The Kennedy Family Curse

Beautiful Rosemary Kennedy was the daughter of prominent businessman Joe Kennedy Sr. She had a lot of options, privilege and potential. Unfortunately, dear Rose also had the mental capacity of a twelve year old.



Since childhood, she'd always been slow and had to be in special education. As she grew up and realized how different she was from others, Rosemary became aggressive and angry with violent mood swings. Her father Joe Sr couldn't handle it so he forced her to get a lobotomy after she snuck out of the convent she was cared for in.



For those of y'all who don't know what a lobotomy is, it's when doctors do surgery on your brain and destroy all connections to your prefrontal cortex. So basically the most important portion of your brain goes down the shithole.



The harrowing procedure in detail:

"We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped."



She was only 23 and her life was already ruined. For the rest of her days she was severely disabled and died and the age of 86 in 2005

“Luminousy pretty and round-faced, with a widow’s peak, dark brows, and a great smile that dimpled her cheeks , Rosemary was the sibling with whom all the others were unfailingly gentle. Her affliction, diagnosed as mental retardation, left her struggling to comprehend things as quickly and as clearly as other people. She was a sweet and loving human being”

~ Her brother Ted Kennedy, ‘True Compass’

Brave Naval aviator Joe Kennedy Jr was the son of a very wealthy man and could've obviously dodged the draft and stayed in his comfy existence as a student of law in Harvard. But instead of cowardice, Joe joined the army in his last year of law school to fight in WWII.



Joe had already completed 2 years of service and flown 25 combat missions and was eligible to leave and go home. Instead he stayed and chose to fly Operation Aphrodite. Bad idea, because his plane was shot down over East Suffolk, England. He died at the premature age of 29.

Endearing Jackie, first lady of the White House in the 3 short years her husband was in office, gave birth to 2 stillborn children. The first was a daughter Arabella, the second was Patrick Bouvier Kennedy who was premature and died after 2 days.

Presumably the most famous and iconic of all the Kennedys, John F was the fortunate son and the hope of America. Millions were overjoyed he was elected in 1961. JFK was young, good looking and charismatic, unlike his predecessor Eisenhower. He also cared deeply about civil rights and was very idealistic.



Unfortunately, his term was cut short when he was shot and killed in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald in a parade. There was another shooter, but no one knows who it was (except for the conspirators of course). All of the USA mourned the day JFK died and he was succeeded by his VP Lyndon Johnson.

Massachussets Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy seems to have had the most troubled life out of all the Kennedys.



On June 19, 1964 Ted got into a plane crash in which one of his aides and the pilots died in. Luckily his friend Birch E Bayh II dragged him out from the wreckage.



Ted was badly injured though, with a broken back, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding.



The pain and misery didn't end there. On July 18, 1969, the Chappaquiddick incident happened. Ted was ridiculed for his whole life and career because of this.



Ted was (supposedly) driving pretty Mary Jo Kopechne home in the middle of the night when he accidentally drove off a bridge and crashed into the river below. Ted survived and swam to the surface, but Mary Jo did not survive.



Instead of calling the police, Ted left the scene and lounged around for 9 hours. He only reported to the cops after they'd already found the submerged car themselves. The diver who went to recover Mary Jo's body testified that if Ted had called the police immediately, he would've been able to save her life. The Chappaquiddick incident quickly turned into a nationwide scandal.



Ted's wife had a miscarriage and the scandal resulted in him in not being able to run for president. People also wondered whether he was actually just "driving Mary Jo home" at the time because the body was found with no panties on and Mary Jo had left her hotel keys and purse at the party they'd come from. His wife must've been seriously pissed off.



Ted himself said that he wondered "if some awful curse actually did hang over all the Kennedys" Well good thing for Ted that he didn't go to jail for this horrendous mishap. Kennedys never go to prison.

In many ways, RFK was a lot like his brother JFK. They were both empathetic liberals who campaigned for revolutionary change. John's death was already heartbreaking enough. It was a huge shocker of a coincidence that Robert would be assassinated, just like his bro.



RFK ran for prez in 1968, to finish the job that his late sibling was not able to do, and he met his fateful end on June 5th of that year.



He was giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. when he was shot by a 24 yr old Palestinian nut named Sirhan Sirhan who'd been hiding in the kitchen passageway. He was hit 3 times, and 5 other audience members were injured.



Even to the end, RFK cared only about others, his last words being "Is everyone all right?" He was only 42 years old.

Joe Kennedy Number 2, named after his air bomber grandfather, is the son of Robert. Joseph surely inherited his dad's ill fortune.



On February 23, 1972, Joe was on Lufthansa Flight 649 New Delhi to Athens when it was hijacked by armed gunmen. Luckily they weren't too crazed because they ordered the plane to be landed in Yemen, where they let all 172 passengers go.



Lucky getting out of that one huh? Not for Pam Kelley though, because in August 1973 Joe drove a Jeep carrying her and his brother David and crashed it. The impact overturned the car and broke one of his brother's vertebrae. Pam wasn't so lucky because she was permanently paralyzed. The Kennedys had to pay for all her medical care, and again, no one was jailed.

Ted Jr, obviously no duh son of Ted Sr, had to have his right leg amputated due to bone cancer in 1973.

On Oct 30, 1975, Michael Skakel, nephew of RFK's widow, murdered his 15 year old neighbour Martha Moxley. He raped and then killed her with a golf club. Michael's brother (first in the pic) Thomas was blamed because he had a weak alibi and was Martha's boyfriend. But Michael had a stupid alibi in which he claimed he was masturbating and peeping windows when the murder happened. He told another guy, "I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy."



But he wasn't a Kennedy by blood relation, so after much trial and controversy, Michael was finally convicted and sentenced for Martha's murder on June 7, 2002 and was only given 20 years. He'll be eligible for parole in 2017.

David Kennedy, 4th son of RFK, always had a tragic life. When he was 12 years old, he nearly drowned on a Malibu beach but was saved by his father. Later when Robert was assasinated, David was deeply disturbed by it and began to take drugs. He became a heroin addict and alcholic.



In 1984 David overdose on Cocaine, Demerol and Mellaril in a Florida hotel room. He was only 28.

William is the son of Jean Kennedy Smith, daughter of Joe Kennedy Sr. In 1991 he was charged with the rape of 29 yr old Patricia Bowman. William met her at a Florida bar and raped her by the beach. 3 other women who claimed William raped them in separate incidents in the 80s volunteered to testify, but they were turned down and William was acquitted.



In 1993, William punched out a Chicago bouncer. In 1999, William took home a woman who he bought drinks for in a bar and raped her. When he was done, she claimed he smirked and said "Happy birthday!" What a fuckface. He was sued for sexual harassment in 2004 and 2005 but denied that the incidents ever happened and settled out of court.

Michael Kennedy, 6th son of RFK, died in December 1997 in a skiing accident. He was playing football on skis with other Kennedys when he hit a tree and died because he wasn't wearing a helmet.



Mike was only 39.

JFK Jr, handsome and prolific son of (DUH) JFK Sr, was a man about town socialte, magazine publisher, lawyer and pilot. He lived a life of great glamour and fame, mostly because of his incredibly good looks.




Like hot damn, he was attractive! Anyways, he met a rather depressing end when the plane he was flying over Martha's Vineyard crashed in July 16, 1999. Factors like John Jr's injured foot and the lack of visibility caused the crash. His wife and sister in law died too.



John Jr was only 38.

Not really sure why this is considered as part of the curse, but Kara, daughter of Ted, collapsed while exercising and died of a heart attack on September 16, 2011. She was 51, which is not too bad considering how young the other Kennedys died.

On May 16, 2012 Mary Kennedy, wife of RFK Jr, committed suicide by hanging. She'd been plagued by depression and alcohol issues for the better part of her life and finally gave in.



This is the most recent incident, but who knows, there'll probably be more Kennedy tragedies over the next few years.