Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis remains one of the most iconic figures in history.
She's basically as close to American royalty as you can get, but despite her legacy, her life was
filled with complications and loss, and not just the ones everyone knows. This is her tragic story.
Born to socialite Janet Lee and stockbroker John "Black Jack" Bouvier, III, on July 28, 1929,
Jacqueline "Jackie" Bouvier grew up in New York City,
spending her summers on her family's country estate on Long Island. An intelligent and
talented young girl, her childhood was unfortunately riddled with family drama.
Her father was notorious for being a gambling, womanizing alcoholic.
His gambling habits resulted in him being expelled from prep school
and even losing all of his money during his honeymoon with Lee. His womanizing
ways never stopped with marriage, and he quickly attained a reputation for cheating on his wife.
In 1936, the couple separated, prompting the press to publish the details of
all of Bouvier's affairs. By 1940, Janet Lee and John Bouvier divorced,
leaving Jackie Bouvier with two parents who hated each other. Despite his vices, though,
Jackie and her sister, Lee, both adored their father. In an interview with T Magazine, Lee said,
"One thing which infuriates me is how he's always
labeled the drunk black prince. He was never drunk with me..."
Perhaps, his alcoholic reputation came from the infamous story of how,
at Jacqueline's wedding to JFK, he was too drunk to walk her down the aisle.
According to Lee, though, it was a result of her parents' feud, with John drinking from, quote,
"misery and loneliness" after Janet blocked him from attending a family dinner the night before.
The Kennedys can arguably be considered one of the most iconic couples in history.
Wildly famous public figures of their time, their popularity also meant that their private
lives weren't so private. Their marriage was known to have been a tumultuous one,
complicated by an assortment of issues. Notoriously, John F. Kennedy was rumored
to have had countless affairs and has been linked to some notable figures
such as Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Blaze Starr and various other stars.
There were also arguments over Jackie Kennedy's lavish spending and clothing bills.
Apparently, things got to the point where Jackie's father-in-law, Joseph Kennedy,
had to offer her $1 million to stay in the marriage,
which she reportedly accepted. A key element of their marriage that drained
Jackie, though, was her husband's political ambitions. An immensely private person,
she somehow ended up marrying a man who loved the spotlight and was determined to become president.
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
But even though Jackie disliked the White House and the fact that she had to raise her
kids in the eye of the public, she conquered the challenges with style. When JFK was a senator,
Jackie's remoteness and "snooty" attitude were considered a liability
to his campaign. As first lady, though, she became one of the nation's greatest assets,
charming other parties on various diplomatic trips with the president.
Jackie Kennedy did not have it easy with her pregnancies. She married John F. Kennedy in
1953 and, about two years later, the couple was expecting their first child. Sadly, Jackie's first
pregnancy in 1955 ended in a difficult miscarriage after just three months, with Jackie learning from
the experience that carrying and delivering a child would always be difficult for her.
Months later, she became pregnant again, but tragically, that one wouldn't end well either.
A month before her due date, Jackie woke up the morning of Aug. 23, 1956, screaming for her
mom. She had lost a lot of blood, and later, ended up giving birth to a stillborn baby.
Apparently, her husband's initial reaction to the incident exposed his inconsiderate side. JFK was
sailing around the Mediterranean on a yacht with a bunch of friends when his wife suffered from
hemorrhaging and the stillbirth of their child. Rather than rushing back to be by his wife's side
as soon as he heard the news, it took a few words from his friends to make him realize how bad his
absence would look to the public. George Smathers is reported to have told the then-senator,
"You better haul your [butt] back to your wife if you ever want to run for president."
After two difficult pregnancies, Jackie Kennedy's third thankfully finished with her successfully
giving birth to a healthy baby girl named Caroline in November 1957. Three years later, on Nov. 25,
1960, the Kennedys welcomed their son, John F. Kennedy, Jr., who, despite being born
three weeks early and having some initial respiratory issues, would grow up healthy.
However, Jackie's fifth and final pregnancy would once again prove tragic.
Once again, she went into labor early — five and a half weeks, to be exact.
After being flown in by helicopter to the hospital at Otis Air Force Base,
Jackie gave birth to a tiny, barely 4.5-pound baby boy named Patrick. Unfortunately,
the newborn was struggling with hyaline membrane disease and had a lot of difficulty breathing.
The Kennedys, along with the nation, anxiously waited for his condition to improve,
with the Boston Globe even running the headline, "He's a Kennedy – He'll Make It."
Sadly, efforts at saving Patrick proved unsuccessful,
and the newborn baby boy would pass away only 39 hours later on Aug. 9, 1963.
The death of their newborn son, Patrick, brought the president and first lady closer than before,
as observed by those around them. Regrettably,
the effects of how the loss transformed their relationship were unable to be fully observed,
as just three months later, the Kennedys were due for a trip to Dallas in November 1963.
On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy
and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy were riding in a convertible, waving to cheering crowds,
when the president was assassinated by gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. Writing in his memoir, Secret
Service agent Clint Hill described how Jackie held her husband in her arms shouting, quote,
"Jack, Jack, what have they done to you?'" Hill also mentions how Jackie
refused to let go of her husband because she didn't want the crowd to see him dying.
"And I'm saying, 'Jack? Jack, can you hear me? Jack, I love you, Jack.'"
In the immediate years after the death of her husband,
Jackie Kennedy lived a quiet life with her children. Initially living in Georgetown,
she moved her family to New York City for its anonymity and familiarity,
after the Washington, D.C. home failed to provide her with the privacy she desired. She came out of
her reclusive lifestyle to help her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy with his presidential campaign.
However, on June 5, 1968, just after midnight,
Robert Kennedy was shot three times after his speech at a hotel in Los Angeles.
"Senator Kennedy has been shot! Is that possible!?"
According to Vanity Fair, when Jackie's brother-in-law,
Stas Radziwill, called her at 4 a.m. asking how RFK was,
she had no idea of the incident, telling him that Robert was fine and had just won California.
Radziwill had to break the news to her and, once again, Jackie was plunged into grief by the loss
of another person close to her. The second Kennedy assassination made her start to fear for kids'
safety as well. Jackie reportedly told a friend, quote, "They're killing Kennedys in America."
The Bouvier sisters, Jacqueline and Lee, were a glamorously famous pair who always had a
complex relationship. Growing up with divorced parents, they relied on each other immensely,
but a sibling rivalry would persist throughout their lives.
When Jackie married John F. Kennedy, she ascended to the center of the public eye,
while her equally talented sister became at risk of being eclipsed entirely.
A pattern began to emerge during Jackie's reign as first lady. Wanting her sister there for support,
Jackie would ask Lee to accompany and help her during various trips. But the
media attention was always on Jackie, who would ironically be praised for her fashion
sense even when it was her sister who was instrumental in selecting her wardrobe.
Around this time, Lee's marriage to Stas Radziwell was breaking down, and she found herself charmed
by the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. The Kennedys greatly distrusted Onassis, though,
and disapproved. After the death of her newborn, Jackie was invited to go on a
cruise with the couple, during which she took the opportunity to convince Lee not to marry Onassis.
However, the trip seemed to be the starting point for a future development.
About five years after the assassination of JFK, it was Jackie who married Onassis in October 1968.
Lee was reported to have felt betrayed and devastated. While she publicly wished them well,
the sisters' relationship would never fully recover.
Jacqueline Kennedy's marriage to Aristotle Onassis came as a shock to the public,
seeing as it occurred only a few months after Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968. The two
also had practically nothing in common, not to mention that Onassis was 23 years her senior.
As told by Vanity Fair, it became apparent that the marriage was less based on love and more on
benefits. Jackie Kennedy desired the stability and lavish life that the Onassis fortune could
provide, while Onassis saw the world-famous former first lady as, quote, "the ultimate trophy."
Unfortunately, the incompatibility of the couple quickly had Onassis
starting up his long-time affair with opera diva Maria Callas again only a month after the wedding.
The couple would also get into arguments about Jackie's spending. History News Network claims
that Jackie always had a shopping addiction, with entire rooms at her Fifth Avenue apartment filled
with purchases that were never even removed from their boxes. Eventually, the shipping
tycoon took up distastefully referring to his wife as, quote, "the widow," according to TIME.
The early 1970s once again saw Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis suffering loss. In March 1975,
after less than seven years of marriage, her husband Aristotle Onassis passed away from
bronchial pneumonia. He had been in the hospital for five weeks undergoing a gallbladder operation,
and was also under observation for a debilitating neurological disease,
which had affected his heart. The cortisone treatment he was
receiving had weakened his immune system, resulting in the pneumonia's fatal effects.
Shortly after, it came out to the press that Aristotle had been planning to divorce Jackie,
with the shipping tycoon consulting with his lawyer multiple times regarding the
matter as recently as December 1974, as reported by The New York Times. Aristotle
also apparently looked into having a private investigator dig up dirt on Jackie that could
be used in the divorce proceedings. However, his daughter, Christina Onassis, denied the claims.
The sudden death of those connected to her seemed to follow Jacqueline Kennedy. Even after
her second husband passed away, and Jackie distanced herself from the Onassis family,
tragedy still struck. In November of 1988, Christina Onassis, Jackie's former stepdaughter,
died suddenly in Argentina at only 37 years old.
The cause of her death is said to have been a heart attack brought on by years of drug abuse.
It was often reported that Kennedy had a strained relationship with her stepdaughter, with Christina
seeing her new mother as a gold-digger and calling her, quote, "my father's unfortunate obsession."
There were also rumors of the two disputing Kennedy's inheritance following Aristotle
Onassis' death. In a 1975 statement, though, Christina insisted the stories were not true,
and revealed she had a friendly and respectful relationship with her stepmother.
In January 1994, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Found mostly in her neck, chest, and abdomen, she began her chemotherapy sessions
and was seeing optimistic progress in the beginning. In mid-March, however,
she was experiencing pain throughout her legs, and it was found that the cancer, which affects
the lymph system, had disappeared from its initial locations and spread to her brain and spinal cord.
By May, her health had worsened considerably. On May 16, she was diagnosed with and treated
for pneumonia. Two days later, it was found that her liver had huge amounts of the lymphoma
and that there was little that further treatment could do. Not wishing to spend her last moments at
a hospital, Jackie Kennedy Onassis was released. On May 19, 1994, she passed away late at night
surrounded by her family and friends at her home in Manhattan at the age of 64.
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