Her multiple uses of cosmetic surgery, particularly on her face, which had become supernatural, earned her the nickname “cat woman”: Jocelyne Wildenstein died suddenly in Paris, Tuesday December 31, 2024.
The death of this jet-set figure, married for twenty years to a wealthy art dealer, Alec Wildenstein, was announced to AFP on Wednesday by her long-time companion, Lloyd Klein, according to whom she was aged 79 years old.
Jocelyne Wildenstein was born Périsset, in Lausanne (Switzerland), on September 7, 1945. But her year of birth is controversial, with some media saying she was born in 1940, a confusion with the year of birth of her ex-husband, Alec Wildenstein, she explained recently on the sets.
Welcoming the departure of a “icon“, Lloyd Klein specified that she died a few hours before New Year's Eve on December 31, and was found in the suite of a Parisian palace where they had left their suitcases in August. “Initial reports from doctors called to the scene indicate that she suffered heart failure and died peacefully in her sleep“, he said in a press release published late Wednesday.
Followed by 1.1 million subscribers on Instagram, Jocelyne Wildenstein was known for her numerous facial cosmetic procedures and the legends surrounding her transformation. Living between New York and Miami, she had recently given several interviews in France where she looked back on her journey. “When you look in the mirror, it's for yourself“, she said, in response to a legend according to which she had resorted to surgery to please her husband or to look like a cat. Legend which earned her the nickname “Catwoman” in the Anglo-Saxon world.
“My (ex-)husband thought this was a great ad to run during the divorce“, she said in the fall in a program presented by Cyril Hanouna. At the microphone of the host Jordan de Luxe on the C8 channel, she declared that her ex-husband had notably spread rumors of operations by a surgeon which she had never consulted.
The only daughter of a bourgeois family, she discovered New York high society by marrying this millionaire art dealer specializing in impressionism, whose surname she kept after their divorce and with whom she had two children, Alec Jr. and Diana. By divorcing, she had obtained the sum of “$2.5 billion“, which made it one of the most important divorces at the time, Lloyd Klein said in his press release.
Passionate about animals and the African continent, she shared this interest with Alec Wildenstein (died in 2008) whom she met during a lion hunt. The couple had become involved in developing a ranch in Kenya to care for wild animals.
During the twenty years she lived together with her ex-husband, she had collaborated with him professionally in the sale of paintings and the development of private art collections. After her divorce, she continued to organize art exhibitions in New York.
