“She didn't deserve to be ridiculed,” says the fiancée of New York society woman Jocelyn Wildenstein, known as Catwoman – and insists she wasn't broken when she died, despite reports to the contrary.
“She certainly wasn't broke, that's not the case,” Lloyd Klein told Page Six.
Klein, 57, has been with Wildenstein — who earned her unwanted nickname due to her extreme cosmetic procedures — for 21 years. It was great. She was the love of my life,” he said. “I miss her every half second and I still think I'm in a nightmare now.”
He said Wildenstein was 79 years old – not 84 as reported – when she died on New Year's Eve in her sleep in a Paris hotel of a pulmonary embolism.
In her controversial divorce from billionaire Alec Wildenstein in 1999, Wildenstein was awarded $2.5 billion. Furthermore, she was set to receive $100 million annually from her ex-husband, who died in 2008.
But the Wildenstein family cut off payments in 2015 and declared bankruptcy in 2018.
Her three luxury apartments in Trump Tower were repossessed, and in 2023, Wildenstein told the Sunday Times that she had “zero” dollars left in her checking account, even though she had millions of dollars in assets.
“I have a big problem with my settlement,” she told the publication. “Eight years ago, [Alex’s family] “They completely cut me off.”
“She had a very lavish lifestyle,” Klein said. There were bills to pay, and when they stopped paying her it was terrible. She wouldn't have a single problem if they didn't give her a fake plate.
Gosselin previously told Page Six that the vast majority of her fortune was gone because one of the paintings that set up a trust fund for her in the divorce settlement, attributed to Diego Velasquez, turned out to be forgery.
Meanwhile, a Cézanne painting, which was expected to fetch about $35 at auction, sold for just $4.7 million.
After her death, the Daily Mail reported that Wildenstein was facing arrest in Miami, where she lived, for ignoring several court orders related to an unpaid debt of $344,000.
Klein said everything Wildenstein owns is tied to the assets, and that will now be in the hands of the lawyers, who will determine what her children, Diane and Alec Jr., will get. Klein said he did not expect anything from her estate, adding that he had his own money.
“I just want dignity for Jocelyn,” Klein said. “I wasn't with it for the money. I'm a top fashion designer. I have a beautiful list of clients from Jane Fonda to Joan Collins, Faye Dunaway and even Kim Kardashian.”
To maintain Wildenstein's lifestyle, he said, “I was taking care of her as best I could.” I did everything I could to please her. We kept life beautiful and happy. “If this isn’t love, I don’t know what you would call it.”
Klein said he has not spoken to Wildenstein's children since her death. He noted that despite reports that Diane and Alec Jr. had become estranged from their mother in recent years, Diane took charge of Wildenstein's funeral.
“Jocelyn did everything she could for her children,” Klein said. “She took them all over the world… She really spoiled them. She was the best mother one could want.”
Jocelyn rose from humble beginnings in Lausanne, Switzerland, marrying Alec Wildenstein, the son of French art dealer and horse breeder Daniel Wildenstein, in 1978.
The couple headed Wildenstein & Co., an influential art agency based in Paris, but embarked on a bitter divorce after Gosselin had a run-in with her husband and the 21-year-old Russian model in her New York City bedroom.
Alec was arrested for “menacing” after waving a loaded gun at her (he was later released on his own recognizance).
“Jocelyn was a strong woman who survived being publicly betrayed by her husband,” Klein said.
But Alec helped spark gossip about his wife by claiming she was obsessed with plastic surgery – telling Vanity Fair: “She was crazy… She was thinking she could fix her face like a piece of furniture. The skin doesn't work that way. But she didn't listen.”
“Alec said Jocelyn wanted to look like a cat. She never wanted to look like a cat, she already had that look…she had beautiful cheekbones and almond-shaped cat eyes,” Klein said.
He believes Wildenstein was ahead of her time.
“Today, you walk into New York and Palm Beach or Los Angeles and everyone is having surgery. There are a bunch of Jocelyns out there, but she was probably the first to do what she did.” “Jocelyn doesn't deserve to be ridiculed. People need to respect human beings, they say such bad things.
Wildenstein wasn't a fan of her nickname, but she found it humorous.
“It felt bad to call her Catwoman, but in the end we were laughing,” Klein said. Once she called Cipriani Downtown and was trying to talk to an Italian to make a reservation.
“I'm Mrs. Wildenstein, I'd like a table for two,” she said, in her heavy French accent… [the host] He said, “Ma’am, how do you spell that?” Klein recalls. After a long back and forth, Wildenstein finally said, “I want Catwoman’s table!” [the host] He said: Oh yeah, I know who you are!
“She had a sense of humor that was out of this world.”
Despite the obvious changes to her appearance, Jocelyn has long been adamant that her exotic look came from her Swiss heritage and not plastic surgery.
However, in recent years it has admitted to taking some measures.
“We talked about her looks openly. Sometimes, for fun, we would read the comments and just get some bubbles.” [champagne] “She laughs and laughs,” Klein said, adding, “I don’t know if she was hurt.”
The duo, who first met in 2003 when Gosselin attended one of Klein's fashion shows in New York City, have been in Paris since September. Klein was sleeping next to her when he woke up to find that she had disappeared.
He said: “I tried to wake her up, but she wouldn’t open her eyes. I said open your eyes…please, but she was cold.”
A few nights before her death, the couple attended a night mass in a Parisian church and received the priest's blessing. “I’m glad she got this blessing,” Klein said.
He suffered from lymphoma in 2014, and said they often talk about wanting to share a grave, like the ancient Egyptians.
“We were making fun of each other. I would say: 'Do you think you're Cleopatra?' – and she'd say: 'And you think you're Mark Antony!'”
Klein wants Wildenstein's final outfit to be her favorite black Chanel dress, the one she wore in the Vanity Fair photo, and she hopes to have her ashes scattered on her farm in Kenya, Africa, alongside her father and mother.
He will also organize a celebration of life for her friends and loved ones.
“All my happiness was gone,” said Klein, “but she did not suffer, and she died in full splendor.”
