She was much more than Bobby Kennedy’s wife. Over the years it became the social force that kept the most famous clan in the United States together after the death of its main figures. She was, without a doubt, “the matriarch”, the woman who He held leadership in the Kennedy family. The series Love Story: John F. Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette rescues his figure. And Taylor Swift names her as her inspiration: “Ethel and Bobby always seem to be the funniest. She’s one of my favorite people.”he assures.
Ethel Skakel She was born in Chicago on April 11, 1928. She was the sixth of seven children, from a well-off Irish Catholic family. His father amassed a fortune in the coal business.
He grew up in Connecticut and always excelled in sports. It was said that this was how she became friends with Jean Kennedy and that through her she met her brother, Robert F. Kennedy. But the beginning of their love story was different.
Bobby was dating his sister, Patricia Skakel, when he met her. It was in 1945, when 17-year-old Ethel accompanied them on a ski trip to Mount Tremblant, in Quebec. He was dazzled by this fun girl, full of energy and very competitive. Instantly, he stopped courting Patricia and concentrated on Ethel. The relationship prospered. They became engaged in February 1950 and married a few months later, in June. The first of their eleven children was born the following year.
They bought Hickory Hilla thirteen-bedroom house in Virginia, Washington, and they turned the place into a meeting center full of animals and children, with the doors open for family and friends. The mansion was also the venue for a thousand political meetings.
Ethel easily adapted to her new role in one of the most important families in the world, perceived as American royalty itself. Passionate about Politics, with its meetings and parties, became the social force that supported the campaigns with which Bobby reached the Senate and then the position of attorney general in the government of John F. Kennedy, his older brother.
However, even with all her energy, if something marked her position in the Kennedy clan, it was that she never had the charisma of her sister-in-law, Jacqueline Bouvier.
Their first meeting took place when she was already married to Bobby and they had two children. Over the years, the sisters-in-law – so different from each other – wore a silent competition. The tension increased to incredible levels after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, when Bobby accompanied and comforted Jackie during her first months as a widow. Ethel stoically faced rumors of infidelity.
On June 5, 1968, Palestinian Sirhan Bishara Sirhan burst into an election rally for Robert F. Kennedy, pre-presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, and fired three .22 caliber shots at him. Two pierced his right armpit and one, from which he could not recover, entered his skull below his left ear. Ethel was next to him, pregnant.
Five years after JFK, his brother Bobby died. Ethel showed herself to be a survivor, a strong woman. After her husband’s death, she vowed never to remarry. She chose (or simply walked) a path opposite to that of Jackie, who was a weak widow, who needed to be protected. and in The same year as Bobby’s murder, in 1968, she married Greek businessman Aristotle Onassis..
Ethel raised her eleven children with the support of her family. The best known: Rory (who was born six months after Bobby’s murder, and was the protagonist of the wedding to which John and Carolyn were heading when their fatal accident on July 16, 1999) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States in the Donald Trump government.
Because, just as Jackie tried to protect her children by marrying Onassis and keep them away from any kind of exposure, Ethel kept the members of the Kennedy family together, and encouraged their public and political presence.
A rigorous aunt
When John John (JFK and Jackie’s son) was certain that his girlfriend, Carolyn Bessette, was “the one,” he introduced her to the Kennedy family. Anyone who wanted to be part of the clan had to get Ethel’s approval.
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette recreate that first meal. And, from fiction, with a brief dialogue at the table, it represents Ethel’s character.
-Excuse me, Carolyn: are you cold?the hostess asked.
Instantly, everyone looked at the scarf that Carolyn was wearing on the table, exaggerated for the meeting. The scene is fictional, but perfect. It shows that Ethel set the pace.
The series also shows how political conversations were part of the family routine. They say that that first meeting also included a interrogation about North American and international current events. This was confirmed by writer J. Randy Taraborrelli in his book The Kennedy Heirs.
During that weekend in Hyannis Port, where several members of the Kennedy family had a summer home, Carolyn (then a publicist for Calvin Klein) suffered from Ethel’s rigor.
As he recreates Ryan Murphy’s fiction, he located John John and his girlfriend in separate rooms. And he left Bessette without breakfast for ignoring unspoken rules of the massive Kennedy meetings. Carolyn didn’t know that, the night before, she had to write her name on a blackboard and define which shift she would come down to breakfast on.
Over time, the relationship between Ethel Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette settled in. The widow of Bobby tried to help his girlfriend John John to fit. After the couple’s scandalous public fight in a park in New York, which was photographed by a paparazzo, Ethel summoned Carolyn to talk. She told him that she understood how difficult it was to adapt to the Kennedys. According to biographer Taraborrelli, he shared his own experience: “I realized that the only way to survive in this family is to look in the mirror and say, ‘You know what? I am enough.’ Over time you will assimilate it and no one will be able to take it away from you. Not even the Kennedys.”. And he added: “I think you’re more powerful than any of the other women John has dated.”.
Carolyn Bessette never forgot it.
The Kennedys, swifties
Much of what Carolyn Bessette Kennedy experienced was experienced by another unexpected candidate: in the summer of 2012, Taylor Swift she dated Ethel’s grandson, Conor Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The singer was 22 years old and went through those family days in Hyannis Port.
That relationship did not survive the fall, Taylor’s admiration for Grandma Kennedy survived. And Ethel’s affection for the singer, of whom she declared herself a fan.
The Kennedy matriarch revealed in People that their relationship had begun some time ago, in 2011, through his filmmaker daughter, Rory Kennedy: “Rory went to a concert with her two young daughters, Georgia and Bridget, and that’s where it all started”he explained.
Taylor Swift told them that, without knowing them, she had written a song inspired by a black and white photo she had seen from the youth of Ethel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. The theme is starlightfrom the album Red.
When presenting the album, at a press conference, the singer said: “I was inspired by a black and white photo I had seen two years ago, before I knew anything about Robert F. Kennedy or met Ethel. I only saw the photo, it was two young people dancing at a dance, and underneath it said: ‘Ethel and Robert Kennedy. 1945 – 17 years’. And I wrote this song based just on what I saw there. The song is called “Starlight.”
“She told me, you have to meet my mother. He would love to meet you“Taylor explained in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Thus, on January 20, 2012, prior to her relationship with Conor, the singer was invited to the premiere of the documentary Ethel that Rory Kennedy dedicated to his mother at the Sundance Film Festival.
“The only time in my life I’ve been impressed was meeting Caroline and Ethel Kennedy. I spent the afternoon with Ethel a couple of weeks ago. She’s one of my favorite people because, looking at the pictures of her and Bobby, they always seem to be the ones having the most fun. You know, eleven children, all those exotic animals on their property. “I’ve read a lot about them,” said Taylor Swift.
During her Kennedy stage, the singer even celebrated Independence Day in Hyannis Port and even attended the wedding of Conor’s cousin, Kyle Kennedy (daughter of Michael Kennedy and Victoria Gifford) in Boston. The relationship between the young people did not prosper, but the mutual admiration between Ethel and Taylor was maintained. starlight It is one of his most beloved songs, which he even reissued in 2021 as a “Taylor version.”
