Jocelyn Wildenstein, ‘Catwoman’ socialite known for her extreme cosmetic surgery, dies

Jocelyn Wildenstein, the Swiss-born socialite famous for the surgically enhanced feline features that earned her nicknames in the American press such as “Catwoman” and the “Bride of Wildenstein,” has died. Her partner Lloyd Klein told her AFP she died of a pulmonary embolism in Paris.

Wildenstein, who sometimes spelled her name “Jocelyne,” was a fixture of the New York tabloids for much of her adult life because of her stormy love life, drastically changing looks and the large payout she received in her divorce from a art world tycoon (although she eventually claimed bankruptcy after using up her billions).

Wildenstein often downplayed the extent of her cosmetic procedures, claiming that the “cat eyes” she was so notorious for were a family trait, or that different hairstyles changed the way she looked. Occasionally, however, she gave a winking tidbit to reporters who were sure enough to catch her about her procedures.

“If you’re comfortable with your imperfections, with your aging, then don’t do anything,” she reportedly told photographer Zed Nelson in 2006. “Otherwise, it’s about choosing the right doctor.”

A life defined by money, cosmetic surgery and a love of big cats

Jocelyn Périsset (her maiden name) spent her early life in Lausanne, Switzerland. (Her birthday had proven difficult to track as she gave reporters different dates. Klein told AFP she died at age 79, while other outlets reported she was 84 at the time of her death.) As a child she spent her time swimming in lakes or skiing on nearby mountains. Her father inspired her early love of African mammals, she told Interview magazine in 2023.

She swapped Lausanne for Paris in her early 20s, dancing in discos and hobnobbing with well-to-do fellow expats, but she held on to that childhood dream of traveling to Africa. She made several trips to the continent before finally meeting billionaire art dealer Alec Wildenstein on a Kenyan safari in 1977. Alec told Vanity Fair in 1998 that he had been asked to kill a lion on a neighbor’s land, and his future wife complied with . The couple married the following year, and the new Mrs. Wildenstein got a new home: Ol Jogi, the huge ranch her husband’s family owned in Kenya—her favorite among several new international homes.

Her love affair with African big cats continued on a larger scale soon after – as did her much-reported penchant for extravagant spending. After inheriting Ol Jogi through marriage, she installed a bulletproof enclosure for two tigers, a fitting addition to an estate that reportedly included 200 buildings staffed by over 300 servants. She told Vanity Fair that she and her then-husband spent about $1 million a month. For Wildenstein, a $350,000 couture Chanel dress was worth the price.

Her most enduring project was her face. Wildenstein underwent extensive cosmetic surgery in her lifetime, starting about a year into her marriage to Alec, though she long denied it. The two first sought “his-and-her eyelifts,” as delicately described in a 1998 Vanity Fair feature, but Wildenstein moved on. Throughout most of her adult life, the outer corners of Wildenstein’s eyes sloped up toward her temples, resembling the felines she so admired; her skin was pulled so tight and her cheeks sat so high on her face that it was free of wrinkles well into her 70s.

Wildenstein’s marriage had soured in 1998 when she claimed she discovered her husband in bed with another woman. Alec was accused of threatening his wife after she said he pointed a loaded gun as she walked onto the stage at their New York mansion, which they shared with other members of the Wildenstein family.

After a contentious trial, Alec was ordered to pay Wildenstein $2.5 billion in a divorce settlement — and $100 million each year for 13 years. He later died in 2008.

Wildenstein’s second most public relationship was with Lloyd Klein, a French designer nearly three decades her junior. They met at New York Fashion Week in 2003 and instantly bonded over a mutual love of extravagant style, he told People in 2016.

However, their relationship was often tumultuous: Wildenstein was arrested twice, in 2016 and 2017, for fighting with his beau at one of their residences in Trump World Tower in New York, and at one point the two issued restraining orders against each other. Klein told People that some of their fights were caused by Wildenstein’s stress over her “financial duress.” Despite her massive divorce settlement in 1999, Wildenstein filed for bankruptcy in 2018. She told British newspaper The Times that she was still “hernia” at the end of 2023.

After years of avoiding the public eye except for her appearances at her beauty runway presentations, a decision she said she made to keep her two children, born during her marriage to Alec, out of the press, Wildenstein returned to the spotlight in his later life.

Her otherworldly features, once snarled by tabloids, were celebrated by stylish outlets such as Paper and Interview, where she posed for major photoshoots. That she maintained her flashy glamor (and continued reluctance to undergo plastic surgery) in the midst of her bankruptcy made her a kind of campy icon, even emulated in front row at haute couture fashion week.

And yet, for all the time she spent in Page Six and other tabloids, much of Wildenstein’s life remains a mystery or myth: her true age, the origins of her feline look, where all her money really went. She had promised to tell more about her story in an HBO series she claimed would air in 2023, but the project has yet to materialize. Still, as Wildenstein saw it, she didn’t care if people misunderstood her.

“I have nothing to prove,” she told Paper in 2018. “At the end of the day, I don’t care.”

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