Jocelyn Wildenstein’s face has been seen by you even if you are unaware of her name.

The New York socialite is accustomed to being in the spotlight. She was accused of using scissors to cut her then-boyfriend at her New York City apartment in the Trump World Tower in 2016. Even though she was supposedly worth billions, she filed for bankruptcy two years later, in 2018.

However, Wildenstein is renowned for other things as well.

For starters, Wildenstein’s face, which has undergone so many plastic operations that it now has a feline appearance, is possibly the most visible to people who are unfamiliar with her personal life. As a result, Wildenstein is sometimes mocked as “Catwoman” in certain circles.

In the first year of her marriage to Alec Wildenstein, a French-born, American-raised art dealer, racehorse owner, businessman, and heir to a billion-dollar fortune, Wildenstein underwent an eye lift.

They both had facelifts after she told him his eyes looked bloated, he remembered to Vanity Fair in 1998. That was the beginning; a buddy later said, “I don’t think I’ve ever known her when she wasn’t mending from anything.”

Some of Jocelyn’s friends including Alec, who passed away in 2008, thought she was trying to dress like a lynx (she has one for a pet).

She claimed, in an interview with Vanity Fair, that “the lynx has amazing eyes,” but added that “if I show you images of my grandmother, what you see is these eyes — cat eyes — and high cheekbones.”

In 1977, Wildenstein and Alec met. Wildenstein was born into a lower-middle-class family in Switzerland and then moved on to Paris and Africa. Jocelyn maintained her plastic surgery journey as the couple had two kids, and until the late 1990s, life for the family was very routine.

She anticipated they would spend an average of $1 million each month in 1998, the year they eloped, and their extravagance became legendary.

According to a longtime friend, “They were a secretive couple,” PEOPLE said in 1998.

“They were extremely quiet individuals with a close-knit network of pals. Jocelyn managed the expansive Ol Jogi ranch [in Africa], flats in Paris and Lausanne, a French château, and a Caribbean getaway instead of mixing with New York society.”

Alec filed for divorce in April 1997 after the couple’s marriage broke down in the middle of the 1990s. On September 3 of that year, Jocelyn claimed to have discovered Alec in bed with Yelena Jarikova, a 21-year-old Russian model.

Alec was accused of threatening his estranged wife with a weapon because there was a gun involved, according to The New York Times.

The pair became well-known after their divorce in 1999. Jocelyn’s appearance and other scandalous tales about her personal life during the proceedings naturally attracted a lot of interest.

One such story said that she had worked as a prostitute for renowned Paris bordello owner Madame Claude. According to Reuters, Jocelyn received a staggering $2.5 billion settlement over the course of the two-year procedures, along with $100 million every 13 years after that.

(The judge agreed that she could not use any of the money to pay for additional cosmetic surgery.)

Three years later, Alec received half of his father’s vast corporate interests, a $10 billion estate that included one of the biggest private art collections in history. Naturally, a portion of it was used to pay Jocelyn’s alimony.

Following the divorce, Jocelyn largely avoided the spotlight, despite the fact that she has since engaged in a number of court disputes, principally with landlords.

She avoided being evicted from a unit at the United Nations Plaza due to unpaid rent thanks to a settlement, and American Express sued her in 2015 for a $70,000 credit card debt.

Another case from 2015 focused on a Beverly Hills home that cost $15,000 per month to rent, which Wildenstein reportedly destroyed and abandoned, leaving $165,00 in unpaid rent and nearly $15,000 more in other fees.

According to The New York Post, Wildenstein used a fake cell phone in the courtroom to straighten her hair and put on cosmetics while appearing in court for the assault allegations in 2016.

She was robbed of her phone by a court official. Wildenstein exited the courthouse with the assistance of her attorney, a pashmina scarf nearly completely concealing her well-known face.

Share on Facebook