The American art influencer who was found dead in a Brazilian hotel had hours earlier been reported for exposing herself in the lobby — and also slurred her words in an alarming final video to her followers.
Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, a 40-year-old Californian known as the “Gossip Girl of art” for her posts under the name Jerry Gogosian, was found dead Sunday surrounded by booze bottles and pills in her room in Brazil, where she had flown to get plastic surgery.
The night before, she was reported for having made “intimate demonstrations in public that evolved into a situation of partial exposure of the body, causing embarrassment to other guests,” according to a complaint against her and her friends obtained by Globo.
That same night, she shared a bizarre, rambling video with her 150,000 Instagram followers in which she slurred her words.
Telling her followers to “let the rich woman inside you fly,” she appeared to be speaking from a busy bar or restaurant.
“I think it’s very healthy for the psyche. You know, they say, don’t dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want. I also just want to look at the ocean and worry about my husband going to prison for tax crimes,” Helphenstein added.
The next day, Sunday, she was found dead in the room of her Sao Paulo hotel next to an empty bottle of vodka, a broken glass, and some unidentified pills, according to police.
A man who identified himself as Helphenstein’s plastic surgeon got staff at the ritzy Rosewood Sao Paulo — where rooms start at almost $900 a night — to break into her room after he said he had been unable to get hold of her.
The Oakland native had been in Brazil for three weeks after flying down for plastic surgery.
Her case was registered as a suspicious death by police.
Before finding social media fame, Helphenstein said she worked in art galleries in New York and even got her own gallery in Los Angeles.
Nicknamed the “Gossip Girl of art,” she told a previous interviewer that she created the Jerry Gogosian character to critique the art world that she felt had become too tied to money, status, and power.
“The art market attracts people for horrible reasons,” she said in the March 2025 piece with Avenue magazine.
That same year, she revealed that she had suffered emotional exhaustion from constant online exposure, causing her to take a 51-day break from social media.
It isn’t clear how long she had been staying at the Rosewood, where rooms start at almost $900 a night.
“The Rosewood São Paulo confirms that guest Hilde Ann Lynn was found deceased on the afternoon of Sunday, May 31,” the hotel said in a statement.
“Since the incident became known, the hotel has been fully cooperating with the relevant authorities, promptly providing all requested information to assist in the investigation of the facts,” the statement continued.
