Embattled L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt of France tops Forbes' list of the world’s richest women, who make up some of the 227 female billionaires in the world today.
Bettencourt, 94, who is worth $39.5 billion, owns a third of L’Oreal with her children. She suffers from dementia and is suing a former confidante and photographer for swindling her out of over $90 million in 2015, according to Forbes.
Many of the top females on the list are heiresses, including Alice Walton, the daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton; Jacqueline Mars of candy company fame, and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple’s Steve Jobs, Forbes reported.
One self-made entrepreneur on the list is Gina Rinehart, an Australian who owns an iron ore mine in the western part of that country, whose net worth grew from $6 billion to $15 billion in a year, Forbes reported.
Hong Kong’s Zhou Qunfei, the 17th richest woman in the world, was born poor and turned a job making watch lenses into a business that now supplies Cupertino and Samsung. Qunfei runs her company and owns 80 percent of its stock, Forbes reported.
Some Twitter users celebrated the list and commented on the fact that the list was released during Women’s History Month.
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