With a net worth of $123 billion, Alice Walton is the #11 richest person in the world overall. She’s the richest woman in America and the richest woman in the world. The youngest child of Walmart founder Sam Walton, the vast majority of Alice’s fortune is derived from her roughly 11% stake in the retail giant.
For most of her life, Alice was the second richest woman in the world, behind L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. Liliane died in 2017. Today, Liliane’s daughter, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, is worth around $94 billion.
So, if you traveled back to October 2011, Alice was worth around $44 billion, making her the richest woman in America and the second-richest woman globally — a position she held during one of the most notorious legal episodes of her life.
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Troubles on the Road
Despite her extraordinary wealth and influence, Alice Walton has a long history of reckless driving incidents, DUIs, and serious accidents — yet has never faced significant legal consequences. Her attorneys have repeatedly deployed creative strategies to shield her from repercussions, even in cases involving injury and death.
The most publicized of these came on October 7, 2011 — her 62nd birthday — when she was arrested in Texas for driving under the influence after an evening with friends in Fort Worth. Trooper Jeffrey Davis, the arresting officer, reported that she failed multiple field sobriety tests, couldn’t walk a straight line, and was unable to touch her finger to her nose.
It wasn’t the first time Walton had been in serious trouble behind the wheel. In April 1989, she struck and killed 50-year-old cannery worker Oleta Hardin while speeding in Fayetteville, Arkansas. No charges were filed, and she didn’t even receive a traffic ticket.
In 1998, Walton reportedly hit a gas meter while driving under the influence. She broke her nose when her car hit the aforementioned gas meter, followed by a telephone box. While being questioned by officers, Walton famously screamed:
“Do you know who I am? Do you know my last name?“
As the responding officer was putting Walton in handcuffs, the billionaire allegedly screamed:
“I’M ALICE WALTON, BITCH!“
Walton’s attorneys argued that fatigue from a long day at the office was to blame for her crash that day, not her blood alcohol content six points over the legal limit. She was convicted of four counts of drunken driving and could have faced up to a year in prison. Walton, whose net worth at the time was $6.3 billion, paid a $925 fine and walked free.
In fact, Walton’s troubles behind the wheel go back decades. In 1983, during a Thanksgiving family trip near Acapulco, Mexico, she lost control of a rented Jeep and plunged into a ravine. She shattered her leg and had to be airlifted out of Mexico, enduring more than two dozen surgeries. One leg has remained shorter than the other ever since — a fact her attorneys would later use to explain away her inability to pass sobriety tests.
By the time of the October 2011 arrest, Walton’s driving record was already infamous in Arkansas and Texas. On that night, Trooper Davis also discovered that the registration on her SUV had expired. When told, Walton replied:
“I have someone who does that for me.”
Her legal team moved quickly. Doctors provided letters to the Parker County, Texas court claiming her failed field sobriety tests were due to lingering balance problems from the 1983 accident, not alcohol impairment. Most critically, no blood alcohol test was conducted at the scene — a procedural gap that left prosecutors with weaker evidence.
Then came the waiting game. Walton’s lawyers simply let time run out on the case. In October 2013, the Parker County District Attorney’s office allowed the statute of limitations to expire. The arresting officer, Trooper Davis, was mysteriously suspended earlier that year and thus unable to testify. A judge later granted a petition to remove all records of the arrest from county files.
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Art & Philanthropy
Alice Walton seems to have put her drinking and legal troubles in the rearview mirror, and over the past 15 years, she has shifted her focus almost entirely to her passion for art and philanthropy. That passion culminated in the creation of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a sprawling and world-class cultural institution she founded in her hometown region of Bentonville, Arkansas.
Crystal Bridges, which opened in 2011 after nearly a decade of planning and construction, cost an estimated $500 million to build and endow. Designed by renowned architect Moshe Safdie, the museum features a series of stunning pavilions nestled around two spring-fed ponds, blending seamlessly into the surrounding Ozark forest. Its collection spans five centuries of American art, from Colonial-era portraits to modern masterpieces, with works by artists such as Norman Rockwell, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, and Kehinde Wiley.
The museum has become a destination for art lovers from around the world, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. For many, it’s still surprising to discover that one of the finest American art collections is housed not in New York or Los Angeles, but in the heart of northwest Arkansas — a testament to Walton’s vision of making art accessible to the public in a setting that reflects her roots.
In 2017, she launched the Art Bridges Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing American art to smaller and underfunded institutions across the country. By lending works and organizing traveling exhibitions, Art Bridges helps museums that might otherwise remain overlooked — ensuring great art doesn’t sit idle in storage but circulates where it can inspire.
Through her namesake Alice L. Walton Foundation, she has invested in education, health, arts access, and economic equity. Grants have supported everything from improving school nutrition programs to bolstering resources for the food bank in Northwest Arkansas.
Her commitment to reimagining healthcare reached a new milestone in July 2025, when the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine welcomed its first cohort of students. This nonprofit medical school, situated near Crystal Bridges, uniquely blends traditional medical training with arts, nutrition, and whole-person wellness. Tuition is fully covered for the first five classes, making this vision both inclusive and bold.
A Legacy That Looks Forward
Today, Alice Walton’s impact is measured less by headlines and more by institutions and initiatives that carry her vision into the future. From bringing major American artworks to unexpected corners of the country, to nurturing new generations of physicians trained in empathy and holistic care, she has steadily built a charitable portfolio that resonates deeply within her community and beyond.
With her wealth still growing, her next chapter could shape not only the cultural and educational landscape of Arkansas, but the way the world views one of its most powerful women.
