Jackie Kennedy Allegedly Had Plans to Divorce JFK Before a Proposition Changed Her Mind
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President John F. Kennedy’s alleged affairs were an open secret by the time of his 1963 assassination but his loyal wife, Jackie Kennedy, stayed by his side until the very end. Though much has been speculated about Jackie’s reaction to her husband’s infidelities — which allegedly included flings with Marilyn Monroe, White House secretaries and more — the former First Lady never addressed the allegations publicly.
However, according to a 2014 biography, Jackie was much more vocal behind the scenes and, at one point, planned to file for divorce from JFK. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams authors Danforth Prince and Darwin Porter claim the Kennedy family brokered a deal with Jackie to prevent his reputation from being tarnished by what would surely have been a very high-profile divorce.
The book alleges that before JFK became president the couple went through a rocky period when Jackie became aware of her husband’s transgressions shortly before having a miscarriage. Frustrated with the state of her marriage, Jackie was on her last straw when her father-in-law, Joe Kennedy, allegedly stepped in to preserve his son’s chances at getting to the White House.
“There is danger facing you as a divorced Catholic woman,” the Kennedy patriarch allegedly told Jackie, according to the book. “I suggest you put divorce out of your mind.” The authors claim Joe offered Jackie $1 million to stay in her troubled marriage.
JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s relationship was a love story cut too soon. https://t.co/HblvBGnufq
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In response, Jackie allegedly told Joe that her fee would rise to $20 million “if he brings home any venereal disease from any of his sluts,” per the authors. “She wasn’t happy at all married to JFK,” the book reads. “She agreed to stay married as long as Jack’s affairs stayed private but he was constantly humiliating her. Their happy marriage like Jackie’s ancestry and the modern-day Camelot was a myth.”
Jackie awareness of her husband’s affairs has been corroborated by other biographers, including popular author J. Randy Taraborrelli.
“There were many senators and people who worked for the president who were really well aware of the conversations that Jackie had with JFK, in which she made it really clear that she knew what was going on,” Taraborrelli told People in 2018. “She wasn’t naïve to it. They did have many conversations about it, and she did tell him that she was sick of it and she didn’t like it.”
In his most recent Jackie biography, Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, Taraborrelli even went as far as to claim that Jackie spoke with Kennedy’s most famous alleged mistress, Monroe, when the actress called their home to ask for JFK. Though Taraborrelli says Jackie didn’t confront the actress, she alleged warned her husband to cease contact with Monroe.
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