Jocelyne Wildenstein, socialite known for extreme cat-like plastic surgery, dies | american news

Swiss socialite and cosmetic surgery aficionado Jocelyne Wildenstein, sometimes known as “Catwoman” because of her extensive plastic surgery, has died, her partner said Wednesday.

“It is with a heavy heart and with great sadness that Mr. Lloyd Klein announces the unexpected death of his beloved fiancee and longtime companion, Jocelyne Wildenstein,” the fashion designer said in an English-language statement sent to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Klein said that “Mrs Wildenstein died peacefully in her sleep in the late afternoon of December 31, 2024, in her … suite in Paris, where the couple had taken up temporary residence.”

Born Jocelynnys Dayannys da Silva Bezerra Périsset, Wildenstein became a socialite in New York after marrying art dealer Alec Wildenstein, of the French art dealer and thoroughbred racing dynasty, with whom she had two children.

She was variously referred to as Jocelyne and Jocelyn in the English-language media. She was born in 1940 in Lausanne, Switzerland and died on December 31 at the age of 84.

It was Wildenstein’s extensive makeover to make himself look more “cat-like,” inspired by wild big cats—along with a reported $2.5 billion divorce settlement and $100 million every year for 13 years afterward—that captured the public’s attention. attention.

She had spent time in Africa with European filmmaker Sergio Gobbi and told New York magazine: “Africa is a paradise. You meet people who look at life differently. They love the adventure.”

She had met her husband, Alec Wildenstein, while on safari in Kenya and married him a year later in Las Vegas. Then Wildenstein embarked on a cosmetic adventure to look more like a big cat.

According to the Daily Mail, she spent £2 million on operations, apparently to please her husband, who loved the big cats. She kept a lynx as a pet and told Vanity Fair that “the lynx has perfect eyes”.

But her husband told Vanity Fair: “She was crazy. I always wanted to find out last. She thought she could fix her face like a piece of furniture. Skin doesn’t work that way. But she wouldn’t listen.”

But a messy divorce came with rumors spread by her ex-husband, with whom she had been courtesan Madame Claude, the Parisian bordello owner. During the divorce, he was reported to have cut her monthly allowance from $150,000 to $50,000.

A judge overseeing her divorce settlement reportedly stipulated that she could not use any of the settlement for further surgery.

“I would never change my face,” she told French television news channel C8 in the fall, though she admitted she might have liked her lips to be a little thicker.

She dismissed rumors that she embarked on cosmetic surgery to keep her ex-husband.

Interview magazine latter noted that Wildenstein had “been one of the jet set’s most outrageous characters for nearly five decades”. Speaking to the outlet, Wildenstein estimated she spends over $700,000 a year on food, wine, flowers, pills and more, adding “and that was just the beginning.”

Where some saw extremism, others saw beauty.

“I remember seeing you once at Beige (a legendary Tuesday night party at the Bowery Bar and Grill in New York City). It was burned into my brain forever because the glamor was turned up so high,” wrote editor and interviewer Mel Ottenberg.

Ottenberg asked Wildenstein about her love of big cats. She explained that there were 2,000 animals at Ol Jogi (the Wildenstein family ranch in Kenya) under protection.

“We have everything except lions because they would kill what we are trying to protect,” she said. When asked about her favorite animal, she said she liked all animals, but settled on the leopard, saying it was because they only became attached to one person.

“Leopards are jealous,” she said.

Wildenstein said that enormous press attention based on her appearance had beneficially kept her in the public eye during her divorce.

“Journalists can say what they want … it’s really not my problem.”

AFP contributed reporting