Salma Hayek Denies $100 Million Fortune Reports  7/24/06

Mexican beauty Salma Hayek denies reports she has a $100 million fortune, and insists she would donate the money to the poor in her native Mexico if she was so rich.

The Desperado actress is ranked by Fortune magazine as the second-richest Latin American in Hollywood behind Jennifer Lopez.

But the 39-year-old is angered by false details about her finances becoming public.

She says, "It's a huge lie. It's very, very far from reality. I don't have that amount of money. Somebody sent me it and I laughed. It's a bit like a joke. Obviously I have never earned $100 million and I wouldn't even want to."

"With things as they are in Mexico, it bothers me that they put me in a group of millionaires with $100 million I don't have when there are so many people dying of hunger. If I had $100 million I would have retired and would be doing more things on an altruistic level than I can now.

"I would have opened centers in Mexico for violence against women and many other things."

Hayek is one of Mexico's most well known faces and has helped to raise awareness about issues such as the country's failure to solve a spate of brutal murders of women in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez.