A German model whose face was mutilated by a leopard during a saucy photoshoot says she holds no grudges and has learnt to live with her scars.
Jessica Leidolph, 37, from the state of Thuringia, in Germany, was mauled by a 16-year-old leopard named Troja, when she entered the leopards’ enclosure at an animal retirement home during an erotic photoshoot in 2021.
Troja and another leopard living in the enclosure named Paris, 18, had once graced TV screens in an advert for multinational electronics giant Panasonic.
But they were later moved to the 850-square-metre (9,150-square-foot) retirement home in the village of Wangen, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, where the attack happened.
The 37-year-old woman, also known as Lady Butterfly, was then immediately brought to the hospital with severe bleeding wounds where she reportedly spent two weeks recovering after undergoing surgery.
But instead of holding grudges, she then begged authorities not to put down the animal by saying: “I don’t want the animal to be killed, it just followed its instincts.”
More than a year after the tragic incident that scarred her for life, she now said:
“I have scars. I often see double vision. But I’ve learned to live with it.”
The animal rights activist and physiotherapist then disclosed that she recently opened an animal sanctuary for birds and small mammals along with her mother Juana, 62, in the city of Potsdam, in Brandenburg.
Jessica said: “I leased a piece of land half the size of a football field – with mature nut, apple and conifer trees.”
She then reportedly built an enclosure to protect local animals and said: “These are animals without a lobby. I want to pick them up here.”
