Kennedy Family Scandals They Wish We'd Forget

The Kennedys are one of the most famous political dynasties in United States history. Their notoriety stems from their policies and influence that have fundamentally shaped American life, as well as the many tragedies surrounding the Kennedy family. But perhaps the most intriguing lens through which to look at this brood is through their scandals.

Like many families with extreme wealth and status, the Kennedys have been at the center of lots of scandals, and this family tradition is older than many of its most prominent members. It's far-reaching, too, with many Kennedy wrongdoings and rumors having to do with members of their extended family. From sex scandals of every variety to crimes that members of the public believe were glossed over thanks to their last name, the Kennedy family hasn't been able to escape scandal since the beginning of the last century. Here are some they wish we'd forget.

Rosemary Kennedy, one of John F. Kennedy's sisters, suffered multiple tragedies throughout her life, many of which her parents, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy, tried to hide from the public. As a baby, Rosemary experienced developmental delays, and they seemed to carry into adolescence. When Rosemary was 22 years old, her family felt she was regressing, and Joseph ordered that she undergo a lobotomy, a new surgery at the time, in an effort to help her. Instead, the surgery left Rosemary permanently disabled, and Joseph and Rose sent her to a home in Wisconsin where she stayed for the rest of her life.

While some can get past the mistake of allowing Rosemary to undergo a lobotomy due to the experimental nature of the surgery at the time, many struggle to forgive the Kennedy family for going decades without visiting their daughter and sister. Joseph died without visiting Rosemary, while Rose didn't see her daughter for 20 years. According to Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff, author of "The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women," the family had its reasons. "Joe was told you don't visit because it's too emotionally devastating to their routine so that's what he did. But with their mother now in charge, things began to change. Mrs. Kennedy wanted her to be socialized," Koehler-Pentacoff wrote. Even with context, the treatment of Rosemary is still seen as one of the most cruel chapters in the Kennedy family history.

No matter how little a person knows about John F. Kennedy, they're usually aware that he was accused of having multiple affairs while he was married to Jackie Kennedy. Among JFK's alleged mistresses were White House interns and secretaries, as well as women he met outside of his presidential obligations, but the most famous of all the women he reportedly stepped out with was Marilyn Monroe.

While most of the information revolving JFK and Monroe is speculative, it's also enduring. There are some confirmed meetings between the two bygone icons, including JFK's 45th birthday party, at which Monroe infamously performed "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," but the rest of the information surrounding their relationship is anecdotal. Making their alleged affair more interesting, Monroe was reportedly having an affair with JFK's brother Bobby Kennedy at the same time. According to reports, Monroe was prepared to publicly reveal that she had been sleeping with both Kennedy men just before her death in 1962. While Monroe's death was ruled an overdose, many people believe that she was actually murdered at the Kennedy family's behest, and that her death was made to look like an overdose. The Kennedy family may wish that JFK's alleged affairs would cease to be discussed, but the public interest will likely never wane.

John F. Kennedy's legacy will likely always be marred with allegations of affairs with multiple women while he was married to Jackie Kennedy, but the former president isn't the only member of his family to have been accused of adultery. Some might say it's a case of the apple not falling too far from the tree as JFK's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, also allegedly had an affair. In fact, Joseph was accused of having an affair by one of his alleged mistresses herself, his former secretary Janet DesRosiers, who gave her side of the story in her book, "A Good Life: A Memoir." "He was very taken with me. He made up his mind right then I would be his," DesRosiers said of meeting Joseph.

DesRosiers was just as enamored with Joseph as he apparently was with her. "He was fun, he was warm, he was thoughtful, never demanding, very considerate, and very gentle. It wasn't very difficult to fall in love with him. He was very charming. He overwhelmed me," DesRosiers wrote. According to her, Joseph's wife, Rose Kennedy, knew of her husband's extramarital activity. "She must have known I was around all the time and not unattractive. I used to massage Joe's scalp and neck with Rose in the living room ... I don't know what she thought her husband was made of," DesRosiers wrote. Eventually, DesRosiers' relationship with Joseph met its natural end, and she went on to marry someone else.

While only one member of the Kennedy family has been president, many have had aspirations of being elected, including Senator Ted Kennedy. Unfortunately, though, for Ted, his hopes of holding the highest office in the land were sidelined after he was involved in a car accident with very serious consequences. In July 1969, just a year after his brother Robert Kennedy was assassinated, Ted left a party on Chappaquiddick with a woman named Mary Jo Kopechne. Ted was giving Kopechne a ride to the ferry when he drove off a bridge. Ted got out of the car alive, but Kopechne drowned in a creek.

Ted claimed to have tried to save Kopechne, but many were leery of his story because Ted waited over 10 hours before contacting authorities. In an address to the public, Ted said his attempts to rescue Kopechne were futile and only served to exhaust him. "My conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that I can remember them, make no sense to me at all," Ted said (via ABC News). "Although my doctors informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion, as well as shock, I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either on the physical and emotional trauma brought on by the accident, or on anyone else. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately." While Ted faced little legal recourse — a year's suspension of his driver's license was his most severe punishment — he did have to bid all presidential candidacy hopes goodbye.

Some Kennedy family scandals are so intense that they last for decades. Such is the case for Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy. In 1975, when Michael was 15 years old, he was accused of murdering a 15-year-old girl named Martha Moxley, both of whom lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. On the night of her death, Moxley had been seen fooling around with Michael's brother, Thomas Skakel, and she was found dead the next morning with an autopsy showing that she had been bludgeoned and stabbed to death with a golf club that belonged to the Skakel family. Many believed that Michael killed Moxley because he had tried to have relations with her, which she did not want.

While some people related to the investigation claimed to have heard Michael admit to Moxley's murder and state that he would get away with the crime because of his famous relatives, Michael maintained on record that he was not guilty. The case went unsolved for over a decade, and it reopened in the early '90s. By 1998, Greenwich prosecutors had enough evidence to warrant a one-judge grand jury investigation. In 2000, Michael was arrested for the murder, and in 2002 he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. The case didn't end there, though. While he was serving time, Michael's team continued appealing the verdict. In 2013, Michael's conviction was vacated, and he was released from prison a few months later after posting a $1.2 million bail. In 2016, Michael's conviction was reinstated, but a few years later it was announced that he would not be retried, leaving Michael to remain a free man.

John F. Kennedy wasn't the only one of his siblings to die young. In fact, two of them didn't live long enough to see him take office as president, including his sister Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy. In the late 1930s, Kick moved to London, and while there, she fell in love with Billy Hartington, the future Duke of Devonshire. Despite her family's disapproval of the relationship — the future duke wasn't Catholic, unlike the Kennedys — Kick and Billy got married. Tragically, the relationship didn't last long, and during World War II, the future duke died in action.

Heartbroken after her husband's death, Kick began seeing a new man, Earl Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, also wealthy and part of the British aristocracy. Kick's family was in even greater protest of this relationship than her last because Peter was married with children. Peter told Kick that he would leave his wife for her, and the two planned to meet Kick's father in Paris to sort through the Kennedy family drama. Tragically, though, just days before the scheduled meeting, Kick and Peter died in a plane crash. Kick's untimely death is just one of many tragedies surrounding the Kennedy women.

The Kennedy family might long for the days when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wasn't making public declarations about his brain worm and certain opinions on vaccinations, but about 10 years prior to his presidential bid, RFK Jr. was making headlines for different reasons, namely his divorce from Mary Richardson Kennedy. RFK Jr. and Mary were married for 18 years and had four children together, but the last years of their marriage were quite contentious. RFK Jr. filed for divorce from Mary in 2010, and they spent the next two years fighting over custody and money. Allegations were hurled both ways with Mary claiming that RFK Jr. was a serial philanderer and RFK Jr. claiming that Mary was struggling with her mental health and substance use.

In 2012, RFK Jr. and Mary's marriage came to a tragic end (as have many other troubled Kennedy family marriages). While still technically married, Mary died by suicide. She was found dead at her home in Bedford, New York, and people close to her said that she had been battling depression leading up to her death. Despite their prior issues, RFK Jr. remained respectful of Mary when speaking to the press. "A lot of times I don't know how she made it through the day. She was in a lot of agony for a lot of her life. I don't think anyone who was around her didn't do everything that they could to help her," he said of Mary in an interview, per New York Post.

There are multiple scandals involving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the famous political dynasty would like the public to forget. In 2013, after his divorce from Mary Richardson Kennedy, entries from RFK Jr.'s secret diary from 2001 were made public, and the details revealed that he had been cheating on his wife (making it unsurprising that there are signs that RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines' relationship won't last). Per reports, RFK Jr. used a code of his own making to denote his actions with each woman he had relations with other than his wife — 37 women's names were listed in his diary, 16 of whom he had intercourse with. "Despite the terrible things happening in the world, my life is ... great. So I've been looking for ways to screw it up. I'm like Adam and live in Eden, and I can have everything but the fruit. But the fruit is all I want," RFK Jr. wrote in his diary, per New York Post.

RFK Jr. also noted the days that he didn't cheat on his wife by writing the word "Victory," and wrote how much he loved his wife in his diary. When asked about the journal, RFK Jr. denied its existence. "I don't think there is any way you could have a diary or journal of mine from 2001. I don't have any comment on it. I have no diary from 2001," he said. Furthermore, news of RFK Jr.'s sex diary resurfaced in 2024 when he ran for president.

Patrick J. Kennedy, the son of Senator Ted Kennedy and Joan Bennett, carried on his family's legacy of political involvement by serving in multiple elected positions, including as a member of the United States House of Representatives. Unfortunately, in 2006, near the end of his tenure as a representative, Patrick got in a car accident on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The exact details of Patrick's accident were scant at first, with two of his three citations being issued for speeding and driving in the wrong lane. But just days later, the politician shared that he had been under the influence of prescription drugs and that he was subsequently entering rehab for addiction.

Per The Washington Post, Patrick said of the accident, "I simply do not remember getting out of bed, being pulled over by the police, or being cited for three driving infractions. That's not how I want to live my life. And that's not how I want to represent the people of Rhode Island." Patrick also said, "I've been fighting this chronic disease since I was a young man, and have aggressively and periodically sought treatment so that I can live a full and productive life," noting that he had gotten out of a stay at rehab just a few months prior. A few years after the accident, Patrick entered rehab again, but in 2022 he celebrated 11 years of sobriety.

There were multiple infamous trials that took place in the 1990s in the United States, one of which has plagued the Kennedy family for decades. In December 1991, William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of John F. Kennedy, was put on trial after being accused of raping a woman at the Kennedy compound in Palm Beach, Florida. Smith admitted to having sex with his accuser, but said their relations were consensual.

Like the O.J. Simpson trial that would follow a few year later, Smith's trial was nationally televised, making the ordeal even more embarrassing for the Kennedy family. However, the outcome of the trial was about as positive as it could've been for the Kennedys as Smith was acquitted of all charges, a decision that took the jury just over an hour to make. After the trial, Smith went on to live a productive life as a doctor, however, he was accused of sexual assault again in 2004.

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