Jocelyn Wildenstein, the Swiss-born socialite and ex-wife of Alec Wildenstein, scion of an art-world family whose lavish lifestyle, bitter divorce and exotic cosmetic surgeries brought her tabloid fame, died Tuesday in Paris. She died at her home. She was 79 years old.
His longtime colleague Lloyd Klein said the cause was a pulmonary embolism.
Mr. Wildenstein was a member One of the richest families In the world of French art, with a vast and enigmatic collection of Old Masters, as well as galleries in New York and Tokyo. The only child of a clothier and a lawyer, she counted. Adnan KhashoggiA Saudi arms dealer, among his jet set friends. She was beautiful, athletic and ready for adventure. She and Mr. Wildenstein met while hunting game in Africa.
But in 1997, after 19 years of marriage and two children, Mr. Wildenstein wanted to see other people, and they were living separately, he at his limestone townhouse in Manhattan and she at his farm in Kenya. When Ms Wildenstein, aided by two bodyguards, surprised her husband in the townhouse – where he was in bed with his 21-year-old girlfriend – she pointed a gun. The guards called the police, and Mr. Wildenstein spent the night in jail.
Their bitter divorce was then chronicled in the tabloids, which unabashedly noted the couple’s excesses: their monthly expenses of $1 million; A $350,000 Chanel dress she bought for a New Year’s Eve party. His annual phone bill is $60,000. $80,000 he allegedly paid a fashion photographer to create a portfolio for a young Russian model he was having an affair with. His East 64th Street townhouse, home to 10 Bonnard paintings, a black leopard, a lynx and a sand shark that lived in a wall-sized tank. Their 66,000-acre African ranch and game preserve, where two tigers lived in a bulletproof glass cave overlooking a pond. His and her plastic surgery (eye lift, apparently). And, most notably, her own metamorphosis from a delicately-featured young woman to an otherworldly being with cat-like eyes, cost an estimated $2 million.