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THE Kennedys are one of the most powerful and influential families in the world.
But a so-called Kennedy curse has long plagued the clan, as many of the descendants of Joseph Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy have fallen to untimely deaths.
What is the Kennedy curse?
The Kennedy curse refers to the the string of unfortunate events and tragedies surrounding the Kennedy family.
It stemmed from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, as well as the plane crash that took the life of John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1999.
The public then probed into the tragedies that occurred in the family, leading to the discovery that there had been a recurrence of premature deaths spanning multiple generations.
Where did the term originate?
According to The Kennedy Heirs author J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ted Kennedy coined the term ” Kennedy curse. “
While he asserted that the family did not believe that such a curse existed, Ted alluded to it after the infamous Chappaquiddick incident, when he drove his car off a bridge, leading to the death of a woman named Mary Jo Kopechne.
“It was Ted Kennedy who came up with the concept of the curse after Chappaquiddick, when he was giving his public address — and said he wondered if perhaps that explained the terrible things that had happened to the family, including the death of Mary Jo Kopechne,” Taraborrelli told People.
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“And after that, the Kennedy curse became this sort of wide-ranging explanation for a lot of things that were happening. But when things got rough for them, I think they slipped into wondering if maybe there really was some kind of curse.”
Which members have been impacted by the supposed curse?
Aside from President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy Jr., the Kennedy family has experienced several more untimely deaths.
In 1944, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the oldest of the Kennedy siblings, died at 29 years old while carrying out a secret mission in World War II.
Four years later, his sister, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, met a similarly untimely end in a plane crash at just 28 years old.
In 1984, Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy’s 28-year-old son David was found dead in Palm Beach, Florida, succumbing to a drug overdose. He reportedly grappled with his father’s gruesome death all his life, leading to a dependence on illegal substances.
Tragedy struck again in 1997, when his brother, Michael Kennedy, passed away at 39 years old due to a skiing accident in Colorado on New Year’s Eve.
More recently, Saoirse Kennedy Hill died in 2019 at age 22 at Kennedy’s famous Hyannis Port compound due to an accidental drug overdose.
A year later, 40-year-old Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean and her 8-year-old son Gideon tragically died after a canoeing accident.
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