As with most people who start out wanting “just a small tweak” to their face, things quickly got out of hand. But long before Jocelyn Wildenstein was the “Catwoman” of plastic surgery, she was simply Jocelyne Périsset, a Swiss-born girl totally unaware of the concept of body dysmorphia. A girl who had relatively “middle-class” parents, though it was often said they were “poor.” Luckily for Jocelyne, it’s automatically “bougie” to be born in Switzerland—sort of like having a built-in pedigree no matter what.

In any case, despite her “modest” background, Jocelyne was plenty skilled in the art of social climbing from an early age, having latched onto some producer named Cyril Piguet as her first “meal ticket” when she was seventeen. And while he might not have helped to create anything beyond Une commerce tranquille (an ironic title for any relationship with Jocelyne), he certainly served his purpose in the trajectory of Jocelyne’s life, becoming a stepping stone toward meeting someone who could really bankroll her. But to do that, orbiting the right circles beyond the film “glitterati” was essential. 

So it was that Jocelyne, while still dating (or “living with,” if you prefer) a different beau (another film-world type—this time, a director named Sergio Gobbi), made herself a student of hunting. No, not “man-hunting,” but actual hunting. This in addition to becoming a skilled pilot. Though who knew that Paris would be an ideal place to achieve either of these things? What it is always good for, however, is social climbing. Hence, Jocelyne’s ability to easily encounter two useful men on her road to meeting her great white whale, Alec Wildenstein. Even if none of these men would actually lead her directly to Wildenstein. Instead, that “matchmaking honor” went to, the legend goes, arms dealer/“The Great Gatsby of the Middle East,” Adnan Khashoggi. Jocelyne, who was about to become Jocelyn Wildenstein, met the rich art world “thoroughbred” while on a safari in Kenya. A hunting safari, needless to say.

This quality of hers—killing animals for sport—being what made her villainous long before her outside matched her inside. Even so, no woman deserves to be tied to a daddy’s boy, no matter how rich that boy is. Because, in the end, the money isn’t really his. Jocelyn had to learn that the hard way, when Alec had to ask permission of the Wildenstein patriarch, Daniel, for things as “basic” as a new car. Nothing too flash, of course. Maybe an Aston Martin. The point was, Alec had no real control over the Wildenstein money or assets. He was a perennial boy, constantly needing Daddy’s approval for every facet of his life. 

But by the time Jocelyn fully fathomed this, it was too late. Besides, if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t really care. She wanted the aristocratic name and all that came with it as much as she did the money. So what if Daniel didn’t show up to their wedding, instead showing favor to Alec’s younger brother, Guy, by attending his wedding instead? Jocelyn knew she wasn’t the “right” kind of woman for a family like this. But she also knew that, like Kim Kardashian after her, she had a “different talent.” A talent for making the act of “just living her life” something she was paid for. And a very expensive life it was indeed. Between the two of them, Jocelyn and Alec had no trouble spending at least a million dollars a month. Chump change to a family that made their fortune off artwork that was stolen by the Nazis during WWII. Yes, plenty of nefarious men made their fortune during that war (including Prescott Bush, father to George, grandfather to George W.). Shirking all sense of morality in how they tolerated and abetted Nazism. But just look at the fortune it made them, a fortune that was still trickling down, generations later. Even if under the tight control of the latest senior patriarch. 

Jocelyn had learned long ago how to read and navigate people. Even rich ones. That was the “different talent” she was alluding to as well. An ability to blend with and bend to the eccentric wealthy men she gravitated toward. Whether or not she first picked up that skill while allegedly working in the high-class (or even low-class) brothels of Paris is left to one’s discretion—though Alec was sure to mention, in the aftermath of their divorce, that she certainly wasn’t ever one of Madame Claude’s “ladies of the evening” (side note: Alec was a regular at Madame Claude’s throughout most of his youth…but it seemed to do little to improve sexual prowess). The implication being, on his part, that she was obviously a “courtesan” in someone else’s court, so to speak. For what other reason could Daniel have tried to “warn him about her”? In rich men’s speak, that means two things: 1) she’s a gold digger and 2) she was a prostitute before “going straight” for the sake of finding a “full-time client” a.k.a. rich husband.

That didn’t matter to Alec. Not back then anyway, when he was glamored by both Jocelyn’s original face and her “wild woman” ways. Some say that part of the reason Jocelyn kept making herself look more and more lynx-like was to appeal to Alec’s love of “exotic animals”—and a fetish for the “feline.” Or maybe she was hoping to suggest that she, too, could be “owned” like one of his “big cats” in Kenya. Some also say that he was the one who first insisted that she start to get some “tweaks” here and there. Or perhaps she was just anticipating the inevitable: that he would tire of her if she didn’t look “fresh” enough. 

As she herself put it, “Alec hates old people.” But more than anything, men hate old women. And Jocelyn was not about to let herself become that, growing increasingly obsessed with her appearance to the point where she might have given Narcissus a run for his money. Yet how could one blame her for getting so fixated? After all, she knew that Alec was her meal ticket, and if that meal ticket lost interest, well, what was to become of her then? Sure, she might have pretended to shrug it all off with a statement like, “I never worry for my career. I am very good at decoration. I am maybe extremely good at decoration [here, it sounds like she’s referring to the ongoing decoration of her face]. I always find at the right time what I can do.”

But the reality was, she knew her jig was going to be up—sooner rather than later. The surgeries were an attempt at trying to make it later. Telling herself that perhaps if she “surgical procedure’d” her entire face into oblivion, no one could accuse her of looking “old.” Instead, just “scary.” The Bride of Wildenstein, as the tabloids took to calling her at the height of the divorce scandal the two invoked in the late 90s. Indeed, were it not for the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal that cropped up soon after, the Wildensteins might have suffered far more unseemly coverage. Thank “god” the 90s was the first decade to really furnish the masses with a steady stream of shitshow after shitshow so that their collective memory would become even shorter. 

Even so, it never seemed to become short enough to forget about Jocelyn. Especially not when she emerged from one of her various lairs (lioness pun intended—New York magazine did once call her “The Lion Queen,” after all) to showcase her latest “iteration.” Though, according to her, she never got that much surgery. In fact, she dared to say, “I haven’t had plastic surgery,” attributing her “good genes” to being Swiss. Yes, sure. And Donald Trump got ahead in life with nothing but hard work and strong values.

Speaking of that Orange creature, he probably got some of his own plastic surgery inspo from Wildenstein as well. She blazed a trail in the world of elites with regard to the mantra: “The more distorted and inhuman you look, the bigger indication of your wealth and status.” This is Wildenstein’s (who never reverted to her maiden name) legacy. Not “wildin’ a.k.a. wilden(stein) out” in Africa with her guns, but establishing the blueprint for the new modern grotesque.