PoliticsBombshell John F. Kennedy Biography Details Flight Attendant's 'Wild' Affair With Former President, Abortion and More
John F. Kennedy allegedly had an affair with a woman named Joan Lundberg in the late 1950s.
John F. Kennedy's secretive past has been unveiled in a bombshell new biography.
An excerpt from J. Randy Taraborrelli's upcoming book JFK: Public, Private, Secret — which hits shelves on Tuesday, July 15 — exposed the late former president's alleged affair with a woman named Joan Lundberg, a flight attendant who fell in love with Kennedy after meeting the then-senator of Massachusetts at a dive bar in Santa Monica, Calif., on August 19, 1956, when she was 23 years old.
When Lundberg met Kennedy almost 70 years ago, the famed politician was married to his wife, Jackie, with whom he later welcomed his late son, John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in an aviation accident at age 38.
The late couple also shared daughter Caroline, 67, stillborn daughter Arabella and late son Patrick — who only lived for 39 hours before dying from complications of Hyaline Membrane Disease.
The former president was assassinated while in office in 1963.
Joan was a single mom-of-two when she met JFK in 1956 and living with a man named Norm Bishop while working as a flight attendant for Frontier Airlines and as a cocktail waitress on the side.
"Joan was a big revelation for me," Taraborrelli explained in his biography. "She acted as his therapist in many ways. Because she was outside of his Washington circle, he opened up to her — and began to reckon with his flaws."
Days after flirting with Joan at a Southern California bar, JFK found out Jackie, then 27, had given birth to their stillborn daughter, Arabella, while he was on a trip to Italy.
"Four days later he returned to Hammersmith Farm, her family’s estate in Newport, R.I., where she was recuperating — and fed up," an excerpt of the biography read. "She’d always felt something was missing in his nature, and now she knew what it was: empathy. When Jackie wept at the breakfast table and said, 'How could I have been so stupid?' her mother, Janet, reached out and took her hand. 'You’re not stupid,' she told her. 'You just put your trust in the wrong person.'"
Flight Attendant Details 'Wild' Intercourse With JFK
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John F. Kennedy's marriage to Jackie had its flaws.
By early September 1956, the ex-president, who also went by Jack, invited Joan to his sister Pat's home — and later that night had "wild" intercourse with her at a nearby hotel.
"The next morning over breakfast, he unburdened himself," the biography continued. "His fears, his insecurities. It was as if she was so removed from his circle, he could share anything. According to what Joan later recalled, Jack admitted that he and Jackie were the product of 'an arranged marriage' and, as such marriages go, he said it was 'fine. Not great, but okay.'"
Jackie Kennedy Tries to Divorce
Jackie Kennedy remained married to JFK until his assassination in 1963.
In the upcoming weeks, JFK's dad, Joe Kennedy, received a call from a lawyer who had been retained to represent Jackie in a divorce — though her father-in-law ultimately convinced her to "stay in the marriage" after offering her "$100,000 upon the birth of her and Jack’s first child."
Things apparently became better between JFK and Jackie after Caroline was born in November 1957, however, he continued his romance with Joan into the following year.
John F. Kennedy Makes Mistress Get an Abortion
John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, shared four children, though two did not survive infancy.
On June 25, 1958, Joan called Jack to inform him "she was pregnant."
Later that summer, he paid Joan to have an abortion amid the start of his campaign for presidency.
"Being a politician is who I am. Politics is all I know. If you take that away..." he allegedly told her before hanging up the phone.
In 2024, Joan's son Zachary Hitchcock addressed his mother and JFK's demise, stating: "From what she later told me, Mom realized the party was over. She couldn’t be on the sidelines. The presidency, Jackie, the abortion, there was no way mother could be marginalized in that way. She had way too much pride."
