The socialite, nicknamed Catwoman because she reportedly had multiple facial surgeries in the hope of looking like a cat, died on Tuesday in Paris of a pulmonary embolism.
The star, born Jocelyne Périsset, was in a Parisian palace at the time of her death, as reported by Paris Match. Her partner Lloyd Klein is saddened to announce the death of Jocelyn Wildenstein in Paris, AFP reported.
Jocelyn was last seen on December 18 in Paris, together with Klein. He looked healthy. The star smiled at onlookers while wearing a fur jacket, leggings and boots. She had black sunglasses and her blonde hair in soft waves over her shoulders.
The 82-year-old posted an old photo on Instagram on Sunday showing her sitting on a couch with her then-young daughter in her arms. He had not had any surgery then.
But by the 1990s, Jocelyn had become completely unrecognizable as her face had been transformed following numerous plastic surgeries. She is said to have instructed doctors to make her face look like a cat.
She had over 1 million followers on Instagram and described herself as an “art dealer”. The Swiss-born secular lady came from humble origins, but married an American billionaire of French descent in the 1970s. Both starred 20 years later in the headlines on occasion
their “dirty” divorce.
The operations left her with slanted cat eyes, a prominent chin and exaggerated cheekbones, which some have compared to a lion’s face. Despite the obvious change in her appearance, Wildenstein once strangely claimed that she had never had plastic surgery.
Alec’s husband commented on her face, telling Vanity Fair: “She was crazy. I was always the last to learn. She thought she could make her face like a piece of furniture. Skin doesn’t work that way. But he wasn’t listening.”
Wildenstein responded that Alec “hired a reporter and paid a plastic surgeon to certify that I completely changed my face” to win the divorce. More recently he admitted to having some surgeries, though downplayed their impact.
She became one of the richest people on the planet after her divorce settlement, which left her with more than $2 billion, plus millions more annually.
But she somehow managed to lose all that after years of tinkering with her face and spending on countless luxuries.
Her lavish marriage
A member of high society, she was married to the late art dealer and billionaire Alec N. Wildenstein, who was the son of French art dealer and horse breeder Daniel Wildenstein. Their family presided over Wildenstein & Co., an influential Paris-based art agency.
Speaking to The Times of London, Jocelyn described how she became fascinated by Africa and its fauna when she found a box of books with pictures of the continent as a child.
Later, she developed an interest in hunting and wildlife, which led her to the Wildenstein family’s Ol Jogi Ranch, located in Kenya.
There, she was introduced on a safari to Alec by Adnan Khashoggi, the well-known, now blessed, Saudi arms dealer.
Jocelyn remembered how Alec decided to kill a lion that was killing nearby antelopes, so she accompanied him on such a mission at dawn.
She later recounted how her later husband killed the lion with one shot and gave him a complimentary shot afterwards. Then, he said, they ate part of the animal as a kind of trophy and then rubbed its blood down their throats.
Source: www.enikos.gr
