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

Jocelyn Wildenstein, the Swiss-born socialite famous for the surgery-enhanced feline features that earned her nicknames in the American press like 'Catwoman,' has died.

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

Wildenstein, who sometimes spelled her name “Jocelyne,” was a staple of New York tabloids for much of her adult life, due to her tempestuous love life, drastically changing appearance and the hefty payout she received in her divorce from an art world bigwig (though she eventually claimed she’d gone bankrupt, having depleted her billions).

Wildenstein often downplayed the extent of her cosmetic procedures, claiming the “cat eyes” she was so infamous for were a family trait, or that different hairstyles changed the way she looked. Occasionally, though, she gave a winking tidbit to journalists who, well, needled her about her procedures.

“If you feel good with your imperfections, with your aging, then you should do nothing,” she reportedly told photographer Zed Nelson in 2006. “Otherwise, it’s all 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 proved hard to track down, as she gave reporters different dates. Klein told AFP that she died at age 79, while other outlets reported that 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 in her an early love of African mammals, she told Interview magazine in 2023.

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