Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Jackie O: Public, Private, Secret with J. Randy Taraborrelli

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Today, on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon connects with journalist and celebrity biographer, J. Randy Taraborrelli, to chat about his new book “Jackie: Public, Private, Secret.” In his book, he paints a portrait of the lesser known parts of the iconic life of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. We all know public details of her time as First Lady in the White House, and recall the historic imagery of her wearing a pink Chanel suit with the matching pink hat on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. But with only a few years spent in the White House, what fabric makes the full life of this beloved First Lady? This conversation brings to light the story of a woman’s total lived experience in a way that is surprising, complex, and distinctive.  Special thanks to our guest, J. Randy Taraborrelli, for joining us today. Host/Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Guest: J. Randy Taraborrelli Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Oh, this is a good conversation. You are going to want to listen to this one. I am speaking with author J. Randy Terraparelli, who has a new book out about Jackie Kennedy called Jackie, Public Private Secret. And man, did I learn a lot about Jackie. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. about Jackie. And your new book is called Jackie, Public Private Secret. And first of all, to be able to get access to Jackie Kennedy is no small feat. She was notoriously kind of like, don't find stuff out about me. I got to keep it all close to the vest. First of all, what made you interested in writing about this particular group of people and more specifically about Jackie? Well, I love writing about families. My best books have really been about families. I've

done the Hiltons, I've done Sinatras, the Jacksons. I did Marilyn Monroe's family, Elizabeth Taylor's family. And I just think that we can see so much of our own families in other families. And when you have big, major sort of iconic families, what I love about that work is trying to find the moments in their lives that we can best relate to. One would think that you would have pretty much nothing in common with Jacqueline Onassis. One might think, wow, that woman lived a life that I could not possibly relate to. But when you unpack it, as I did in this book, Jackie, Public Private Secret, you find that there are so many human moments in her life that are so relatable that they bring you closer to her experience. And then in understanding what she went through, I think it helps us understand our own lives. And that's really the point of biography for me. There's no point in it at all, except

if you can see your own experience reflected back at you through this person's life. And I have found so many people have come up to me, especially since this book came out, it's already number three on the New York Times list. And so many people have come up to me to say, you know, wow, my mother was just like that. Or I did the exact same thing when I was her age, or I felt that same way about that person. I, for instance, in my book, there's a story about Jacqueline Onassis dating Warren Beatty for just a few weeks. And he was the kind of guy who every time they went out, he spent the entire time talking about himself. And then at the very end of the day, just as they were ending the night,

he would say, so how are you doing? And by that time she was just done with him, right? Yeah, she was over him. And when I heard that story, I thought, wow, that is so relatable. How many of us have been on that date where we're with somebody and that person spends the entire time talking about himself or herself. And while you're standing at the door, ready to end the date, anxious to end the date, the person turns to you and say, so what about you? How are you

doing? Right? Nope. Immediately. No, immediately. No. I saw what I needed to see. The answer is no. That is the kind of story that you wouldn't think Jacqueline Onassis would have that experience. You would think any person who goes out with Jacqueline Onassis would spend the entire time talking about the Kennedys, spend the entire time talking about Jackie. You wouldn't think that she would ever be in a situation where she would not be the center of attention. So I like those stories because we share so much humanity with people that we don't even realize. What was Jackie's childhood like? What was it like growing up in her family?

She was idolized by her father. Her parents divorced. Her mother was very critical and domineering, but in her defense, she had to raise those two children on her own. And then the father came. And I think many divorced couples can relate to this, when the father would come, it was like happy times. He did not discipline Jackie and her sister Lee. They went to the circus. They had good times. And then, you know, they loved their dad. And then they would come home to mom.

And then mom had to be the disciplinarian. Mom had to be the one to keep them in line. Mom had to be the one to help them with their schooling. You take them to their different ballet classes. And mom did the work where dad got all of the points for being the fun dad. And that was Jackie's experience as a young woman. She loved riding horses. She loved school. She was smart. She was witty. But she was also withdrawn. She wasn't the kind of person to have a lot of friends. And she really didn't feel like she wanted a lot of friends.

One very good story about Jackie is when she was about 13 years old, a friend of hers came over to the estate that by this time they were living in. Jackie's mom remarried a man named Hugh Auchincloss when Jackie was 13. And they moved into this gigantic estate in Newport. when Jackie was 13. And they moved into this gigantic estate in Newport. And this girl came over and she spent a couple of days at the estate with Jackie, one of her school friends. And Jana was so pleased and happy that Jackie was spending this time with a friend. And as the girl was leaving, the girl said to Jackie, oh, that was so much fun. So much fun, Jacqueline. Oh, when can we get together again? And Jackie said, Oh, I don't know, maybe a year, maybe two. Right? So, you know, she didn't have a lot of friends, and she didn't want a lot of friends. She was a loner. She loved her books. She loved reading, and she loved drawing, and she loved writing

poetry. She was that kind of girl. She sounds like a true introvert, like where being around another person at that level of intensity really took a lot out of her. And she couldn't imagine doing it again for another year, even if she really liked the person. Maybe in a year. Maybe in a year. Imagine that kind of girl ending up being first lady. Imagine that kind of girl ending up being first lady. You know, imagine that kind of girl finding herself married to a president. There's a great quote in my book from Jackie after she became first lady when she said, I'm really not that fond of the public.

So she had to work, you know, and she really acquitted herself well on the campaign trail. I mean, Ted Kennedy told me, you know, there was nothing like Jackie. When Jackie was out there, people just loved her and she loved them back. But it wasn't natural for her. She had to actually work at that. Whereas some people like Michelle Obama, even Lady Bird Johnson, I mean, some first ladies, they were just naturally like that. some first ladies, they were just naturally like that. But Jackie was more like Melania Trump, I think, in the sense that this was not her natural leaning. Her natural leaning was more private. And Jackie had to really work hard to be that girl when she was actually this girl.

Yeah, I can. That's again, speaking to your previous point that we can all find things to relate to. That's something that I totally relate to. And you can tell obviously that she did put a tremendous amount of effort into her public persona, like the amount of work she put into the White House and the events at the White House and wanting to elevate things to this level. It was important to her to do the job well, even if it was not her first nature. You can tell that she really did care about it and wanted to reflect well, not just on the country, but around the world. She wanted her job to reflect well on her husband and reflect well on the United States. I can imagine it was really like that took a lot out of her to like perform at that level.

Because when you're that introverted, in some ways, it is a performance. You're so right. It's performance art. For a person like Jackie, she was always performing. And it is interesting that even when she was out of the White House, and all eyes were on her still still because she was never really a private person, just by virtue of her celebrity. She was always sort of in performance mode when she was out in the world. And I had the opportunity to see her privately in her office at Doubleday when she wasn't out in the world. But I also had a chance to see her out in the world. And I had an opportunity to actually do this very rare thing, which was be in an elevator with her and watch

the transformation occur from the top floor at Doubleday down to the lobby, where she would get into the elevator and she would be effusive and wonderful and talking. She would talk with her hands and she would lean into you and just be with you. The elevator would open and she would talk with her hands and she would lean into you and she'd just be with you. The elevator would open and she would get this glaze. Her whole thing was you cannot make eye contact with any of these people because as soon as you make eye contact, it's all over. So she would walk in and she would put her sunglasses on. That's why she wore sunglasses. And she would just look straight ahead because she knew that everybody in the elevator was staring at her. Like there's no way that these people were not staring at her. They're all staring at her and she's just staring straight ahead, waiting for

this to just be over. The elevator door is open. She walked back out and then she would be who she is. But in that confined space with people, she would be that other Jackie O, the Jackie O, as opposed to Jacqueline Onassis. How did she and Jack meet? How did she and JFK meet each other? Well, they met at a cocktail party at the Kennedy's Mansion in Palm Beach. Jackie and Lee were down there. And Jackie didn't hit it off with JFK.

Lee did. And Lee and JFK had a little bit of a spark. Lee was only 19. JFK was in his early 30s. And Jackie's mom and Lee's mom, Janet, she felt very strongly that Jackie was the one who needed to get settled. I say settled in quotes because that's what women were supposed to do in the 1950s. Getting settled meant get married and have kids and just be settled so we don't have to worry about you.

Right. Because single women cannot just be out here on their own. You got to be attached to something or somebody. Yes. Otherwise, the mom is going to be very concerned about you and people will talk. You could be considered a spinster by 23 right Jackie was about 23 and so Janet said look I know that he's interested in Lee but I think that you need to work harder like don't be that girl who doesn't want to see a person for another year be a different girl with him and so another another date was set. And this time Jackie worked harder to

bring JFK in. And JFK and Jackie ended up together. And, you know, Lee never really got past that. And then later, Jackie ended up with Onassis, who Lee had dated first. You know, so people often ask me about this competition between the two sisters. And I always say it really wasn't a competition in the sense that Jackie didn't have to compete. You know, Lee was competing, but Jackie was just living her life. And these pieces always seem to fall together for Jackie, whereas they didn't for Lee. Did it cause resentment between them? Was there a wedge in their relationship as sisters? There was definitely a wedge. And Janet fostered it without realizing it, the mom, because when they were little girls,

Janet used to tell them, you cannot compete with each other. You are all that you will ever have in this world. And I will not allow you to compete. And then after giving that speech, she would take Jackie out for tea and leave Lee at home by herself. And so without Jackie really doing much, Lee began to resent Jackie and the attention that Jackie got from their mom. And then that started this competition that really did last their entire lives. And when Jackie kept ending up with the eligible men, the two most important men in Jackie's life had first been Lee's. That's hard to take. And Lee carried it with her for her entire life. Do you think that Jackie had any inkling about JFK's political aspirations and that she rubber-stamped them, like co-sign, like, I'm down to marry you. I hope someday you will be president.

I hope you'll be a senator. I can't wait to live that life with you. Or was she dragged along behind his ambition? I love the way you put that, dragged along behind his ambition, because that's kind of the way it was. It wasn't so much that she was dragged, though. She didn't necessarily encourage it, but she didn't discourage it. It was his life. And it was a different time. but she didn't discourage it. It was his life. And it was a different time. It was a time when women in the 1950s, they sort of more accepted their lot in life. And if they were marrying

somebody who was going to be a senator, they were okay with that, even if they weren't okay with it. It's more a function, I think, of 1970s feminism, where a woman might sit down with a man and say, 1970s feminism where a woman might sit down with a man and say, I'm not sure I want this life. In the 1950s, women didn't necessarily do that. I wrote a book about the Bush women, Laura and Barbara. And Barbara told me that he didn't even consult with her when he decided to become president. There was not any decision- making between Barbara and George Bush. Every step along the way that he took, he took it without even telling her about it. And she didn't demand that she be told. That never happened in Barbara's marriage. It happened in Laura's marriage. I mean, they were a team, but that was a different generation. And Laura was a product of 70s feminism,

whereas Barbara was a product of 1940s sort of traditionalism. So I love writing about women in this respect, because I think that it gives people something to sort of understand and hold on to and think about their own marriages and think about a time when women weren't brought into the discussion. Yeah. They didn't have the agency at the time to be like, hold on, this is a family business. Like if we're going to move to Washington, DC, I'm going to be the unpaid first lady of the United States, which is a full-time job that you get no compensation for. Then we need to talk about it. They didn't have the agency during

Barbara Bush's time or Jackie's time, clearly, to be able to say, I want to say in this matter. And you know, what's interesting is that if you're the kind of person that Jackie was, she was very independent, and she didn't want to be an adjunct to JFK. She became one, but she didn't really want that. And she went into the White House determined to do something to distinguish herself. And she did distinguish herself because she worked hard to restore the White House. And she spent her entire time at the White House with that as her mandate, doing something that was separate and apart from her husband's work. And, you know, since that time, First Ladies have taken on these tasks. I think that it's

interesting, Jackie's really kind of started this, you know, take on something that means something to you, so that you don't spend your entire time just standing behind your husband at press conferences. Lady Bird Johnson then took on the challenge of beautifying America. Lady Bird Johnson's mandate was flowers and gardens, not just in the White House. She took what Jackie did with the Jacqueline Kennedy Rose Garden, and she wanted that to be her mandate for the country. And then Nancy Reagan's mandate was say no to drugs. She worked really hard to educate people about drug culture. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody actually verbalize it the way you did. First ladies don't get paid. So if you're going to drag me into the White House

for a job that doesn't get paid, we should talk about it. Yeah, let's just let's discuss and let's be on the same page. Yeah, it seems like today that's a no-brainer. Of course you need the support of your wife, or someday you're going to need the support of your husband. But as of now, you've always needed the support of your wife, and it's a team effort. Because your first lady can be a huge asset or a huge liability for you,

depending on how things shake out. or a huge liability for you, there's love in every glass. Dairy Farmers of Ontario, from our families to your table, everybody milk. Visit milk.org to learn more. Interior Chinatown is an all-new series based on the best-selling novel by Charles Yu about a struggling Asian actor who gets a bigger part than he expected when he witnesses a crime in Chinatown. Streaming November 19th only on Disney+. Amazon's Black Friday week starts November 21st with new deals added every day. Save on home goods to deck their halls, toys to stuff their sockets, and fashion like slippers to mistle their toes. Shop great deals on Amazon. One of the things that's always been interesting to me about Jacqueline is that she lost more than

one baby. And that had to be really such a challenging thing to do in the public eye, such a challenging thing to like, what is the right thing to say and do in this moment? How do I navigate this with eyes watching me? And I wondered if you have any insight into that. Well, again, you know, this is a very interesting subject because it's also of a time and place. Jackie had a stillbirth in the 1950s. And then in the 1960s, she gave birth to a boy, Patrick, who died within, I think, 12 hours. Back then, women kind of blamed themselves. They wondered what they did to make this happen. Jamie Auchincloss, Jackie's half-brother, said that, you know, nobody knew how to deal with Patrick's death.

to say to each other. And then later you didn't know what to say to her. And it wasn't cruelty as much as it was just not understanding and being aware of how to handle this kind of thing. So Jackie came from that time and place where she didn't know how to handle it herself. And then others didn't know how to address it. You know, it had to be tremendously traumatic to lose Patrick. And then she had, you know, medical issues, was in the hospital for a very long time after his birth, by today's standards, when you're out of there in less than 48 hours. And as you mentioned, couldn't go to his funeral. It had to be very traumatic that she felt like there was nothing she could do. Patrick was moved to different

medical facility, all these things. Did that contribute in your mind to some of the PTSD that she carried throughout her life? Of course, you'd have PTSD of your husband being shot immediately next to you. But to what extent, if any, did she ever talk about it? It seems like she just dealt with so much loss in such a short period of time. Jack Kennedy was assassinated shortly after Patrick's death. And it's sort of like PTSD over PTSD over PTSD. I mean, I think you get to a point where you don't know what the cause is anymore. You just know what the result is.

People didn't understand PTSD back then. Just pull yourself together, stiff upper lip, which is a very Kennedy trait. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just get on with your life. Well, that's easier said than done when you're suffering from PTSD. And those people who are suffering from it had to suffer in silence. It was also the time of the advent of pharmaceuticals that could help you deal with some of these issues. Like, take the sleeping pills. This will take the edge off. Half the women of that time, I would say, but they were on speed and didn't know it. Mother's little helper.

Yes. Well, Janet used to say to Jamie, Jamie, go in the kitchen and get me my pills. My diet pills are wearing off right now, right? Like if she got stressed, she wouldn't took more, more speed. And Jackie too, Jackie was on all kinds of stuff. I mean, these women back then were being prescribed by their doctors, all kinds of stuff. And then, you know, like if that made you feel too jittery, take a Valium. You got problems with your nerves, you know, like calm those nerves down. Just take a Valium. They were viewed as

extremely safe and super useful, especially for women who, of course, women have so many emotions and the best way to deal with the emotions is to just use this. It'll make it better. That was the culture at the time of like, don't talk about the dead babies, wash your face, get dressed, start acting like you got a purpose in life, stop moping around the house. And if you got to take pills to get through life, then that's what you got to do. Well, yeah, you're so right. And that's why I love telling these stories, because this is what biography is for me. It's trying to understand human conditions and then trying to understand how far we've come. And in some cases, how much farther we have to go as a society. Even when it comes to infidelity in marriage, there's another story in my book where Jackie

was just so done with JFK's infidelity at one point. And she was just done with it. And she went back to her mom and it was an anniversary party that was planned. And Jackie was feeling blue and kind of depressed and not really in a mood to celebrate the anniversary, considering what was going on in the marriage. And Janet told her, she said, you know, you have just got to pull yourself together. You know, you have a responsibility to your husband to be a good wife. And this is a big party and you have to host this. But there wasn't a lot of sympathy for people to feel their feels back then. Right. It wasn't like, how dare he, Jackie, of course, cancel the party. What a scum. Like that wasn't the attitude. It was, you have an obligation. People are on their way. You need to be a good wife.

And you can deal with that behind closed doors. But right now, pull it together. Yes. And the 70s feminism movement changed a lot of that. But this isn't to say that this isn't still going on in people's households. Of course. I'm sure that this is still, unfortunately, the case in a lot of households. And if it is true that this is the case in a lot of households, at least those people can look back in history and realize that they're not alone.

And also maybe can figure out that it doesn't have to be this way. It didn't have to be that way in the 1960s either. But we didn't know any better. And now that we do know better, maybe it might enlighten women to, you know, get out of a bad marriage. Jackie in the 1970s felt very badly about not advising Joan Kennedy, Ted Kennedy's wife, to ditch Ted. When Joan Kennedy came to Jackie in the 1960s and said, my husband is cheating on me. What should I do? Jackie's advice to Joan Kennedy was, you've got to create a life for yourself outside of this Kennedy life. Do something said, my husband is cheating on me. What should I do? Jackie's advice to Joan Kennedy was,

you've got to create a life for yourself outside of this Kennedy life. Do something that will make you happy and make you feel fulfilled, as I am doing with this restoration of the White House. In the 1970s, Jackie felt that that was bad advice. In the 1970s, Jackie felt what she was prescribing was, find something to distract yourself from your bad advice. In the 1970s, Jackie felt what she was prescribing was find something to distract yourself from your bad marriage. She didn't see it that way in the 60s, but she did see it that way in the 70s. And in the 70s, when Joan Kennedy, who was still married to Ted, came back to Jackie and said, he's still cheating on me. It's been 10 years. What do I do? Jackie said, call my divorce lawyer. Here's his number. Get divorced. That's what you should do.

She didn't tell her to distract herself with some hobby. People change with the passing of the years. And I just love to watch that growth in character that I'm writing about. I always think what's interesting in my books is that the people are not the same at the beginning as they are at the end. That a journey occurs and people change and sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse but hopefully for the better and when you get that transition in a person's life that full circle that full arc that's golden for

me as a biographer i want to talk a a little bit about Jackie's life after leaving Washington, because we tend, you know, like our knowledge of her tends to be, yeah, then she got on the plane and flew back to the White House. There was a funeral and there was a riderless horse with the boats turned around backwards. And her son grew up to be super handsome. And she married a billionaire. That tends to be what we know. And then her son died in a plane crash. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would love to know more though about the post-Washington Jackie. Where did she move to after she left the White House? She moved to a couple of homes in Washington temporarily.

And then before the year was out, she moved to New York City. And she moved to the place that she lived in until the day she died. So she moved to New York to 1040 Fifth Avenue. And she lived there for 29 years. She married Aristotle Onassis in 1968 after she ended it with Jack Warnicke, the man who designed the gravesite at Arlington. A lot of people in her family didn't feel she was in her right mind when she married Onassis. She was still struggling from PTSD, not only over JFK, but then Bobby Kennedy was killed in June of 68. And Jackie then at that

point, she said, if they're coming after Kennedy's, my children are next. And so she felt that she needed the protection that only someone like Aristotle and Assis could give her. And also the wealth. After JFK died, the Kennedys did not take care of Jackie financially. And she really had to figure out a way forward for herself and her children. The influence of her mom came to bear in those years because her mother had the same situation when she was divorced from Jackie's father, Jack Bouvier. Janet didn't have money and she needed to find a way to support herself and her two children. And so she married Hugh Auchincloss, who was fabulously rich. And it's not that she didn't love him.

It's just that she did have a practical reason for marrying him. And then Jackie mirrored that decision when she married Onassis. It wasn't that she didn't love him. It's just that I think it would stretch to say that she was in love with him. She was in love with JFK. She would not have married him if he had nothing. She said that herself. She said, if he was just a plumber working in New Jersey, I would not have married him. People have real judgment about that. They think that, wow, she was a gold digger. How dare she marry Onassis when she didn't love him?

Well, you know, they made a deal. Like I wrote in the book, they had an arrangement. Grown people are allowed to make agreements with each other and it's not anybody's business. Jackie said it best herself when she said, the only two people who know what goes on in a marriage are the two people in it. And I think that that really says it all. Her deal with Onassis was really very clear from the beginning. He gets to live his life. He gets to continue his affair with Maria Callas, and she gets to live her life. And she gets the money that she needs, and the protection that she needs. And she's with him at his side when he needs her to be. But other than that, she was

living in New York, in her own place, going to Greece in the summers to his private island. And she was very happy with it. And he was too for a time until a time came when he felt like she was getting more out of the deal than he got. And I wrote all about that in the book. Sometimes these agreements that you make with people work, but they don't continue to work as you grow apart. And that's what happened with Jackie and Ari. This idea that women should marry well, that's not a new idea from the 1960s. That has literally

been an idea for hundreds or thousands of years. Women didn't have agency. Women didn't have their own careers. It was literally a practical matter of, can this person care for me? Can this person take care of me? And in Jackie's case, because she was so famous and because she perceived a true threat to her children's lives, of course, her decision calculus about who to marry is much different than mine might be today. Of course she's not going to marry a plumber from New Jersey and then watch her kids get assassinated. She's a grown woman. She can marry who she wants. She prioritized feeling safe

for financial reasons, for her children's safety. She prioritized feeling safe over feeling like that tremendous romantic connection. She already had that. And look how it turned out. Now I'm choosing safe. Can you fault her for that? I can't. I can't fault her for that. Why can't Jackie live in her nice apartment in New York and let her husband just go off and do what he wants? Why can't Jackie do what she wants at this point? I want to ask about Jackie's book publishing career. And I found the chapters about Michael Jackson really interesting and about Jackie's own interest in the topic of biography. You mentioned how she hated all of these biographies that were written about her. I can totally like, I've never had a biography written about me, but man, I would not

like it. I can tell you right now. Nope. Don't, I don't want it. Don't write one about me. I can absolutely imagine how I would feel if I were her. And so I want to hear more about, first of all, how did she decide that she wants to work a double day? She doesn't have to because she's married to a billionaire. What makes her decide to do that? Well, you know, she started her publishing career at Viking Press in New York in 1973. It's about 10 years after JFK was assassinated. And she just felt like, wow, you know, I need to do something with my life.

She had been living in darkness for so long. And her stepbrother, Yusha Auchincloss, said, you know, why don't you work at a publishing company? And she said, you know, well, why not? And so she contacted somebody who knew somebody else. And she got this job working as an editor at Viking Press for like no money. But it wasn't about money. It was just about finding fulfillment. And then she ended up at Doubleday. And then she stayed at Doubleday for almost 20 years. And that's where I met her. And she was a really, really good editor, because she loved stories. She had like the biggest and most grand story that there ever was.

But when she became an editor, she was no longer that young girl who would say, let's get together in a year. She became a different person as a book editor. As a book editor, she wanted to know more and she wanted to know who you were. When I spent any time with her at all, all she wanted to know was more about me. She loved stories. Your book title, Public Private Secret, it's obvious what is public about Jackie. It's also easier to see what's private about her, her family life, and some of her personal decisions and things of that nature. We talked about the death

of her two babies. That's private to her. She was not out in public talking about those things. What would you view as things in Jackie's life that were secret? Well, I definitely think the PTSD that she suffered for her entire life falls into the secret category because people really didn't know about that. And she really didn't talk about it to many people. The title of my book comes from John Warnicke, the man that she dated for three years and then remained friends with until her death. But they were talking about their relationship. This is around the time of her 60th birthday and she left warneke for for onassis and he never understood why onassis he understood the money but he didn't understand the personal

connection and she didn't want to explain it to him either it's almost like you know you don't want to explain to the guy that you left for somebody else too much about that decision right you know you just you know just like don't ask me about that let's just you know change the subject and she told him oh jack you know me i have three lives public private and secret and when i heard that on my on the tape you know i mean i did that interview a few years ago and i forgot about that line until i played back that tape for this book and And I thought, wow, that's a book title right there. Also falling into the secret though, was the way that she cared for her mom during her mom's Alzheimer's was something I think surprises a lot of people when they read it in this book. She spent 10 years caring for her mother

and she did it without anybody knowing about it. It never made headlines. It was a very private battle that Jackie did not discuss with others. And people, even at Double Day, who worked with her during this time, they didn't know that she was working there on the weekdays and then spending her weekends in Newport caring for her mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer's. And making it even more complex, Janet took a third husband during her Alzheimer's years against Jackie's wishes because Jackie just didn't think she was in her right mind to marry. And then Janet began to complain to Jackie that this man, whose name was Bingham Morris, was abusing her, was guilty of elder abuse. And people in the family didn't know if it was Janet's mind playing tricks on her

because of the Alzheimer's, or if this guy actually was abusing her. I interviewed Janet's doctor, who felt like he did not see any signs of abuse, Janet's own doctor. And I think that what's interesting about this story is that Jackie didn't care what anybody said. Jackie didn't care about the evidence. Jackie didn't care about anything. If her mother says she was being abused by this man, that was all Jackie needed to know to be number one, done with this guy. And number two,

she did everything she could think of to get rid of him and get him out of the house. And she was unsuccessful at that, but she worked at it for a long time. And this battle between Jackie and her stepfather was a very complicated thing because you didn't know if Janet was imagining these things or whether these things were happening. And people in the family were split and divided over it. But I love what I love about the whole story is that Jackie didn't care about any of it. All she cared about was that if her mother says that this is happening, then it's happening. It's real to her. Yeah, real to her. And that was the end of it for Jackie. And that's the kind of thing that I've never read that in any Jackie book, you know, and I've read a hundred Jackie books. And I tried with this book to bring to light these private and secretive

moments that I think really tell the story of a woman's total experience. And in a way that is surprising and different than what you might've read in another Jackie book. That was my goal. You achieved the goal. I've been learning about the Kennedys for two decades. And there were definitely things in this book that I was like, didn't know that. That's really interesting. So I really do think you did a fantastic job highlighting aspects of her life that are not part of the White House Historical Society. Not that there's anything wrong with the White House Historical Society.

It's a great, great organization. But there's way more to her life. She was only in the White House for a organization. But there's way more to her life. She was only in the White House for a couple years. There's way more to her life than her time as First Lady. And I think you did a great job of really helping me better understand who she was as a person. I really appreciate your time today. This was a super interesting conversation. And I really enjoyed reading your book and appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. I love talking to you. You brought a couple of things to the table that I think I'm going to think about after this interview. That's what this is all about. What can

we learn? And how does it change our perception of not only the person that you're reading about, but maybe a little bit about ourselves too. So thank you for that. Thanks, Randy. maybe a little bit about ourselves too, you know, so thank you for that. Thanks, Brandy. You can buy Jackie, Public Private Secret, wherever you like to get your books. I'm telling you, you will learn a lot about one of America's best known first ladies from this book. It's very, very readable. I think you're really going to enjoy it. Thanks for being here today. very readable. I think you're really going to enjoy it. Thanks for being here today. The show is hosted and executive produced by me, Sharon McMahon. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite

podcast platform. And if you could leave us a review or share this episode on social media, those things help podcasters out so much. Thanks for being here today.