandfather and father were deeply involved in French politics, an involvement that continued up to the death of Liliane Bettencourt's husband. Liliane herself, sole heir to her father's firm, attended to the family's business fortunes. The inveiglement and profiteering of the family fortunes through support for Nazis and the Vichy regime during the war years is a separate and intriguing aspect of the L'Oréal legacy that makes the family more interesting, as well as giving any story about the Lancôme/L'Oréal family an added soupçon of historical obloquy.
After her husband's death, and for sometime before, Liliane formed a highly questionable attachment to a somewhat younger author/photographer/artist, François-Marie Banier, who managed to extract something over 2 billion euros from his benefactress before the heiress's daughter, Françoise, realized the extent of Banier's influence, as well as her mother's declining mental state, due to dementia. Françoise sued Banier and and others who were close to her mother, striking panic among officials and politicians, including Nicholas Sarkozy, who had reportedly received lavish illegal campaign funds and gifts from the famille Bettencourt, and the scandal was front page news in Paris and throughout France for most of a decade.
I have to say, I really enjoyed this book. The national crisis and its eventual dénouement is such a French-style scandal, that it was pure reading pleasure. I had to laugh when one character suggested that no American President could ever get away with such blatant abuse of campaign finance laws as Mr. Sarkozy--I don't think they could have imagined our current Presidential debacle. Anyway, I enjoyed this French scandal which was a bit of a light soufflé for me--well-written, gossipy, and entertaining.
The Bettencourt family are the heirs of L'Oréal/Lancôme fortune. Since the beginning of the L'Oréal company before WWI, Lilian's grandfather and father were deeply involved in French politics, an involvement that continued up to the death of Liliane Bettencourt's husband. Liliane herself, sole heir to her father's firm, attended to the family's business fortunes. The inveiglement and profiteering of the family fortunes through support for Nazis and the Vichy regime during the war years is a separate and intriguing aspect of the L'Oréal legacy that makes the family more interesting, as well as giving any story about the Lancôme/L'Oréal family an added soupçon of historical obloquy.
After her husband's death, and for sometime before, Liliane formed a highly questionable attachment to a somewhat younger author/photographer/artist, François-Marie Banier, who managed to extract something over 2 billion euros from his benefactress before the heiress's daughter, Françoise, realized the extent of Banier's influence, as well as her mother's declining mental state, due to dementia. Françoise sued Banier and and others who were close to her mother, striking panic among officials and politicians, including Nicholas Sarkozy, who had reportedly received lavish illegal campaign funds and gifts from the famille Bettencourt, and the scandal was front page news in Paris and throughout France for most of a decade.
I have to say, I really enjoyed this book. The national crisis and its eventual dénouement is such a French-style scandal, that it was pure reading pleasure. I had to laugh when one character suggested that no American President could ever get away with such blatant abuse of campaign finance laws as Mr. Sarkozy--I don't think they could have imagined our current Presidential debacle. Anyway, I enjoyed this French scandal which was a bit of a light soufflé for me--well-written, gossipy, and entertaining.
September 6, 2018
I was attracted to "THE BETTENCOURT AFFAIR: The World's Richest Woman and the Scandal That Rocked Paris" by its cover. It caught my eye in a local independent bookstore several weeks ago. I weighed the book carefully in my hands and glanced through its pages before deciding to buy it. What an unexpected merry ride this book has given me!
"THE BETTENCOURT AFFAIR" at its heart is a story about a scandal that arose over the past decade from one of France's wealthiest families (who normally kept a very low profile). It was a scandal that began as a family drama between mother (Liliane Bettencourt, daughter of Eugène Schueller [1881-1957], a pharmacist by profession who founded L'Oréal, "the world's leading company in cosmetics and beauty" products -- who herself was one of the world's wealthiest women) and daughter (Françoise Bettencourt Meyers) which, once leaked to the press in France, became a major scandal touching upon politics and L'Oréal's shadowy history, as well as the family's murky secrets arising out of the Second World War. This book had many layers that captivated my interest and read at times like a spellbinding thriller.
Before reading "THE BETTENCOURT AFFAIR", I knew very, very little about L'Oréal. For me, it was a name of some big cosmetics company that dealt with beauty and fashion whose products I had seen advertised on TV over the years. Thank you, Tom Sancton, for this book. It's truly impressive and reflects well the research that went into its creation and development. The author taught me a lot and deepened my already wide-ranging fascination with French history and culture. This book is a keeper.
"THE BETTENCOURT AFFAIR" at its heart is a story about a scandal that arose over the past decade from one of France's wealthiest families (who normally kept a very low profile). It was a scandal that began as a family drama between mother (Liliane Bettencourt, daughter of Eugène Schueller [1881-1957], a pharmacist by profession who founded L'Oréal, "the world's leading company in cosmetics and beauty" products -- who herself was one of the world's wealthiest women) and daughter (Françoise Bettencourt Meyers) which, once leaked to the press in France, became a major scandal touching upon politics and L'Oréal's shadowy history, as well as the family's murky secrets arising out of the Second World War. This book had many layers that captivated my interest and read at times like a spellbinding thriller.
Before reading "THE BETTENCOURT AFFAIR", I knew very, very little about L'Oréal. For me, it was a name of some big cosmetics company that dealt with beauty and fashion whose products I had seen advertised on TV over the years. Thank you, Tom Sancton, for this book. It's truly impressive and reflects well the research that went into its creation and development. The author taught me a lot and deepened my already wide-ranging fascination with French history and culture. This book is a keeper.
September 17, 2017
Amazing. The richest woman in the world and I never heard of her. The head of the L'Oreal empire. So Nazi implications, a gigolo, a husband consort who may be gay, a daughter who marries a Jewish man, political insinuations of graft and corruption. And it's all true! What an amazing cast of characters. So well written.
February 25, 2022
So I impulsively borrowed this for the train ride home from Bordeaux but it turned out to have an unexpected connection to the city! Turns out that the trial (or trials) at the Center in this book were held there.
The Bettencourt Affair is about Liliane Schueller Bettencourt, the daughter of the founder of L’Oreal; Françoise, her daughter; and François-Marie Banier, an artist that grew close to Liliane and whom Françoise accused of swindling her mother out of millions.
The truth is hard to discern. There is as definitely one point where Liliane wasn’t fully in control of her mental faculties, but it also seems like even before that, and during her lucid moments, she knew for sure what she was doing and that she didn’t care it would make her daughter angry. In fact, I think that Liliane’s advisors may have manipulated her even more.
And really, no one in this book is very likeable. Even Françoise, whom I initially sympathised with because she has a hard start due to Liliane’s inability to connect with her, ended up appearing like all she cared about was control over her mother and her money rather than actually having true concern (the part about how they stopped giving her dividends that they agreed she would be paid after a settlement was negotiated was particularly distasteful).
And while the whole Bettencourt affair was riveting, what surprised me the most was how the founder of L’Oreal was anti-Semitic and might have supported Nazis and somehow, everyone just kept glossing over it. Like sure, there was some news in the press, but it seems like L’Oreal wasn’t affected at all by this, which I found surprising.
Overall, this book was really interesting. I don’t really know much about L’Oreal or French politics (which is pretty intertwined with the Bettencourt case) so a lot of what the book covered was new to me. If the story of the Bettencourt interests you, definitely pick this book up!
This review was first posted at Eustea Reads
The Bettencourt Affair is about Liliane Schueller Bettencourt, the daughter of the founder of L’Oreal; Françoise, her daughter; and François-Marie Banier, an artist that grew close to Liliane and whom Françoise accused of swindling her mother out of millions.
The truth is hard to discern. There is as definitely one point where Liliane wasn’t fully in control of her mental faculties, but it also seems like even before that, and during her lucid moments, she knew for sure what she was doing and that she didn’t care it would make her daughter angry. In fact, I think that Liliane’s advisors may have manipulated her even more.
And really, no one in this book is very likeable. Even Françoise, whom I initially sympathised with because she has a hard start due to Liliane’s inability to connect with her, ended up appearing like all she cared about was control over her mother and her money rather than actually having true concern (the part about how they stopped giving her dividends that they agreed she would be paid after a settlement was negotiated was particularly distasteful).
And while the whole Bettencourt affair was riveting, what surprised me the most was how the founder of L’Oreal was anti-Semitic and might have supported Nazis and somehow, everyone just kept glossing over it. Like sure, there was some news in the press, but it seems like L’Oreal wasn’t affected at all by this, which I found surprising.
Overall, this book was really interesting. I don’t really know much about L’Oreal or French politics (which is pretty intertwined with the Bettencourt case) so a lot of what the book covered was new to me. If the story of the Bettencourt interests you, definitely pick this book up!
This review was first posted at Eustea Reads
June 7, 2020
A little underwhelmed by this one. liliane Bettencourt was the L'Oreal heiress whose father was a Nazi sympathiser and who married a homosexual with a hatred of Jews. Her marriage was not happy so when she met painter and writer Francois-Marie Banier she found him witty and urbane and proceeded to lavish gifts and money on him. When her daughter discovers what is happening she starts court proceedings. This book tells of the battle played out for control of L'Oreal's billions. It's an o.k read.
January 15, 2022
It wasn't as racy as I wanted it to be. The unloved daughter who stirred up the whole mess was a bit boring, and though Banier, the artist adventurer who received hundreds of millions in gifts fron the cosmetics heiress was undeniably colorful, his actual relationship with Mrs. Bettancourt was quite tame. He seems to have gotten emotional from time to time and to have sometimes bullied his patroness a little, but it is part of French culture to be emotional and anyone of us not in line for sainthood who has dealt with an old person with weakening mental faculties has probably played the bully now and then at least a little. The rest of it was just the usual rich person blah blah blah of eating at fancy restraurants, buying expensive art and flying off in private jets to their private islands. I'd like to think that if I had a billion dollars I'd find better ways to spend my time and money. I was interested to learn of the political connnection to Sarkozy which caused the seemingly endless litigation to go on even longer than necessary and to take some odd turns, and I was interested to learn about the family's Nazi connections, but that was a minor side theme.
The most interesting thing about the book for me was trying to decide whether I really reached my own conclusion about the affair - that Banier wasn't so bad, that the old lady truly cared for him and that she had so many billions that she was hardly depriving her estranged daughter of her great expectations by dropping one of her many billons on Banier. To me the daughter was an ungrateful wretch, a cold fish who caused a lot of unnecessary pain, a classic example of using the legal system in the wrong way to torture people and then end up mainly torturing yourself. Or did I just let myself be led to this point of view, which I think the author shares, notwithstanding his seemingly objective approach to the story? I decided in the end that I was led, and it just goes to show how sometimes the greatest persuasive writing is done in a style which appears to be objective facts neutrally presented, when it's really a subtle argument that pushes you inexorably to a single conclusion.
The most interesting thing about the book for me was trying to decide whether I really reached my own conclusion about the affair - that Banier wasn't so bad, that the old lady truly cared for him and that she had so many billions that she was hardly depriving her estranged daughter of her great expectations by dropping one of her many billons on Banier. To me the daughter was an ungrateful wretch, a cold fish who caused a lot of unnecessary pain, a classic example of using the legal system in the wrong way to torture people and then end up mainly torturing yourself. Or did I just let myself be led to this point of view, which I think the author shares, notwithstanding his seemingly objective approach to the story? I decided in the end that I was led, and it just goes to show how sometimes the greatest persuasive writing is done in a style which appears to be objective facts neutrally presented, when it's really a subtle argument that pushes you inexorably to a single conclusion.
August 8, 2017
A Great Fortune, A Lonely Woman, A Con-man, and a Jealous Daughter
Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune, is one of the world’s richest women. Married to Andre Bettencourt, a politican, Liliane became tired of her bourgeois life. She met and was attracted to Francois-Marie Banier. Banier was an artist and photographer and a member of artistic society that fascinated Liliane. Infatuated with him, she presented him with hundreds of millions of euros worth of real estate, paintings, and cash. Andre didn’t complain about the money. He said it was her’s to do as she wished.
Liliane’s daughter, Francoise, thought differently about Banier and the family fortune believing that he was taking advantage of her mother. She had not been particularly close to her mother, probably because Liliane was not a maternal person and was absent during the early years of Francoise’s life taking a tuberculosis cure, The rupture never healed. When Liliane started becoming confused. (She is presently suffering from Alzheimer’s.) Francoise filed a law suit against Banier.
The lawsuit devolved into a major scandal involving corporate secrets, WWII relations with the Nazis, Swiss Bank accounts, and political payoffs.
This is a fascinating book. The unusual characters, tangled emotions, and high level political maneuvering makes the book read more like fiction than history. The book is very well researched, going in depth on the background of the characters as well as the trial.
For me, the book started rather slowly with the history of the L’Oréal Company founded by her father Charles Schueller, a brilliant chemist and business man. This history is important to the rest of the story, so it’s necessary in order to understand the later trial, but it did make the early chapters slow when you’re interested in the scandalous trial.
I received this book from Net Galley for this review.
Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune, is one of the world’s richest women. Married to Andre Bettencourt, a politican, Liliane became tired of her bourgeois life. She met and was attracted to Francois-Marie Banier. Banier was an artist and photographer and a member of artistic society that fascinated Liliane. Infatuated with him, she presented him with hundreds of millions of euros worth of real estate, paintings, and cash. Andre didn’t complain about the money. He said it was her’s to do as she wished.
Liliane’s daughter, Francoise, thought differently about Banier and the family fortune believing that he was taking advantage of her mother. She had not been particularly close to her mother, probably because Liliane was not a maternal person and was absent during the early years of Francoise’s life taking a tuberculosis cure, The rupture never healed. When Liliane started becoming confused. (She is presently suffering from Alzheimer’s.) Francoise filed a law suit against Banier.
The lawsuit devolved into a major scandal involving corporate secrets, WWII relations with the Nazis, Swiss Bank accounts, and political payoffs.
This is a fascinating book. The unusual characters, tangled emotions, and high level political maneuvering makes the book read more like fiction than history. The book is very well researched, going in depth on the background of the characters as well as the trial.
For me, the book started rather slowly with the history of the L’Oréal Company founded by her father Charles Schueller, a brilliant chemist and business man. This history is important to the rest of the story, so it’s necessary in order to understand the later trial, but it did make the early chapters slow when you’re interested in the scandalous trial.
I received this book from Net Galley for this review.
September 2, 2021
If anyone can recommend a good budget cleansing conditioner that will not enrich the heirs of Nazi collaborators/shielders, that would be great. This was an interesting look into the totally strange world of billionaires and greed (and the French legal/political systems). And of course, if any ultra rich folks would like to fund me, I promise not to take *tooooo* much!
September 17, 2022
DNF - Too much war, past leaders and politics - very boring. I expected a fun “tell all”, this wasn’t it!! So I went to Google and got the gist of the story in one fast read.
She was a very unhappy and sad woman, in spite of being the richest one in the world. Her father, Eugène Schueller, had Fascist leanings and was pro-Nazi, glad I use Revlon and not L’Oréal!!
She was a very unhappy and sad woman, in spite of being the richest one in the world. Her father, Eugène Schueller, had Fascist leanings and was pro-Nazi, glad I use Revlon and not L’Oréal!!
June 1, 2017
Rich people. Their problems are really not "just like yours," but they are fascinating reading.
November 16, 2017
Not nearly as scandalous or fascinating as the title and jacket blurb lead you to believe.
December 24, 2017
A fascinating look at the family that founded L'Oreal and the scandal that engulfed it, along with the legal maneuverings and court cases and verdicts.
February 8, 2018
I felt like I got more out of the Vanity Fair article
September 12, 2018
Fascinating and compelling read. Unbelievable story! If I dock it any points it’s for a bit of repetition I found grating in the references to Liliane, Françoise and François-Marie.
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December 13, 2019Life is too short and my TBR pile is too big to spend any more than my 100 page minimum with these horrible people- did not finish. No criticism of author- seemed to be well researched
January 3, 2022
A pretty good summary of the affair, and also the dark nazi past of its founder, as well as Mme Bettencourt's husband, André. At the same time a psychological analysis of young men suppressed by their fathers, as well as their longings to please others. In addition, an account of the mechanisms of political campaign financing in France.
I would have liked to see more on the Swiss bank accounts and the undeclared island, and perhaps a bit less on the personality of Banier. But then again, Sancton had access to Banier, so he made detailed use of it. All in all, a good read.
I would have liked to see more on the Swiss bank accounts and the undeclared island, and perhaps a bit less on the personality of Banier. But then again, Sancton had access to Banier, so he made detailed use of it. All in all, a good read.
January 29, 2022
Rated 3.0
Liliane Bettencourt is worth $36.1 billion. She is beautiful, smart, articulate and likes to live life on her own terms. Her daughter, Francoise is quiet, plays the piano 5 hours a day and is married to a Jew. The women live across the street from each other but have little contact and even less concern for each other. This book is a modern day Greek tragedy about money: the creation from scratch of one of the world's great fortunes (L'Oreal) and the use and abuse of the wealth through three generations. Should Liliane be able to spend $1 billion of her money on a much younger man who is continually asking for money or should Francoise obtain guardianship of her mother to ensure all the money comes to her and her family. The trial capture the world as obscene amounts of money was transferring hands to many greedy people, including the President of France.
I found this book difficult to read. The author often included so many details that were not necessary for the main story. I didn't really care how each room was decorated nor the lifestyle of each attorney involved in the case and there were many. I lost interest during these detours into the weeds in this book. The overall story was sad in many ways. Liliane's deafness played an important role throughout the book. Francois' manipulation of Liliane was disgusting even if Liliane enjoyed him and wanted to show her love with money, art and real estate. Francoise's law suit to better position her family seemingly could have been resolved in far better ways. Overall, this book was interesting but I often felt I was slogging through the swamps.
Was the world s wealthiest woman Liliane Bettencourt heir to an estimated thirty-six-billion-dollar L Oreal fortune, the victim of a con man? Or were her own family the real villains? This riveting narrative tells the real-life, shocking story behind the cause celebre that has captivated both France and the world.
Liliane Bettencourt is the world s richest woman and the eleventh wealthiest person on the planet, as of 2016. But at ninety-four, she s embroiled in an incredible controversy that has dominated the headlines and ensnared a former president of France in the controversy. Why? Thanks to an artist and photographer named Francois-Marie Banier, who was given hundreds of millions of dollars by Liliane. Liliane s daughter, Francoise, considers Banier a con man and filed a lawsuit against him, but Banier has a far different story to tell. It s all become Europe s biggest scandal in years, uncovering a shadowy corporate history, buried World War II secrets, illicit political payoffs, and much more.
Written by Tom Sancton, aVanity Faircontributor and formerTimecorrespondent currently living in France, The Bettencourt Affairis part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; part business narrative of a glamorous global company with past Nazi connections; and part character-driven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart."
Liliane Bettencourt is worth $36.1 billion. She is beautiful, smart, articulate and likes to live life on her own terms. Her daughter, Francoise is quiet, plays the piano 5 hours a day and is married to a Jew. The women live across the street from each other but have little contact and even less concern for each other. This book is a modern day Greek tragedy about money: the creation from scratch of one of the world's great fortunes (L'Oreal) and the use and abuse of the wealth through three generations. Should Liliane be able to spend $1 billion of her money on a much younger man who is continually asking for money or should Francoise obtain guardianship of her mother to ensure all the money comes to her and her family. The trial capture the world as obscene amounts of money was transferring hands to many greedy people, including the President of France.
I found this book difficult to read. The author often included so many details that were not necessary for the main story. I didn't really care how each room was decorated nor the lifestyle of each attorney involved in the case and there were many. I lost interest during these detours into the weeds in this book. The overall story was sad in many ways. Liliane's deafness played an important role throughout the book. Francois' manipulation of Liliane was disgusting even if Liliane enjoyed him and wanted to show her love with money, art and real estate. Francoise's law suit to better position her family seemingly could have been resolved in far better ways. Overall, this book was interesting but I often felt I was slogging through the swamps.
Was the world s wealthiest woman Liliane Bettencourt heir to an estimated thirty-six-billion-dollar L Oreal fortune, the victim of a con man? Or were her own family the real villains? This riveting narrative tells the real-life, shocking story behind the cause celebre that has captivated both France and the world.
Liliane Bettencourt is the world s richest woman and the eleventh wealthiest person on the planet, as of 2016. But at ninety-four, she s embroiled in an incredible controversy that has dominated the headlines and ensnared a former president of France in the controversy. Why? Thanks to an artist and photographer named Francois-Marie Banier, who was given hundreds of millions of dollars by Liliane. Liliane s daughter, Francoise, considers Banier a con man and filed a lawsuit against him, but Banier has a far different story to tell. It s all become Europe s biggest scandal in years, uncovering a shadowy corporate history, buried World War II secrets, illicit political payoffs, and much more.
Written by Tom Sancton, aVanity Faircontributor and formerTimecorrespondent currently living in France, The Bettencourt Affairis part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; part business narrative of a glamorous global company with past Nazi connections; and part character-driven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart."
February 5, 2019
I'm going to try and read more non-fiction this year and I saw this on a book of the year list from NPR so thought I would give it a try. It is not normally something I am interested in - celebrity gossip and scandals - so perhaps take my review with a pinch of salt.
At face value, it is the story of a younger person exploiting and playing on the loneliness and generosity of a wealthy elderly person. But, as the elderly person in question was Liliane Bettencourt, the wealthiest woman in the world, the scale is increased somewhat. As the affair progresses, it becomes clear that any kind of moral high ground is missing with family, friends, staff, colleagues and politicians all swarming around the ailing billionaire, carving out a slice of money for themselves. Surprisingly, the very rich seem to have few moral scruples when it comes to getting richer. Who'd have thought? For this reason, I found it very difficult to engage with or care about any of the characters in the tale. They are all playing the same game trying to get as much as they possibly can for themselves and pay as little tax as possible and, while Liliane was mentally capable, it was clear that the sums she was doling out to Banier (the 'con-man') and others was a drop in the ocean of her billions. It made no difference. So, overall, a depressingly familiar tale of wealth and hardly the earth-shattering story that the blurb describes it as.
At face value, it is the story of a younger person exploiting and playing on the loneliness and generosity of a wealthy elderly person. But, as the elderly person in question was Liliane Bettencourt, the wealthiest woman in the world, the scale is increased somewhat. As the affair progresses, it becomes clear that any kind of moral high ground is missing with family, friends, staff, colleagues and politicians all swarming around the ailing billionaire, carving out a slice of money for themselves. Surprisingly, the very rich seem to have few moral scruples when it comes to getting richer. Who'd have thought? For this reason, I found it very difficult to engage with or care about any of the characters in the tale. They are all playing the same game trying to get as much as they possibly can for themselves and pay as little tax as possible and, while Liliane was mentally capable, it was clear that the sums she was doling out to Banier (the 'con-man') and others was a drop in the ocean of her billions. It made no difference. So, overall, a depressingly familiar tale of wealth and hardly the earth-shattering story that the blurb describes it as.
December 29, 2019
In all, this story wasn't interesting enough for the space, although the climax of the scandal was quite exciting. And the other issue is that the writer was heavily infatuated with one side of the story, and while he tried to excuse that by saying the other party refused interviews, it caused a severe imbalance and lack of neutrality.
At its best, the book is a glimpse into the shenanigans of the rich and extremely undeserved wealth. At its worst, it is a glorified gossip rag talking about people who ultimately are not worth the time or space, although the family history and origin story of L'Oreal was interesting just because I want familiar with French Nazi collaborators.
The problem I found is really that ultimately everything feels so frivolous that the resolution of the scandal kind of doesn't matter. When everyone is shit, whether the villain is the annoying artiste or the useless heiress...who cares?!?
At its best, the book is a glimpse into the shenanigans of the rich and extremely undeserved wealth. At its worst, it is a glorified gossip rag talking about people who ultimately are not worth the time or space, although the family history and origin story of L'Oreal was interesting just because I want familiar with French Nazi collaborators.
The problem I found is really that ultimately everything feels so frivolous that the resolution of the scandal kind of doesn't matter. When everyone is shit, whether the villain is the annoying artiste or the useless heiress...who cares?!?
April 28, 2018
This book might be exciting to tax lawyers and financial advisor types but I was pretty disappointed coming into it looking for a juicy, scandalous story. Sanction gives a thorough overview of what exactly transpired between the Bettancourts and those who may have been out to scam them but his focus seems to be on the technicalities of the case. Which I feel like are easily the less interesting parts of the whole affair— why would an author choose to recount the facts and figures when he has such rich source material for family scandal and drama and mysteriously unorthodox clandestine relationships? The only explanation I can think of is that this really is meant to be a niche read for finance nerds or that the entire Bettancourt affair really wasn’t as scandalous as it’s made out to be.
June 20, 2022
I suppose this would be more fascinating if you knew the case and followed it closely while it unraveled in 2010 era. The play by play money accounting was a bit boring to read, I started to skim halfway through and then read the wiki article for the ending. I think this book just made me too mad to read because the whole time I was certain this would never happen to a rich old MAN who was generous with a favorite lady friend. Do I need to read more about societal misogynistic crap in my free time? No thanks.
June 4, 2018
Riveting story that tries to be impartial and let the reader make their own conclusion as to whether or not the heiress was taken advantage of or not. I must say that I was unaware of this tale and devoured it in a couple of sittings.
February 6, 2019
I guess I thought this would be about rich people getting what they deserve but it wasn’t about that.
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