Dame Anita Roddick, Founder of the upscale beauty company The Body Shop, showed her love of helping others when she chose charity over family in the months before her death. Her family, husband Gordon and daughters Justine and Sam, has just learned of the news after her Will was released this week.

Anita, who died at age 64 unexpectedly last September due to a brain hemorrhage, founded The Body Shop in 1976 and amassed a fortune estimated at $212m when the Roddicks sold the business to beauty giant L’Oreal in 2006. Even prior to the sale, Anita was well-known for her donations to various causes, organizations and Third World countries. This included spreading the word about Hepatitis C, which she contracted in 1971 during a blood transfusion while giving birth to one of her daughters.

Toward the end of her life, she had been quoted as saying to leave any money to her children would be “obscene” and that she had no intention of dying rich. She apparently kept her word.

Her Will revealed that her $108m fortune was donated to charitable causes prior to her death, leaving approximately $1.5m - which was eaten up by Britain’s inheritance tax.

Apparently at least one of her daughters was relieved and supportive upon hearing the news that she was disinherited from the Will. No matter - the daughters still stand to inherit their father’s half of the fortune.

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