World’s richest woman Liliane Bettencourt dies at 94

World’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, has died at the age of 94.

Bettencourt’s family revealed the news of the demise on Thursday.

Heiress of the French cosmetics company L’Oreal, Bettencourt is the daughter of the company’s founder, Eugene Schueller.

Jean-Paul Agon, president of L’Oreal, in a statement, said: “We all had a deep admiration for Liliane Bettencourt, who always looked after L’Oreal — the company and its employees, and was dedicated to its success and development.”

Born in 1922, Bettencourt became an apprentice in her father’s company at age 15.

She married French politician Andre Bettencourt in 1950. The couple’s only child, Francoise, was born three years later.

In 1957, she took over his stake and actively ran the cosmetics giant while serving on the company’s board until 2012.

Bettencourt stepped down at the age of 89 and was replaced by her grandson.

The heiress was named by Forbes and the Bloomberg Billionaire Index as the world’s richest woman with a net worth estimated at around $44 billion.

The Bettencourt family currently owns 33 percent of the L’Oreal Group, which is home to brands like Lancome, Garnier and La Roche-Posay.

Bettencourt had faced a scandal for years tagged the ‘Bettencourt Affair,’ which involved her relationship with a celebrity photographer Francois-Marie Banier, 25 years younger than her.

Francoise, her daughter, filed a complaint against the photographer which led to her son taking over the company. Francoise had argued that her elderly mother was not mentally competent to handle her own affairs.

The judge found Banier guilty of exploiting Bettencourt and he ended up receiving a suspended prison sentence.