Jocelyn Wildenstein says hair has 'completely' changed her looks (2024)

Socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein, who has been nicknamed "Catwoman" over the years due to her feline appearance, has stated that her changing looks are the result of sporting differing hairstyles.

Swiss-born Wildenstein, 83, made headlines back in the late 1990s, when reports emerged of her lavish lifestyle during her contentious, high-profile divorce from late art dealer Alec Wildenstein. She ultimately received $2.5 billion in the settlement, with additional yearly payouts of $100 million.

She has also drawn attention for her distinctive features, long speculated to have been the result of several cosmetic surgeries. Alec Wildenstein, who died in 2008, had denied rumors that he pushed his then-wife to alter her looks to appear more feline as a reflection of their shared love of cats.

In a newly published interview, Jocelyn Wildenstein addressed her changing appearance.

Sitting down with Interview magazine's editor-in-chief Mel Ottenberg, the reclusive socialite was asked when she started "doing things with your face? When did you start becoming your own greatest piece of art?"

"I have changed a lot," she conceded. "My hair went from very curly to very straight, but I always had stylish, wild hair. I have all the pictures of myself, all the albums from my parents, from when I was in the carriage up to now.

"And when you look at the pictures of me, some with curly hair, some with exotic hair, some with straight hair, you can see how it completely changes your appearance. Also the way I dress changes how I am seen."

After the conversation veered into discussing the interviewee's eyes—they're "blue, they're a bit of green, they have a bit of gold"—Ottenberg made another attempt at broaching the subject of her appearance saying that she has "been bold with how you want to change your face, right?"

"Not really," Jocelyn Wildenstein responded. "Journalists can say whatever they like, they can say whatever they feel. I never bother to make a contradiction, because it's really not my problem."

In 1998, Alec Wildenstein told Vanity Fair that around a year after their 1978 wedding, his wife told him his eyes looked baggy, prompting them to go for his-and-hers facelifts. The billionaire claimed this became the tip of the iceberg for his then-wife.

"She was crazy," he told the publication of Jocelyn Wildenstein at the time. "I would always find out last. She was thinking that she could fix her face like a piece of furniture. Skin does not work that way. But she wouldn't listen."

Speaking with U.K. newspaper The Times this past June, Jocelyn Wildenstein accused her ex-husband of planting stories about her cosmetic surgery. "[He] hired a publicist and paid a plastic surgeon to certify that I completely changed my face," she added, in his bid to "win the divorce."

"He couldn't say I betrayed him; I never betrayed him," she told the publication. So, she said, he opted to share alternative accusations that, "'She became a monster… I don't recognize her.' He put all the blame on my face."

During the interview, her fiancé, French-Canadian fashion designer Lloyd Klein, pulled up old photos of Jocelyn Wildenstein in an attempt to argue that little has changed in her looks over the decades.

"So, obviously Jocelyn did surgery—we know that," Klein, 56, went on to admit.

"But not like people say," his fiancée insisted.

While Jocelyn Wildenstein has been notoriously press-shy over the years, she is now working on a Kardashian-style reality TV show, as she claims that her gargantuan fortune has all but dried up

"I have a huge problem with my settlement," she told The Times this year.

"Since eight years, they have completely cut me off," she said, telling the publication that she has had "zero" income since the family of her late ex-husband ended her $100 million annual payments back in 2015.

In May 2018, she filed for bankruptcy, listing her checking account balance as "$0," although she had millions of dollars in assets that mostly consisted of property.

Her dip in fortunes saw her three luxury apartments in Trump World Towers, located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of New York City, repossessed.

While Jocelyn Wildenstein has been known for her lavish lifestyle and looks, she and Klein, who first met the socialite in 2003 and proposed to her in 2017, insist that there should be more focus on the work she has done in Africa.

"I created a school for young people, starting around 15 or 16 years old," she told Interview. "It's like an apprenticeship. This is important to give them confidence, work, and a future. We constructed 80 dams for the animals, because the land is half dry and they need water to drink. We have a person who builds wells."

"She also built a clinic for the animals," Klein interjected. "She's known for plastic surgery, but I don't know that this is what she should be known for because she did a lot of incredible things in her life. Major, major, major achievements."