Unearthed declare about JFK and Bobby Kennedy’s involvement in Marilyn Monroe’s loss of life… and all of the indicators it wasn’t a suicide, revealed by MAUREEN CALLAHAN: ‘I do know who killed her’

On Saturday, in an unique extract of her new e book ‘Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Girls They Destroyed’, Maureen Callahan revealed the sordid secrets and techniques of Jackie and Aristotle Onassis’s marriage. Now, on this explosive subsequent extract, she delves into the enduring thriller of Marilyn Monroe’s loss of life…

She might have been the most important star on the earth, however this was going to be a very powerful night time of Marilyn’s life: Headlining a fundraiser that might double as President John F. Kennedy’s forty fifth celebration, on Might 19, 1962, at Madison Sq. Backyard.

Now the world would lastly know: She and the married American president have been a factor.

And what a headline that might be: Marilyn Monroe, the world’s largest film star, and the president of the US!

He was going to go away his spouse, the admired however frosty Jackie, and marry her. He had mentioned as a lot, and Marilyn believed him. As soon as he gained re-election, he could be free to make her the following First Woman of the US.

It wasn’t so loopy: Marilyn had Jack on her hook for years, lengthy earlier than he was within the White Home.

For this most pivotal night time, Marilyn needed to appear like the German sex-siren Marlene Dietrich, however edgier, extra risqué.

So she’d turned to Dietrich — herself a former lover of each Jack Kennedy and his father Joe — and the star had despatched Marilyn to her personal designer, the French costumier Jean Louis.

The outcome was a gossamer, flesh-toned gown glittering with 1000’s of hand-beaded rhinestones, so figure-hugging that it needed to be sewn onto Marilyn’s physique, so tight that she could not put on underwear.

Half an hour earlier than her efficiency on the Backyard, Marilyn was in her dressing-room when the president’s brother, Bobby, arrived on the door. They spent quarter-hour alone collectively.

Marilyn knew each Kennedys needed her, and she or he needed each of them. Jack, in fact, had the attraction and energy, however Bobby had a sort of gravitas that attracted her.

Late to the stage, drunk and flush with the transgressive intercourse she’d simply had with Bobby, her gown so tight she may hardly stroll, Marilyn approached the rostrum.

She flicked the microphone along with her finger and stepped apart to disclose herself. The Backyard lights hit her; she was ablaze with carnality.

Forty thousand folks reacted like a single organism, together with the president.

‘You might simply odor lust,’ was his good friend Hugh Sidey’s description. Jack Kennedy, he mentioned, had gone limp with want.

Marilyn cooed ‘Glad Birthday’ as if it have been the best come-on ever written, leaving the president slack-jawed. Regaining his wit, he took the stage with one intent: acknowledge however decrease.

‘I can now retire from politics,’ he instructed the group, ‘having had ‘Glad Birthday’ sung to me in such a candy, healthful approach.’ He laughed. The group roared.

Later that night time, on the non-public after-party in a clubby Manhattan room full of mahogany bookshelves and necessary males, the one recognized photograph of Bobby, Marilyn, and Jack was taken — a photograph that would not be made public till 2010.

Marilyn stood between them, in profile, wanting severe. Bobby and Jack had turned themselves away from the digital camera. 

Jack Kennedy cherished accessing something and anybody he needed. Well-known folks fascinated him, so it wasn’t stunning when Frank Sinatra and his pals – often known as the Rat Pack – turned a part of his interior circle.

As senator and later president, Jack would usually be part of them for reckless, debauched weekends in Las Vegas and Palm Seaside. Or he’d fly to Los Angeles, his favourite place, for what he referred to as his ‘searching’ expeditions.

It was in LA, in 1954, when Jack first met Marilyn at a Hollywood celebration.

He had been married to Jackie for only a yr, and she or he had accompanied him – simply as Marilyn arrived along with her then husband, the legendary baseball participant Joe DiMaggio.

‘I feel I’ve met you someplace earlier than,’ Jack mentioned to Marilyn. It was hardly essentially the most unique line, however she performed alongside. Actually doable, she mentioned.

In spite of everything, they’d pals in widespread – particularly Jack’s brother-in-law, the actor Peter Lawford, who acted as his pimp, fixer and drug provider. Something or anybody Jack needed, Peter made it occur.

Earlier than leaving the celebration, Marilyn slipped Jack her telephone quantity.

A couple of months later, Jack underwent extraordinarily dangerous surgical procedure on his again. His two-month hospital keep was touch-and-go; 3 times, monks have been referred to as to ship Final Rites.

It was Jackie who powered him although, who by no means left his facet, and who tried to disregard the pin-up poster of Marilyn on the wall.

It had been intentionally hung upside-down, so her crotch was at Jack’s eye-level.

Marilyn had skilled quite a lot of trauma: As a baby, she’d been shunted from foster dwelling to foster dwelling, violated, molested, and raped. She married at 16 to flee however quickly realized home life held nothing for her.

She knew she was meant for greater issues.

After she turned a star, after her first divorce and the celebrity, the outlet within her was nonetheless there. What she actually wanted, she thought, have been two issues: to be cherished — a deep, full love that she believed would heal her wounds — and to be appreciated for her intelligence.

However her marriage to DiMaggio proved no higher. He turned abusive, controlling, and needed her to desert her profession to be a housewife. Inside 9 months, they too have been divorced.

She needed highly effective and well-known males to see previous the intercourse image and understand that Marilyn Monroe had substance. She all the time carried a severe e book round along with her — Ulysses by James Joyce was a favourite, although she did not perceive it — and most popular to be photographed studying or sitting in her non-public library.

After which got here Arthur Miller, America’s most revered dwelling playwright. He left his spouse for Marilyn, began writing a film for her, launched her to all his mental pals. She needed desperately to be like them. He clearly noticed that potential in her.

They married in 1956, virtually two years after she first met JFK.

Regardless of the cynics who noticed it as a model merger — Marilyn sexing up this geeky playwright, and Miller loaning her an air of literary class — she was loopy about him.

So off they went to England, the place they rented a manor in Surrey referred to as the Parkside Home whereas Marilyn shot a movie with Laurence Olivier.

It was at Parkside Home the place Marilyn got here throughout a pocket book her new husband left mendacity out. The entry was about her, and one phrase leapt out: ‘Embarrassed’.

She embarrassed him. He was ashamed to be her husband. He nervous that his profession could be torpedoed by this ‘pitiable, unpredictable waif’.

Had he performed the best factor, he requested himself, in leaving the mom of his youngsters for Marilyn Monroe? The one individual he would ever actually love, he wrote, was his daughter.

Marilyn had been his spouse for simply two weeks.

Jack Kennedy had by no means made her really feel this fashion. He had a first-rate thoughts and surrounded himself with one of the best and the brightest, however he additionally cherished Hollywood: the scene, the ladies, the gossip. And he was enjoyable.

He by no means assumed that Marilyn’s affectations — her compliance with males, the baby-doll voice — meant she was dumb.

Solely Marilyn’s docs had any inkling why she spoke that approach, why some ladies who have been abused as youngsters typically undertake a baby’s voice. It was a approach of claiming: I am smaller than you. Please do not harm me.

She by no means thought Jack Kennedy would harm her.

Marilyn filed for divorce from Arthur Miller on January 21, 1961 — the day Jack Kennedy was inaugurated. It was a liberation for her, a hopeful nod to her future.

She hadn’t minded that he disappeared whereas campaigning. In actual fact, she understood: He needed to be cautious. He could not be caught with one other girl.

If solely Marilyn knew about all of Jack’s different ladies.

Her psychoanalyst, Dr. Ralph Greenson, was conscious of her on-off affair with Jack. He thought it finest if she broke it off, however as Marilyn instructed him shortly after the election: ‘Marilyn Monroe is a soldier. Her commander-in-chief is the best and strongest man on the earth… He says this, you do it. He says that, you do it.

‘This man goes to alter our nation… I let you know, physician, when he has completed his achievements, he’ll take his place with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt as one in all our best presidents… I’ll by no means embarrass him.’

Jack reveled in sitting subsequent to her at fancy eating places and large dinners, pinching her backside, whispering soiled jokes, caressing her beneath the desk — just like the 1960 night time at ‘Puccini’ in LA, Jackie dwelling and 6 months pregnant, Jack’s hand sliding increased and better, till he realized: Marilyn wasn’t carrying underwear.

He turned vivid crimson. She cherished that, discovered it so humorous.

Little did she know: Jack had no downside shedding ladies who turned inconvenient.

Marilyn was starting to obsess, and Jack had a plan: Go her off to his brother Bobby.

The primary time Marilyn and Bobby had met, at an LA ceremonial dinner, Marilyn stashed crib notes into her purse, information about world occasions that in any other case eluded her.

Bobby seen however mentioned nothing; he thought that her lack of cynicism, her eagerness to please, was poignant.

After dancing with Bobby, Marilyn wrote to a good friend: ‘He was very good, type of boyish and likable. After all he saved wanting down my gown, however I am used to that.

‘I assumed he was going to go with me, however as a substitute he requested me whereas dancing who I assumed was the handsomest man within the room. I imply, how was I going to reply that? I mentioned he was. Properly, in a approach, he was!’

With the president so seldom out there, Bobby ended up overlapping with him in Marilyn’s mattress, as did Frank Sinatra.

Her psychoanalyst nervous that the actress was in approach over her head, however felt it was equally harmful to discourage her. Marilyn had by no means felt so seen, so needed, so gratified. Regardless of her monumental success, she nonetheless primarily outlined herself via males.

In March 1962, the president got here West once more.

By then, Marilyn was falling in love with Bobby, too. However even he could not compete with the excessive of understanding the president nonetheless needed her.

So she spent a secret weekend with Jack in a cottage on an A-list star’s property in Palm Springs. There, she made certain that one in all her finest pals spoke to him on the telephone; she needed a witness to know that their love was actual — ought to the president ever attempt to deny it.

Then Jack was off and Bobby returned, and Marilyn’s sense of efficiency began giving approach to suspicion. Was she getting used? Have been the brothers having some sort of incestuous sexual competitors? Was she simply one other disposable blonde?

Her psychoanalyst was now very involved and tried to coax her into breaking off each affairs. As he wrote to colleagues, ‘I attempt to assist her not be so lonely and […] get entangled with very harmful individuals who will have interaction in some type of sadomasochistic relationship along with her.’

However Marilyn refused to see it that approach.

She had these two extraordinarily highly effective males vying for her — the lonely child, the deserted woman, the abused pre-teen who’d had just one message from the lads in her life: ‘You’re nugatory.’

Sure, typically Jack and Bobby may make her really feel that approach. However when she was with them, she felt fairly the other, value very a lot certainly.

There was simply one in all her husband’s many lovers who had bothered her, Jackie Kennedy confided to her physician, and that was Marilyn Monroe.

So on that night time in Might 1962, when Marilyn sang ‘Glad Birthday’ to the president, his spouse remained at dwelling. Jackie’s goal was to ship the general public a transparent message: ‘Your First Woman shares your values, and she or he can be appalled.’

Those that knew about Marilyn — the reporters, pals, and relations — felt sorry for Jackie. However she did not need their pity.

Jackie was livid. After this newest, most public indignity, she gave Jack an ultimatum: no extra Marilyn. In any other case she would divorce him — taking the kids and costing him a second time period — and the American folks would lastly know why.

Her husband complied, instantly.

For Marilyn, so certain Jack would by no means harm her, this abandonment was unendurable.

She did not find out about Jackie’s ultimatum. She did not know why he had disappeared. She phoned and phoned him on the White Home, however was by no means once more put via to him.

As a substitute, Bobby was instantly making himself extra out there. Quickly they have been having a relationship, and Marilyn had begun to assume the US legal professional normal was a greater model of Jack: for his sense of goal, his deep perception within the civil rights motion, his righteousness, his mind.

Now she studied even more durable to enhance her vocabulary; for Bobby, she needed to make use of large phrases to specific large ideas.

Nobody appeared to contemplate Bobby’s spouse, Ethel, by whom he already had seven youngsters – least of all his sister Jean.

She gave Marilyn the Kennedys’ enthusiastic endorsement in a handwritten letter.

‘Perceive that you just and Bobby are the brand new merchandise!’ she wrote. ‘All of us assume it’s best to include him when he comes again East!’

Marilyn was now satisfied Bobby would depart Ethel for her.

Everybody within the Monroe-Kennedy social circle knew of her entanglements with each Jack and Bobby. The lads have been titillated — all however Marilyn’s ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, who thought the Kennedys have been utilizing Marilyn.

So did her closest feminine pals, particularly Jeanne Martin, the spouse of Sinatra’s fellow Rat Packer, Dean Martin.

Jeanne was none too impressed with the best way Jack and Bobby performed themselves; she discovered the brothers juvenile, boorish and approach too aggressive with ladies.

One in every of Jeanne’s pals had discovered herself alone with Bobby at a celebration and, earlier than she knew it, he’d locked the door and pushed her down on a sofa.

However that wasn’t Marilyn’s Bobby. ‘The Normal’, as she referred to as him, all the time took her calls on the Justice Division, regardless of how busy he was.

He’d sneak off on journeys to LA, pull up in his white 1956 Thunderbird and spirit her away for night strolls on the seashore, simply the 2 of them. She taught him the right way to do the Twist.

As soon as, he requested her to name his father, as a result of few issues would impress the Previous Man greater than a name from America’s primary intercourse image.

However Bobby may by no means be round for lengthy, and Marilyn – ever insecure – started floundering. She’d drink champagne from morning until night time, pop tablets, cease showering.

Her emotional disruption prolonged to her profession. On the set of her newest movie, ‘One thing’s Received to Give’, Marilyn’s persistent incapability to get away from bed left her on the verge of being fired.

Neither Kennedy was ever removed from her thoughts. However compassion was one thing each brothers had ceased to indicate her.

In mid-June 1962, when Bobby got here to LA with Ethel for a celebration on the Lawfords’, Marilyn despatched her regrets through Telegram.

As ever, she hoped to impress.

‘Sadly,’ she telegrammed, ‘I’m concerned in a freedom journey protesting the lack of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. In spite of everything, all we demanded was our proper to twinkle.’

Marilyn’s star was dying.

After the Kennedys left, Marilyn went to see Pat Lawford, who had no illusions about her brothers. ‘Overlook it,’ Pat instructed her. ‘Bobby’s nonetheless just a bit boy.’

However Marilyn was inconsolable. Her consumption of alcohol and tablets was so staggering that the Lawfords have been afraid to go away her alone.

They let her stick with them for some time, took her on vacation, and one morning, Peter woke as much as discover Marilyn on their balcony, wanting down as if she would possibly leap, her face streaked with tears. I am ugly, she instructed him. I am nugatory. I am a factor that Jack and Bobby used up.

When the studio lastly fired her from ‘One thing’s Received to Give’, Marilyn took the general public humiliation as a problem. Aged 36, on the peak of her magnificence, she posed for a Vogue shoot.

Probably the most daring footage confirmed her lounging nude in mattress, her breasts swathed in pink tulle. The attention was drawn to an extended, deep scar beneath, the results of latest gallbladder surgical procedure.

It was a bodily manifestation of how Marilyn felt: gutted, vandalized, part of her deepest self eliminated.

However her grief would quickly give approach to vengeance, and each Kennedy brothers obtained the message: In the event that they continued to disregard Marilyn, she would name a press convention and inform the world precisely who they have been and what they’d performed to her.

Six weeks later, on August 4, Bobby Kennedy arrived in California and went straight to Marilyn’s home.

‘The place is it?’ he yelled at her. ‘The place the f*** is it?’

The FBI and the CIA, Bobby and Jack found, had bugged Marilyn’s home and telephone line with out her data. It was a coordinated try and deliver down each Kennedys — and Bobby wasn’t leaving with out the tape recordings.

Marilyn had no concept what Bobby was speaking about. Peter Lawford arrived and tried to calm him down.

‘Now we have to know,’ Bobby continued yelling. ‘It is necessary to the household. We are able to make any preparations you need, however we should discover it.’

Bobby and Peter left empty-handed.

Hours later, at 7:30 pm, Marilyn referred to as Peter at dwelling. The Lawfords have been throwing one other celebration that night; Bobby would most likely come, they usually have been anticipating Marilyn. However she would not be coming, now or ever.

She had no final phrases for Bobby. ‘Say goodbye to Pat,’ Marilyn mentioned to Peter, ‘say goodbye to the president, and say goodbye to your self, since you’re a pleasant man.’

Her physique was discovered early the following morning by her housekeeper. She was face-down on her mattress, nude, along with her telephone nonetheless in her hand. She’d been lifeless for hours.

The FBI was dispatched to Marilyn’s dwelling instantly. Former senior FBI agent James Doyle later admitted the Bureau had been ordered to take away sure telephone data.

Recovered within the Nineteen Eighties, Marilyn’s logs confirmed she’d referred to as Bobby’s office eight occasions between June twenty fifth and thirtieth. Her closing name to him lasted eight minutes.

Why had she been so determined to succeed in him? Studies counsel she’d had an abortion on July 20, and that the child might have been Bobby’s.

Additionally lacking from her home was her surveillance system, in addition to her diary, which Bobby had apparently instructed her to ‘eliminate’ just a few months earlier than.

Marilyn Monroe’s loss of life had been attributable to an enormous barbiturate overdose. Whether or not it was unintentional or purposeful won’t ever be recognized.

However those that knew and cherished her finest blamed Jack and Bobby Kennedy.

Former LA County deputy district legal professional John Miner later recalled talking at size that yr to Marilyn’s psychoanalyst, who let Miner take heed to a 40-minute tape of her sharing her plans for the rapid future.

‘On account of what Dr. Greenson instructed me,’ Miner mentioned, ‘and from what I heard on tape recordings, I consider I can say undoubtedly that it was not suicide.’

Within the Nineteen Eighties, ABC Information deliberate to air a particular concerning the Kennedy brothers’ involvement in Marilyn’s loss of life. Hours earlier than the printed was resulting from air, ABC pulled the plug.

ABC Information president Roone Arledge, who cancelled the documentary, was a longtime good friend of Ethel Kennedy. He denied any battle of curiosity.

Each Kennedys have been banned from Marilyn’s funeral by Joe DiMaggio.

‘I all the time knew who killed her, however I did not wish to begin a revolution on this nation,’ he mentioned later. ‘She instructed me somebody would do her in, however I saved quiet.

‘The whole thing of Kennedys have been lady-killers, they usually all the time obtained away with it. They will be getting away with it 100 years from now.’

UK READERS: Tailored from ‘Ask Not’ by Maureen Callahan, to be printed by Harper Collins on July 4 at £25. © Maureen Callahan 2024. To order a duplicate for £22.50 (provide legitimate to 30/06/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or name 02031762937.

US READERS: Tailored from ‘Ask Not’ by Maureen Callahan. Copyright © 2024 by Maureen Callahan. Used with permission of Little, Brown and Firm. New York, NY. All rights reserved. Order a duplicate right here.