a New York Times Bestseller
Delivers the last word on one of the most famous women in the world
“Taraborrelli’s nearly 25 years of research and interviewing sheds new light on every phase of Jacqueline Bouvier’s life … An absorbing and comprehensive account of one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century.”
— Kirkus
“Readable and deeply researched, it’s a refreshingly complex portrait of a woman too often defined by her relationships with men. Readers who enjoyed the author’s other Kennedy biographies will not be able to put this down.“
– Publishers Weekly
Jacqueline Bouvier is one of the most written about and least known women of a generation.
Years after her death, her enthralling story continues to be told through the lens of its most famous, sensational, and tragic pieces. While exhaustive books and films have been produced about those public pieces of her story—the marriage to presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy, the horror of his assassination and its aftermath, the diaphanous dalliances with shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis—the full, complete tale of the personal, private life she led before, after, and beyond that public story has never been written.
Now, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed Kennedy historian J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Jackie, Janet & Lee, delivers an exhaustive biography of one of the most influential women of modern political history, a towering figure who continues to fascinate millions of people all over the world. Jackie – Public, Private, Secret is the complete story of the life and times of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis—the woman who became most famously known as just Jackie.
Jackie : Public, Private, Secret
Available Wherever Books Are Sold: 7/18/23
The Kennedys loom so large in Jackie’s history that the story of her own family—the Bouviers and Auchinclosses—has never been fully explored.
She grew up the privileged member of a wealthy family, the daughter of a titanic mother figure Janet who held court with her children as if they were royals. At age fourteen, Jackie developed a close, moving relationship with Hugh Auchincloss, a beloved stepfather who mentored her and her siblings in the years to come. Taraborrelli carefully reconstructs these stories and introduces us to people rarely, or even in some cases, never written about: Jackie’s sister, Lee and enigmatic half-sister, Janet Jr., whose relationship with a young John Kerry Jackie opposed; her gay half-brother, Jamie, and how the family dealt with his sexual orientation; her stepbrother Yusha, whose love for Jackie was forced to go unrequited; her natural father Jack Bouvier, whose life Jackie tried to save in vain; and her fight later on to protect her mother from elder abuse.
Jackie’s larger-than-life romance with JFK is often told one- dimensionally as just that, but it is far more complicated than previously known. She got cold feet on the morning of their wedding. She didn’t want to move into the White House after he got elected and developed a plan to avoid it altogether. She loved him, but at every turn was forced to live with his infidelities, in turn developing close relationships with other men such as John Warnecke who would play crucial roles in her life after JFK’s assassination.
Finally, after 50 years of rumor and innuendo, Taraborrelli reveals the complete truth about JFK’s relationship with Marilyn Monroe. He also tells the story for the first time of the one conversation Jackie had with her, her reaction to Marilyn’s death, and how she ended up in therapy with Marilyn’s psychiatrist. For the first time, readers will learn how Jackie and her family made the decision to not have her attend the Madison Garden celebration during which Marilyn sang “Happy Birthday” to the President, and what they did that evening, instead.
For the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination, the author also breaks new ground about Jackie’s private moments at the White House in the aftermath of the President’s murder, when she was surrounded by friends, foes … and Aristotle Onassis. We learn the full story of her relationship with Onassis, a telling packed with new discoveries:
- Jackie was facing a financial crisis after JFK died, and the Kennedy family did not provide her with the safety net she wanted. Enter Aristotle Onassis.
- An Onassis family member was instrumental in Jackie’s marriage to Aristotle—his formidable eldest sister, Artemus Garofalidis—who collaborated with Jackie to make her Mrs. Onassis.
- People have assumed that Onassis cheated on Jackie, but Taraborrelli reveals that this was the agreement they had—there would be no intimacy in their marriage—an agreement that closely mirrors the one her mother Janet made with her stepfather Hugh Auchincloss.
Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, family and lovers over 25-years of research—as well as previously unreleased papers from the JFK Library, including diaries and oral histories— Taraborrelli paints an unforgettable, brand-new portrait of a woman whose flaws and contradictions only serve to make her all the more iconic. Taraborrelli has written four previous books about the Kennedys, two of which have gone on to become New York Times’ bestsellers, and two—Jackie, Ethel, Joan- Women of Camelot and The Kennedys After Camelot—became highly-rated TV miniseries. The author is currently writing the screenplay for an upcoming series based on Jackie.
“I have three lives,” Jackie told one of Taraborrelli’s trusted sources (her suitor and acclaimed architect), John Warnecke. “Public, private and secret.” In Jackie – Public, Private, Secret, J. Randy Taraborrelli’s first cradle-to-grave biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, readers will become intimately familiar with all three.