You may never have heard her name – but you’ve probably seen her famous face.
Jocelyn Wildenstein, also known as the “Catwoman,” gained worldwide attention in the ’90s in the midst of her high-profile divorce from art dealer Alec Wildenstein.
After that, two decades went by without her talking to the media.
Recently, Jocelyn turned 82 years old and reappeared in the spotlight again … I suggest you take a deep breath before seeing how this extravagant woman looks today.
Jocelyn Wildenstein was born in 1945 in Switzerland as Jocelynys Dayannys da Silva Bezerra Périsset. Her father worked in a sports shop, and her family was lower-middle-class.
Jocelyn realized early on that she could date wealthy men to help climb her way up the social ladder. As a 17-year-old, she began a relationship with the Swiss film producer Cyril Piguet.
The couple dated for two years, before Jocelyn moved to Paris after their break-up. There, she got the chance to socialize in even more exclusive circles after finding new love with Italian-French filmmaker Sergio Gabbi.
”My life changed then. Lausanne is very plain, but I began meeting exciting, glamorous people,” Jocelyn once told New York Magazine.
Jocelyn was not only good at using her social skills, but she also had a talent for more practical things. In Paris, she became a skilled hunter and worked as a pilot, according to Wikipedia.
She also spent a lot of time in Africa, a continent she would come to love and return to often.
”Africa is a paradise. You meet people who look at life differently. They love the adventure,” she said to New York Magazine.
In connection with hunting in Africa, Jocelyn would get to know her future husband, Alec Nathan Wildenstein – an American billionaire art dealer and racehorse breeder. The couple met in 1977, during a safari in Kenya.
Jocelyn said their first date included a motorcycle ride to a hilltop, where they shared their first kiss. One year after their first date, Jocelyn and Alec eloped in Las Vegas.
Right from the beginning, the marriage was surrounded by skepticism. Alec’s father was against it and refused to show up for the second wedding ceremony held in Jocelyn’s hometown of Lausanne.
”He was against marriage in general. My father checks things out. My father tried to warn me,” Alec told Vanity Fair.
But the colorful and eccentric duo still had a happy relationship for 13 years and raised two children together, Diane and Alec Jr. At the beginning of the marriage, the couple settled in New York’s ‘Olympic Tower,’ a 51-story building in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. They then moved to a townhouse on the Upper East Side.
Early in the marriage, Jocelyn became interested in a trend that would come to characterize her entire life – plastic surgery. As early as 1979, she and her husband went under the knife for the first time. Alec got a facelift after Jocelyn pointed out that his eyes looked ”baggy.”
However, it was Jocelyn who became captivated by plastic surgery. According to the Daily Mail, she spent millions of dollars on surgeries to satisfy her husband, who loved big cats.
Jocelyn was soon nicknamed ”Catwoman” and “The Lion Queen” – it seemed she did everything to look like a lynx.
Jocelyn, who even kept a lynx as a pet, told Vanity Fair that “the lynx has perfect eyes.” During her years with Alec, Jocelyn went through an extensive facial transformation. Still, she always said that her appearance was partially natural.
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