Not Even John F. Kennedy's Rumored Mistresses Could Avoid The Family Curse

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

The November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy began a heartbreaking string of deaths surrounding him and his family, leading to many believing the Kennedys were cursed. However, it wasn't just Kennedy family members who found themselves affected by this so-called curse. A few of JFK's mistresses were caught up in it too. One woman you know very well, but the other you've probably never heard of.

Nina Burleigh's 1999 book, "A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer," covered the untimely demise of Mary Pinchot Meyer, who had an affair with Kennedy during the last few years of his life. In October 1964, 11 months after he was shot dead, so was Meyer, who was killed while taking a walk in Georgetown in the middle of the day. Burleigh wrote (via People), "She was shot in the head. Passersby heard screams and a witness looked over the wall and saw a man standing near her body. The police came and shortly arrested a black male [Ray Crump Jr.] soaking wet who said he fell into the Potomac while fishing. ... No gun was ever found."

Crump pled not guilty and was acquitted due to lack of evidence. That led many to believe something more sinister must have been going on. Burleigh brought up the theory that Meyer was killed because of what she may have known. "Her murder just 10 days after the Warren Commission report was released makes a lot of people suspicious that she had to be silenced. She lived in a world of secrets."

The timeline of those dying young didn't start with the President. He was only one in a long line. His brother, Joe Kennedy Jr., died in a plane crash during World War II. His sister, Kathleen Kennedy, perished in another plane crash in 1948. And three months before John F. Kennedy's assassination, he and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, lost a son, Patrick, who died 39 hours after his birth.

Nearly a year to the day before Patrick's passing, another person affiliated with JFK died as well. Marilyn Monroe was one of the most famous movie stars in the world throughout the 1950s and early 60s. With her blonde hair and striking looks, Monroe caught everyone's attention. She was married to baseball player Joe DiMaggio for a time, and there were rumors that she was having an affair with the president. On August 5, 1962, Monroe was found deceased in her Los Angeles home. Her death was later concluded (via History) to be caused by "a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide."

With some unable to accept that a 36-year-old beloved celebrity could take her own life, it led to theories that the president, or his brother, then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, had her killed. There were even unproven claims of RFK visiting Monroe on the day of her death. The full stories of what happened to Monroe and Mary Meyer will probably never be known.