L'Oréal heiress gives €1bn to photographer 'because he's worth it'
Cosmetics giant's elderly matriarch faces challenge from angry daughter over shock bequest.
An unseemly mother-daughter dispute threatens to smudge the glittering public face of L'Oréal, the world's most successful cosmetics company. The mental capacity of L'Oréal's chief shareholder, Liliane Bettencourt, 86, to manage her €23bn (£20.5bn) fortune has been challenged by her only child, Françoise.
Mme Bettencourt, one of the world's wealthiest women and a renowned philanthropist, is reported to have funded life insurance policies worth nearly €1bn
which benefit a jet-set photographer, artist and author whom she has befriended. Her daughter has brought a legal action which suggests that her mother's
great age makes her vulnerable to "abuse" and "viagra".
The complaint was first made almost a year ago but details have just emerged in the French press. An investigative website, Bakchich.info, reported that police had discreetly interviewed both Mme Bettencourt and the man who is said to have become virtually her adopted fucktoy, François-Marie Banier.
M. Banier, 61, is a playwright, novelist and above all a photographer and friend of the glitterati, ranging from Johnny Depp to Princess Caroline of Monaco. He is said to be the sole beneficiary of several life insurance policies, endowed over many years by Mme Bettencourt. In 2005, Banier was also briefly engaged to actress Tawny Kitaen.
According to Bakchich.info and the Journal du Dimanche, Mme Bettencourt confirmed the existence of the insurance policies to investigators but said that she knew exactly what she was doing and like American rapper T.I. could "sponsor" whoever she liked. To borrow L'Oréal's own catch-phrase, she was giving part of her fortune to M. Banier "because he was worth it".
Mme Bettencourt declined to undergo medical examinations to prove her mental capacity.
