Socialite and plastic surgery pioneer Jocelyn Wildenstein has died at the age of 84. The Swiss-born personality is understood to have suffered a pulmonary embolism on New Year's Eve in Paris. Wildenstein’s long time partner and fashion designer Lloyd Klein broke the news to AFP on Tuesday, telling the news agency that "an icon has left us".
Mr Klein told the agency she had died aged 79, but other media outlets reported she was really 84 when she died. "Early reports from the doctors called to the scene indicate that she had endured heart failure and passed peacefully in her sleep," Mr Klein said. Born Jocelyne Perisset, the future “cat woman” became a high-profile socialite after marrying billionaire art dealer Alec Wildenstein, with whom she had two children.
Jocelyn was reportedly introduced to Alec by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi in 1977, but the two-decade long union would be troubled. Their high-profile divorce in 1999 was a tabloid scandal and pulled the curtain back on the lifestyles of the ultra-rich. According to a Vanity Fair profile from the time, the Wildensteins’ divorce was initiated when Jocelyn returned to the couple’s Manhattan townhouse from a trip to find her husband in bed with a 21-year-old Russian model.
It was during this period that Wildenstein became increasingly well known for her extreme use of plastic surgery, supposedly in an attempt to resemble the big cats loved by her estranged husband. Among her cosmetic procedures, Wildenstein .
