The Kennedys: After Camelot, Ep. 5 -- Ethel

When her husband Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin right before her eyes in June 1968, Ethel was pregnant with their 11th child.

At the time, Ethel could not imagine a life without Bobby — the man she had devoted her entire life to for 18 years. Bobby was her soulmate; her everything. “I love Bobby through eternity,” she once told future suitor Andy Williams. “Do you know how long eternity is? Well, it’s a hundred times longer than you think it is.”

Although Ethel would try to date other men after Bobby’s death, it soon became clear enough to all of them that no one could ever replace Bobby in her heart, or her home.

And why would any man in his right mind want to take over the immense challenge of playing father to 11 kids, several of whom were now unruly teenage boys partaking in drugs and constantly getting themselves into trouble?

It was a big ask of any man who might be thinking of marrying #RFK’s widow, and a huge, heavy cross for Ethel to bear all by herself, but — that’s how she wanted it to be. It was a choice Ethel made not to seek another husband, to remain loyal to Bobby’s memory and raise their children as best she could.

As a result, Ethel’s Hickory Hill home was a literal zoo (mainly due to RFK Jr.’s fascination with exotic animals kept as family pets). Her children were rarely disciplined, and were mostly raised by each other and an ever-changing array of nannies.

Ethel seemed to find it impossible to control her large brood — especially the oldest boys Joe, Bobby Jr., and David. Nothing she tried worked, so she often resorted to the ultimate in “tough love": physical beatings, emotional abuse, and throwing them out of the house; threatening to disown them and cut them off of their family inheritances.

The assassinations of their father and uncle #JFK, combined with the abuse and neglect their mother subjected them to during their youth would leave lasting, lifetime scars on the eldest sons, especially David, who died of a drug overdose in 1983, and Bobby Jr. — current Secretary of Health and Human Services for President Trump — who was a heroin addict for 14 years.

The rift between #RFKJr. and Ethel never healed; she reportedly refused to see him on her deathbed and cut Bobby Jr. out of her will. Secretary #Kennedy was also shunned by his siblings at Ethel’s funeral, as revealed in a recent New York Magazine cover story.

In Ep. 5, we will read and discuss this chapter about Ethel’s struggles in the immediate aftermath of RFK’s assassination from J. Randy Tarraborrelli’s book “The #Kennedys: After #Camelot.”

Listen to every episode of “The Kennedys: After Camelot” series here.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXBcSYiYQxlfmKsmC90spusOEuGehKdp7&si=Sy1Tm1THhSTsrxD_