SWISS SOCIALITE JOCELYNE Wildenstein, sometimes known as “catwoman” due to her extensive plastic surgery, has died aged 79. Her partner Lloyd Klein confirmed her passing in a statement yesterday. “It is with heavy heart and with great sadness that Mr Lloyd Klein announces the unexpected death of his beloved fiance and longtime companion Jocelyne Wildenstein,” the fashion designer said.
The statement added that Wildenstein “died peacefully in her sleep” in the late afternoon of 31 December in her “suite in Paris where the couple had taken temporary residence”. Klein tried to wake her from a nap so she could get ready for New Year’s Eve dinner, but she was unresponsive, he said. “Early reports from the doctors called to the scene indicate that she had endured heart failure and passed peacefully in her sleep,” Klein added.
She was last seen in public with her partner Klein on 18 December in Paris. Born in Switzerland in 1945, Jocelyne Perisset became a New York socialite after marrying art dealer Alec Wildenstein, with whom she had two children. She kept his name after their messy divorce in the late 1990s.
Some media reports gave her age as five years older. In a recent interview, she had blamed the confusion on people mixing up her birth year with that of her ex-husband, 1940. With more than a million followers on Instagram, Wildenstein became known as “catwoman” in the tabloids for the feline-like shape of her eyes.
She had been living between New Yo.
