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Peace at last

diane wildenstein

Alec Wildenstein died last month. He was the husband of famous side-show freak Jocelyn Wildenstein AKA the Bride of Wildenstein AKA the Tiger Lady.

The Wildenstein family is worth about $10 billion, give or take a billion, acquired through several generations of shady art trading. The bulk of their collection is hidden in a former nuclear bunker in upstate New York. A French art critic was once allowed in and reported that it contained “a Fra Angelico, two Botticellis, eight Rembrandts, as many Rubens, three rare Velázquezes, nine El Grecos, five Tintorettos . . . four Titians, 12 Poussins and 79 Fragonards”. Shoot, I didn’t know there were 79 Fragonards.

Alec and Jocelyn were married in 1978, within a year of their first meeting, at a lion hunt. (That thing I just did there? That’s called ‘foreshadowing’). They had a reasonably successful marriage for a reasonably long time…for insanely rich people. Most of their time was spent at their 66,000-acre estate in Kenya. After about twenty years, however, Alec got de restless leg syndrome.

Jocelyn had a few facial tuneups, which staved off the inevitable for a while. Until the day she came home unexpectedly to find him in bed with a 19-year-old Russian model. He pulled a gun and everyone got arrested. Alec closed Jocelyn’s bank accounts next day and instructed the staff not to feed her — which was a problem, she said later, as she did not know how to make toast. The judge awarded her millions, and recommended she use some of it to buy a microwave. I don’t think a microwave makes very good toast.

Back she goes to the cosmetic surgeon. If looking good won’t do it, how about if he transformed her into one of Alec’s beloved big cats?

Ow. No.

Shock, horror…bitter divorce…more surgery…blah blah blah. They did eventually get back together in 2000, at least for a while. Despite her face and everything. There must’ve been something to their marriage beyond joint custody of the monkey.

Anyhow, prostate cancer got him in February. Rest in peace.

I hope she’s learned to make toast. I hope she stops doing that to herself. You, get yourself over to AwfulPlasticSurgery.com and spend an afternoon contemplating the face your mama gave you.

March 13, 2008 — 2:12 pm
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