Inside The Catwoman’s secret, violent life: From rumored courtesan to billionaire socialite, how Jocelyn Wildenstein’s private obsession drove her to spectacular fame… and excess

Nearly three decades ago, when billionaire Jocelyn Wildenstein’s fabulously juicy divorce captivated the global aristocracy and the general reader, the feline socialite held court in a corner of the Manhattan mansion she was still allowed to use.

Jocelyn, then 52, recently dubbed by the newspapers as the “Bride of Wildenstein,” served champagne to a New York Magazine profiler and refuted speculation that her increasingly bizarre feline appearance had nothing to do with cosmetic surgery.

“When I show you pictures of my grandmother, you see these eyes – cat eyes – and high cheekbones,” the Swiss-born beauty told New York Magazine in 1997.

At that moment, Jocelyn ended her marriage to French art dealer Alec Wildenstein, the scion of a family worth billions and believed to be in possession of the world’s largest private collection of masterpieces, vaults of paintings and a rumored, long-hidden and priceless work. by Johannes Vermeer.

The couple’s real estate portfolio included a ranch in Kenya with a staff of 366, a chateau in France and the 25,000-square-foot brownstone on East 64th Street, where Jocelyn was relegated to certain rooms during certain hours amid the very messy public affairs. to her tumultuous 21-year marriage.

Indeed, rifts had appeared early in their romance.

According to Alec, Jocelyn’s obsession with plastic surgery began about a year after their wedding in 1978. They had “his-and-her eye lifts,” he said, after his new bride complained that his eyes looked baggy.

“She was crazy,” Alec told Vanity Fair in 1998. ‘She thought she could fix her face like a piece of furniture. That’s not how the skin works. But she wouldn’t listen.’

A friend told Vanity Fair that they couldn’t remember a time when Jocelyn “wasn’t healed from something.” Alec would later complain to a divorce judge that his wife’s appearance “scared people.”

However, Jocelyn claimed that it was Alec who was concerned with the youth and hated “being around old people.” And when their appearance changed, their marriage fell apart.

In September 1997, Alec was led away from their mansion in handcuffs. The man and the estranged woman gave police different explanations about how a gun ended up in his hand.

Jocelyn said that when she returned home early from a trip to Africa in 1999, she found Alec wearing only a towel and a naked blonde woman in the bedroom – only for her husband to grab a 9mm pistol and point it at her.

Alec said he mistook Jocelyn’s bodyguards – one of whom called the police – for burglars and put down the gun as soon as he realized his mistake.

Regardless, police arrested him and the billionaire spent 16 hours in custody on charges of menacing. He was released on his own recognizance and ordered to stay away from Jocelyn.

Unfortunately, domestic strife and even violence would haunt Jocelyn for decades to come, due to her eventual $2.5 billion divorce settlement with Alec, her ever-changing face, questionable bankruptcy claims, and a volatile relationship with a fashion designer more than twenty years her junior. , Lloyd Klein.

It was Klein, 57, who announced this week that Wildenstein had died in her sleep of a pulmonary embolism on December 31. The couple stayed at a luxury hotel in Paris where they had taken up residence.

“An icon has disappeared,” Klein told French media, saying his longtime fiancée had died at the age of 79, while other media reported Jocelyn was 84. (She had told reporters several stories about her age.)

Jocelyn was indeed legendary, followed by more than 1.1 million fans on Instagram and instantly recognizable to many as ‘Catwoman.’ Her love for all things wild was a constant theme throughout her life.

Born around 1940 in Lausanne, Switzerland, Jocelyn Perisset was the daughter of a department store buyer and a housewife.

In her teens, she started dating a Swiss film producer and moved to Paris armed with only her slim figure, pixie features and a fearless spirit.

She claimed to have flown on private jets in her 20s and bragged that Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi’s plane had “a bedroom, a bathroom and a bidet.” The beauty’s jet-setting lifestyle would later – despite her denials – fuel rumors that she had worked for a luxury European madam.

By the time she met her future husband, she was in a five-year relationship with another filmmaker, this one Italian.

Alec was also in a relationship and living with a woman when he first saw Jocelyn in 1977 on his 66,000-hectare farm in Kenya. He inspected the family property; she was on safari with friends.

On their first day together, Alec killed a lion during a 5am hunt – and the pair dabbed the blood on their necks and ate the animal’s heart.

Jocelyn said of the rituals, “You have to eat some of the heart of your game. It’s a legend. Perhaps to take over the power of the lion. It is a respect for the lion. It immediately felt like a certain bond.”

The couple eloped in Las Vegas on April 30, 1978 and would have two children together, but of course the romance would not last long.

In the final divorce settlement, Jocelyn ended up with $2.5 billion and annual payments of $100 million for 13 years. The money would only fuel the suspected excesses.

Her appearance would become increasingly drastic in the decades following her divorce. The corners of her eyes stretched further and further back, narrowing her gaze into a decidedly feline stare, while her lips and cheeks swelled so much that her face looked perpetually swollen – the distortion affecting her speech.

Jocelyn could barely blink and hardly resembled the lithe, elfin Swiss beauty who stared coquettishly into space in photographs from her youth.

Estimates put the cost of Jocelyn’s cosmetic work at $4 million – even though she continued to insist she had no surgeries. And while Jocelyn was coy about her lynx-like appearance, she spent much of the Wildenstein family’s money on real cats.

She owned a pet lynx and a black leopard. On the family’s 66,000-acre African ranch, she kept two tigers in a bulletproof glass cave.

In 2003, Jocelyn found love again with Klein.

He dutifully upheld her claim that the feline features were natural – the “high cheekbones and long hair,” as Jocelyn put it, which she compared to Brigitte Bardot. But the couple made headlines for more than Jocelyn’s unusual countenance. They were arrested in 2016 after a fight at her Trump World Tower apartment.

Jocelyn dug her claws into Klein’s face and scratched him with a pair of scissors as he allegedly pushed her to the ground.

Both were arrested and charged after the incident; The charges against Klein were dropped in January 2017, and the charges against Jocelyn were dismissed the following month.

Klein later made up with Jocelyn with two apology gifts, a 200-carat ring composed of emeralds and diamonds and a 32 ½-carat pear-shaped, snakeskin-inspired engagement ring.

The designer popped the question in July 2017 at the Versace Mansion in Miami, where they had been spending time with their good friend Gianni Versace, who was murdered by a deranged serial killer in 1997.

Four months after the proposal, the couple was arrested again after neighbors heard screams coming from their apartment. Police found a shattered frying pan on the kitchen floor, bruises on Jocelyn’s neck and arms, and a cut on Lloyd’s forehead; both were charged with misdemeanor assault.

Despite Jocelyn’s fabulous wealth, she dubiously filed for bankruptcy in 2018 — when financial disclosures showed more than $15 million in real estate, a Bentley and an extensive wardrobe.

However, the unlikely couple stayed together and were reportedly considering a reality show when Jocelyn died this week.