That’s when I realized that while stores can be an incredibly effective way of getting certain types of messages across, they weren’t the right delivery system for me anymore. The campaigns that profitable public companies like the Body Shop can back—the ones that don’t upset the balance sheet—just aren’t the radical types of messages that I’m interested in today. When people get older they get more radical; at least some of them do. I’m 64 now, and I want to fight against big, ugly things, like unjust wars, and the sexual trafficking of women, and the abuse of human rights in the U.S. penal system. The Body Shop just wasn’t the way for me to fight those fights.
So when L’Oréal approached me about buying the Body Shop last year, I was thrilled. It was nice of them to ask, since the company is now public and my permission wasn’t required. At first the whole thing felt kind of funny, since the Body Shop and L’Oréal had been battlefield enemies for decades. But L’Oréal has changed a lot in recent years. When they took me out for dinner the first time to discuss the purchase, they told me: “You were right. You were right on animal testing, on buying ingredients from local communities and on your style and image.” They asked me what I thought the future of the Body Shop was, and I said that I was just waiting for my shares to increase in value so I could sell them and donate the money to charities. Eventually, we struck a deal around this time last year.
My husband and I got £130 million from the sale, and we immediately donated £30 million to set up the Roddick Foundation, which gives away about £3 million a year. One of our most important campaigns at the moment is the fight to free the so-called Angola Three in the United States. These former Black Panthers have been wrongly imprisoned for 35 years. Even worse, they have been held in solitary confinement for the whole time—the longest such stay ever recorded by Amnesty International in the West. This case represents the worst travesty of justice in the United States at the moment.
My decision to dedicate myself to fulltime philanthropic work in the past year has been strongly confirmed by my recent recognition of my own mortality. Just two years ago I was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which I got from a blood transfusion after giving birth to my youngest daughter, Sam, in 1971. At first I wasn’t that worried; after all, I’d had the disease for 35 years without even knowing it. But then, last year, the hep C turned into cirrhosis of the liver. That was the “oh, s—t” moment, especially since cirrhosis can lead to liver cancer. I have realized that I might not have that much time left, and I want to make the most of it.
I came out of the womb as an activist. I’m part of the 1960s; it’s in my DNA. So the idea of dying with loads of money doesn’t appeal to me at all. I want to use the last years I have to get my hands dirty working for civil change. I want to be able to see the positive difference that money can make by giving away what I have.
title: " Body Shop Founder Fighting Radical Causes" ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-23” author: “Nancy Boman”
That’s when I realized that while stores can be an incredibly effective way of getting certain types of messages across, they weren’t the right delivery system for me anymore. The campaigns that profitable public companies like the Body Shop can back—the ones that don’t upset the balance sheet—just aren’t the radical types of messages that I’m interested in today. When people get older they get more radical; at least some of them do. I’m 64 now, and I want to fight against big, ugly things, like unjust wars, and the sexual trafficking of women, and the abuse of human rights in the U.S. penal system. The Body Shop just wasn’t the way for me to fight those fights.
So when L’Oréal approached me about buying the Body Shop last year, I was thrilled. It was nice of them to ask, since the company is now public and my permission wasn’t required. At first the whole thing felt kind of funny, since the Body Shop and L’Oréal had been battlefield enemies for decades. But L’Oréal has changed a lot in recent years. When they took me out for dinner the first time to discuss the purchase, they told me: “You were right. You were right on animal testing, on buying ingredients from local communities and on your style and image.” They asked me what I thought the future of the Body Shop was, and I said that I was just waiting for my shares to increase in value so I could sell them and donate the money to charities. Eventually, we struck a deal around this time last year.
My husband and I got £130 million from the sale, and we immediately donated £30 million to set up the Roddick Foundation, which gives away about £3 million a year. One of our most important campaigns at the moment is the fight to free the so-called Angola Three in the United States. These former Black Panthers have been wrongly imprisoned for 35 years. Even worse, they have been held in solitary confinement for the whole time—the longest such stay ever recorded by Amnesty International in the West. This case represents the worst travesty of justice in the United States at the moment.
My decision to dedicate myself to fulltime philanthropic work in the past year has been strongly confirmed by my recent recognition of my own mortality. Just two years ago I was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which I got from a blood transfusion after giving birth to my youngest daughter, Sam, in 1971. At first I wasn’t that worried; after all, I’d had the disease for 35 years without even knowing it. But then, last year, the hep C turned into cirrhosis of the liver. That was the “oh, s—t” moment, especially since cirrhosis can lead to liver cancer. I have realized that I might not have that much time left, and I want to make the most of it.
I came out of the womb as an activist. I’m part of the 1960s; it’s in my DNA. So the idea of dying with loads of money doesn’t appeal to me at all. I want to use the last years I have to get my hands dirty working for civil change. I want to be able to see the positive difference that money can make by giving away what I have.
