Swiss socialite Jocelyne Wildenstein, also known as “catwoman” because of her extensive plastic surgery, has died at the age of 79, her partner announced Wednesday.
“Her partner Lloyd Klein is saddened to announce the death of Jocelyn Wildenstein in Paris at the age of 79,” he told AFP in a statement.
She died of a pulmonary embolism in a luxury hotel in Paris, he said.
Born in Switzerland in 1945, Jocelyn Perisset became a New York socialite after marrying art dealer Alec Wildenstein, with whom she had two children.
She kept her name after their messy divorce in the late 1990s.
The plastic surgery enthusiast, with more than a million followers on Instagram, has become nicknamed “catwoman” in the tabloids due to the feline shape of her eyes.
She lived between New York and Miami, she told French media in recent months.
She last posted a video of her and Klein posing for photographers outside the Ritz Paris on Dec. 23, to the soundtrack of Wham's “Last Christmas.”
“I never wanted to change my face,” she told French news channel C8 this fall, while admitting she might have wished her lips were a little thicker.
She said she did not pursue cosmetic surgery in an attempt to keep her ex-husband.
mng-jfg-ah/bc