PoliticsJackie and Ethel Kennedy's Final Moments Together Were 'Beautiful, Peaceful and Loving,' Shares Kerry Kennedy
Ethel and Jackie Kennedy were close throughout their lives, Ethel's daughter Kerry revealed.
Oct. 19 2026, Published 3:01 p.m. ET
Neither Jacquelyn Kennedy nor Ethel Kennedy was born into the nation’s most famous political family, but the wives of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, respectively, came to personify the Camelot myth long after their husbands were gone. And now, Ethel’s daughter Kerry Kennedy is revealing the close bond the two shared in her recently published a biography of her mother, Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy.
Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, had 11 children.
“In the 1950s, Daddy and my mother and Uncle Jack shared a house together in Georgetown,” Kerry said in an interview. “Basically, my father was working remotely in New York, so mummy was back and forth between the house and New York, and Uncle Jack was there mainly on the weekdays because on the weekends he was campaigning in Massachusetts.”
'They Spent a Lot of Time Going on Double Dates Together'
The Camelot myth of the Kennedy family sometimes became literal, such as their meeting with Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth II
The quartet spent numerous nights on the town together.
“But when they were there together, Jack and Jackie had started dating,” she spilled. “And so they spent a lot of time going on double dates together, going to the movies together and getting to know one another before anybody was in the headlines … [They] formed this extraordinary bond of mutual friendship and of starting on this adventure together with this big, fun family.”
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'They Both Had a Wonderful Sense of Humor'
Ethel Kennedy remained active in philanthropy until her death at 94.
Kerry, who recently spoke about against Donald Trump's appropriation of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' name, revealed that both women shared a love of books.
“They both read constantly, two or three books a week throughout their lives,” she shared. “They both had a wonderful sense of humor and were incredibly creative and romantic. So they loved writing songs about the family, making up new lyrics to old hits and singing them at birthday parties, et cetera.”
Both women outlived their husbands by decades. Jackie died at 64 in 1994, and Ethel passed away from a stroke in 2024 at age 96.
'These Two Women Who Had Shared So Much'
While married to Robert F. Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy was often alongside historical figures such as Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Kerry said she and Ethel were at Jackie’s side shortly before her death in 1994.
“It was very beautiful and tender,” the author recalled. “It was sad, yes, and it was letting go, but it was also these two women who had shared so much and shared this deep faith and understanding of one another’s pain and trauma. So it was peaceful and loving at a profound level, and full of beauty.”
