‘Catwoman’ Jocelyn Wildenstein’s explosive life with fiancé from ‘rough sex’ scandal to tragic secrets of face overhaul
WALKING down the street arm-in-arm, Jocelyn Wildenstein and Lloyd Klein looked the picture of happiness as they enjoyed the glitz of Paris Fashion Week.
The socialite, 82 and her fashion designer fiancé, 57, appear to have turned a corner after she revealed last year she was “flat broke” despite famously once receiving a staggering £2billion divorce payment.
The appearance this week comes just just days after the loved-up pair enjoyed a luxury holiday at a five-star Miami Beach resort, marking the latest curious chapter in their fiery on-off relationship.
The couple, who got engaged in 2017 with a 32-carat ring worth “millions”, have been arrested more than once for late-night fights and what they claim was the result of “rough sex” sessions.
But Swiss star Jocelyn – known as the ‘Catwoman’ after spending millions on cosmetic surgery to perfect her feline look – and her man looked perfectly groomed in coordinating black outfits in Paris, suggesting any troubles are now firmly behind them.
Canadian-born Lloyd was raised in Paris and planned to become an architect before being inspired by a Givenchy show to follow his passion for fashion.
He succeeded retiring Alix Grès to become Creative Director of Grès at just 25 years old, before creating his own label and moving back to the United States in 1998.
He met Jocelyn at New York Fashion Week in 2003 and the couple embarked on a passionate relationship that infamously boiled over years later.
A fight between the pair in 2016 led to a split, and Jocelyn faced assault charges, accused of sinking her nails into his face, scratching his chest with scissors and throwing hot wax over him after flying into a violent rage in her Trump Towers apartment.
Lloyd allegedly escaped by shoving Jocelyn into a closet, but he was then arrested too, when police accused him of pushing his now-fiancée when he went back to collect his belongings.
Charges were dropped for both due to lack of evidence, and just a few months later, they revealed they’d got engaged, claiming the time apart had made them realise how much they needed to be together.
Lloyd proposed with a 32-carat ring at the Versace Mansion in Miami. He told the Daily Mail: “It was romantic, dramatic and wonderful. I showed Jocelyn the ring and she said ‘yes!’ – she was in heaven.”
‘Rough sex’
However, just a few months later, in November 2017, another late night fight broke out between the pair – and police were called when neighbours heard screaming coming from their apartment.
When they arrived at 1am, police found a shattered casserole dish on the kitchen floor, bruises to Jocelyn’s neck and arms and a cut to Lloyd’s forehead.
Both Jocelyn and Lloyd were arrested for misdemeanour, but the couple insisted their injuries were all down to their love of “rough sex”.
Explaining everything, Jocelyn said it all started when she was cooking a romantic meal of beef bourguignon on the stove and the Pyrex dish suddenly exploded.
We went into the bedroom and had great, passionate sex. The neighbours probably heard all this and assumed someone was being murdered
Jocelyn Wildenstein
The scalding broth spilt on to Lloyd’s legs, and as he ran to the shower to wash it off, slipped and fell, suffering a small cut to the forehead.
Jocelyn said she came to the bathroom to help him out, but before long they were noisily making love.
She told the Daily Mail: “We went into the bedroom and had great, passionate sex. The neighbours probably heard all this and assumed someone was being murdered.
“A few minutes later the security came into the apartment uninvited and walked right in on us in the bedroom.
“I can see why it looked like a fight with the food on the floor and the little bit of blood – but I can assure you it wasn’t that, 100 per cent.
“Lloyd can be very passionate, he can be a little rough.
“That’s something I enjoy, otherwise I would not have been with him all this time.”
The couple insisted the arrest would have no impact on their 2018 wedding, but they are still yet to be married.
However, that may be to do with finances, as Jocelyn was forced to file for bankruptcy six years ago, claiming her ex-husband’s family had cut her off from the nine-figure annual payment she famously secured in her 1999 divorce.
$2.5bn fortune splurged
Jocelyn had been wed to billionaire businessman Alec N Wildenstein for 20 years before she filed for divorce, tired of his extramarital affairs.
She found him in bed with a 19-year-old model and he pulled a gun on his wife, landing him in court.
But Jocelyn claimed that was just the tip of the iceberg and this was just one in a long line of his indiscretions.
The reclusive socialite won $2.5billion in the settlement, with $100million allocated for each year thereafter in the split.
But in a rare interview with the Sunday Times last year she claimed her income had totally dried up.
“I have a huge problem with my settlement,” she told the paper as she and her fiancé filmed a new HBO docuseries about her life. “Since eight years, they have completely cut me off.”
At the time of her bankruptcy she listed her current account balance as ‘$0’ despite still having millions of dollars in assets — most of which was property.
Her three luxury apartments at Trump Tower were then repossessed.
Millions on cosmetic surgery
It is still a mystery how she went from billionaire divorcee to apparently penniless relying on friends and family and social security to get by.
But it seems she developed a taste for the high-life during her marriage to Wildenstein.
She revealed that whilst together the couple could spend around $1million a month, including her $5,000-a-month phone bill, a $350,000 Chanel dress and $10million in jewellery.
[Jocelyn] thought she could fix her face like a piece of furniture
Alec Wildenstein
And of course there were the millions she forked out on cosmetic surgery.
Her journey under the knife started in her first year of marriage when she apparently told her husband his eyes looked baggy – so they booked in for his and hers facelifts.
It had been rumoured that her ex-husband, a known cat-lover, had encouraged her to have the surgery to make her look more feline.
But Alec, who died in 2008 aged 67, denied those claims, saying she thought she could “fix her face like a piece of furniture”.
Jocelyn, however, said her husband tried to use her surgery against her in the divorce, claiming Alec started planting stories about her plastic surgeries to “win the divorce” and even “hired a publicist and paid a plastic surgeon to certify that I completely changed my face.”
“He couldn’t say I betrayed him; I never betrayed him,” Jocelyn said, claiming her ex-husband once insisted: ”She became a monster… I don’t recognise her.”
Six-figure lawsuits
But as for the whereabouts of the money, Jocelyn has claimed it hasn’t gone due to extravagant overspending on her part, rather problems with the trust she got in her divorce.
She told The New York Post that her trust was “guaranteed” by a Diego Velázquez painting that turned out to be a forgery, as well as a Cézanne artwork that was valued at less than expected.
And there have been various legal bills to settle with several court battles – mostly with landlords.
She dodged eviction from an apartment at the United Nations Plaza over owed rent through a settlement and was sued by American Express over $70,000 in credit card debt.
Another lawsuit concerned a $15,000-per-month Beverly Hills bungalow that Wildenstein allegedly trashed and abandoned, leaving $165,00 in unpaid rent and almost $15,000 more in assorted fees.
But now, it seems life is on the up for Jocelyn.
Lloyd has said he and his fiancee have big plans – sharing Jocelyn’s story to tell her side to the public who have scrutinised her entire life, and hopefully recoup some of her lost fortune.
They have been filming an HBO docuseries, and there are also plans in the pipeline for a movie about her life and a Kardashian-style reality show.
“The documentary is her reply,” said Klein. “Jocelyn wants to tell the story with her own voice.”