[9][10][11] Cléo met her father as a young adult at a train station in Merano, and upon seeing him jokingly exclaimed, "I really hope that you are wealthy, because I am used to luxury and the good life."

"[15] In 1895, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec did her portrait, as would Charles Puyo, Alfredo Müller, Edgar Degas, Manuel Benedito, Georges Clairin, Friedrich August von Kaulbach (who painted her twice), József Rippl-Rónai, François Flameng, Carlos Vázquez Úbeda, Einar Nerman, Paul-Eugène Mesplès, Henri Gervex, and Giovanni Boldini.

A sculpture of her done by an anonymous artist can be found at the Galerie Tourbillon,[24] and a wax mask of her by Georges Despret is preserved at the Musée Fin-de-Siècle Museum in Brussels.

[26] In the fall of 1895, a rumor began that de Mérode was King Leopold II's latest mistress, and the two were dubbed "Cléopold" by the media.

[28][29][30] In an attempt to settle the rumors, de Mérode's mother wrote a letter to the editor of Le Figaro, which was published and then subsequently mocked due to poor spelling.

"[32] However, the French agent Xavier Paoli recorded in his 1911 book Their Majesties as I Knew Them that the King claimed that he had never met nor seen de Mérode perform and was unsure of how the rumors began.

When he finally met de Mérode after the rumors were already rife, he apologized to her: "Allow me to express my regrets," he told her, "if the good fortune people attribute to me has offended you at all.

Caricatures, gossip columns, songs, skits, showed the king and me, snuggling, sharing a restaurant table, cracking open champagne at Maxim's, on a cruise, in a Pullman, and so on....I did not know what to make of such inordinate publicity; it stunned me."

[35] In the spring of 1896, a second scandal erupted due to the exhibition of the sculpture La Danseuse by Alexandre Falguière at the Salon des Artistes Française.

Despite the grain of skin visible on the plaster, proving a live cast, de Mérode accused Falguière of having fabricated a scandalous work by molding the body of the statue on another female model, whereas she posed only for the head.

[36] The scandal followed her throughout her career; almost a decade later, in 1904, The Sketch wrote, "Cléo de Mérode is, of course, well known because of her beauty and the Falguière statue, and not on account of her quality as dancer, which is not remarkable.

[39] In the summer of 1896, de Mérode appeared in a simulated nude scene in the title role of Phryné, a three act ballet-pantomime staged at the Casino Municipal in the seaside resort of Royan.

Against this rather dark ground, I was a pink silhouette, and from a distance, with a certain suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience, the flesh-colored feminine form gave the illusion of a nude body.

Critics and public joined in a chorus of disappointment after her first appearance at Koster & Bial's, and yet she has set a new fashion in personal adornment, crowds mark her progress on the street, and large audiences assemble to see her.

[46][47] In 1901, Édouard Marchand organized for her to dance at the Folies Bergère in a three-act pantomime titled Lorenza,[48] taking the risk to do something other elites of the ballet had never done before.

Upon returning to Paris, de Mérode turned over 3,000 love letters from her German and Scandinavian admirers to the editor of Le Figaro, many of which were subsequently printed.

[57] Throughout the early 1920s, de Mérode performed at galas and benefit concerts, the earliest being a fundraiser for Benoît-Constant Coquelin old actors' home in Couilly-Pont-aux-Dames.

At the request of theater director Henri Varna, she reappeared on stage at the Alcazar on 15 June 1934 in Viens poupoule alongside the dancer George Skibine and the actress and singer Cassive.

She did four routines: one in a Norman peasant costume, the traditional Khmer dance she had first performed at the Exposition Universelle in 1900, a Second Empire scene, and "la Valse 1900".

We danced five waltzes in a row; we ended with a big whirlwind, and Skibine carried me in his arms to the back of the stage.”[60] She then taught ballet before retiring in 1965 at 90 years old.

de Beauvoir had "wrongly described her as a prostitute who came from peasant stock and had taken an aristocratic sounding stage name as self promotion" in her book The Second Sex.

[67][68] Paul Klee, who personally knew de Mérode, called her "probably the most beautiful woman alive" and said she "seemed asexual" in a 1902 diary entry.

[78] In 1896, de Mérode was featured in The American Tobacco Company's Sweet Caporal brand pinback series of celebrated actresses.

[80][81][82][83] The 1897 French operetta Les Fêtards parodied de Mérode and King Leopold II's rumored affair, with their names being changed to Théa and Ernest III.

The musical comedy The Rounders, on Broadway and on tour nationwide from 1899 to 1900, was based on Les Fêtards, and the character of Théa was portrayed by Phyllis Rankin.

[84][85] In December 1897, Koster and Bial's traveling company presented "The Big Burlesque Extravaganza 'Gayest Manhattan'" at the Taylor Opera House in Trenton, New Jersey, which featured Gertie Reynolds as "The American Cléo de Mérode".

The following year, Gimbels and Palais Royal released a line of Cléo de Mérode dolls, complete with clothing and accessories.

[91] The character "Cleo of Paris", played by Mae Murray in the 1922 American silent film Peacock Alley, was a parody of de Mérode.

In 2011, Silvano Faggioni published a biography about de Mérode's father titled Theodor Christomannos: Brilliant pioneer of tourism in the Dolomites.

[102] In April 2021, Vanity Fair France wrote an article about de Mérode and King Leopold II's rumored affair.