Did these women pay the price for our obsession with so-called “Camelot?” Let’s dive more into the Kennedy curse!
For many years, the Kennedy name has been synonymous with power, wealth, and, above all else, virtue.
But this carefully created shell hides a dark fact: The Kennedy men’s legacy of psychological and physical abuse of women is part of a tradition of toxic masculinity that spans generations and has ruined quite a few untold lives.
Through scandal after scandal, the family has managed to keep this shameful side of their tale out of the spotlight. But let’s be clear… The apple didn’t fall far from the family tree when it came to the Kennedy boys.
Their father, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, was notorious for his wandering ways. It’s a well-known fact that Joe kept his wife, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, barefoot and pregnant.
After all, that’s how good Catholic families operated, right? Meanwhile, while Rose was busy giving birth to nine children, Joe had many steamy affairs.
But today, we want to talk about the rest of the clan. Continue reading as we uncover the stories of 5 women whose lives the Kennedy curse may or may not have affected!
Marilyn Monroe
We’ve all heard about this one! In August, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was discovered deceased in her home in Brentwood, California. She was one of the biggest movie stars in the world at the time.
And her death at age 36 immediately became a shocking news story. Speculation immediately started about the circumstances of her death, specifically over whether or not she committed suicide.
All these years later, the public remains hypnotized by the story. There’s even a documentary on Netflix: The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes.
The film dives into Monroe’s life and death, particularly her relationships with both John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. The conspiracy theories began flying fast as soon as Monroe passed away.
One theory has increased in the many decades since.
The claim is that Monroe overdosed and died on the way to the hospital and that Bobby Kennedy and his team staged her suicide attempt to keep their relationship a secret. What’s YOUR theory on this?
Mimi Alford
Mimi Alford was a 19 year old girl when she started working in the White House press office, where she wound up immediately catching the eye of President John F. Kennedy himself.
Four days into the job, she found herself standing alone next to the most powerful man in the country, and it happened to be in the most intimate room at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
He allegedly invited her to go for a swim in the White House pool. Later that day, Alford was back at her desk when she was contacted again, this time wondering if she would be interested in an informal meeting “upstairs.”
Ultimately, JFK offered her an intimate tour of the residence, and it was when it was just the two of them in the bedroom he shared with the First Lady that he made his move, according to Alford.
In her book, she wrote, “The next thing I knew, he was standing in front of me, his face inches away. He placed both hands on my shoulders and guided me toward the edge of the bed.”
A few moments later, Alford lost her virginity to the nation’s leader, and their trysts continued for over a year, according to her accounts.
The affair with President Kennedy began to cool after a few months, and he sometimes humiliated her. The pressures of her double life drove her to leave college after her second year.
And Alford said that she and the President didn’t have any more inappropriate relations after August 1963, when his son Patrick died, though she retained her position in the White House for a while.
Pamela Kelley
The summer of 1973 completely changed the life of Pam Kelley. She was a free-spirited 18-year-old living in Massachusetts who loved swimming, animals, and her boyfriend, David Kennedy, the 4th son of Robert and Ethel.
On August 13th, the young couple went on a trip to the beach near Nantucket accompanied by Pam’s sister, a couple of friends, and Joseph Kennedy II, David’s older brother.
On their way home, their jeep, driven by 20-year-old Joe, swerved and flipped over, throwing out all of the passengers… and smashing Pam’s life in the process.
Due to the accident, she was paralyzed from the chest down and would never walk again. Doctors warned her then that she would never have children and wouldn’t survive past the age of 40.
Thankfully, though, they were wrong. She passed away on November 20th at 65, after a life of challenges and delights, addiction and recovery, not to mention resilience.
Ever since that crash all those years ago, a life tangled together with one of the country’s most prominent political families. Pamela’s final years were especially hard.
She had been in a Cape Cod nursing home after an infected bedsore caused such severe pain that she couldn’t sit in her wheelchair anymore.
Isolated in a facility during the coronavirus pandemic, Pam died lonely and depressed, according to her family. According to her sister, her cause of death is still unknown.
And what her family grapples with still is what the Kennedys could have done, yet did not, for Pam until her death.
Carolyn Bessette
Carolyn Bessette probably assumed she had landed a huge prize when “America’s Prince,” JFK Jr., proposed.
But sadly, it didn’t take long for her and the people in her life to realize that JFK Jr. was more like a booby trap. They even tried to warn Carolyn.
Her mother, Ann, was so worried that she tried to stop the wedding during the rehearsal dinner. Why all the hub-ub?
Apparently, JFK Jr. had treated Carolyn badly before they tied the knot, and marriage didn’t improve their relationship. JFK Jr. was cruel when the press attention became too much for Carolyn.
Like his uncles and father, one woman was never enough for him. He cheated on his wife throughout their entire relationship, even having a fling with an ex-girlfriend barely 48 hours before his fatal plane crash.
After the collision, Ted Kennedy leaped into action, having John F. Kennedy Jr’s remains cremated after arranging a quick autopsy and sealing the medical examiner’s report.
Assumably, this was done to protect JFK Jr.’s public image should he have flown intoxicated.
In the following years, some people blamed Carolyn for his crash, claiming JFK Jr. wouldn’t have been flying at night if she hadn’t arrived late.
This is what experts call the “Kennedy machine,” a network of advisers, family members, and media backscratchers who protect the image of the Kennedy men whenever one is involved in dishonor.
They seem to deflect blame by slandering the name of any woman involved with them.
Mary Richardson Kennedy
The intelligent, stunning, talented Mary Richardson Kennedy, mother of four, married to the most famous Kennedy man aside from JFK Jr., living in a million-dollar house she’d redesigned in the wealthy suburb of Bedford, New York, was now, in the spring of 2011, about to lose everything.
She could hardly get out of bed. On the days when she mustered enough energy to take the kids to school, she was frequently seen in ratty pajamas and her hair messy.
Other mothers would even remind her to pull herself together and that she was a Kennedy. But the reality was that in those moments, Mary would think: None of you could handle this life.
Bobby was never around. He didn’t have a job requiring travel but traveled all the time. When he was around, he’d take one or all of the children on some adventure and leave his wife behind.
She had become unwelcome despite hosting all the Fourth of July barbecues, dinner parties, and celebrity-studded fundraisers. And, of course, despite raising their children.
Mary had been seeing a therapist, sometimes alone, other times with her husband. And when Bobby asked for Mary to be diagnosed as mentally ill, the therapist refused, stating, “Your wife doesn’t have a mental illness.
She’s angry and depressed, but she’s not ill.” Mary often told others that the Kennedys could destroy her.
And by April 2012, actress Cheryl Hines was beginning to look like the next Mrs. RFK Jr., which meant that Bobby was making some merciless moves now.
He cut off Mary’s credit card, which was court-approved for $20,000 a month in living expenses. Her checking account had a zero balance.
She was no longer welcome at the Kennedy compound and was reduced to asking other moms at the school run if they had an extra $20 so she could get groceries and gas.
The whole town knew what was happening. In other words, Mary Kennedy, had been shut out from being American royalty.
On the morning of May 16, 2012, she got dressed, walked out to her barn, stacked three metal crates on top of each other, and then used a metal ladder to tie a rope around the rafter.
When she was found later that day, her fingers were stuck inside the rope around her neck. She ultimately tried to save herself.
Did you know about all these unfortunate lives the Kennedy curse might have impacted? Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
Meanwhile if you liked this article, we also recommend reading: Secrets of a Founding Father: 50 Facts About Benjamin Franklin
