No one was as worshipped and no one was as doomed as Princess Lee Radziwill. The younger sister of Jackie Kennedy, Lee’s whole life seemed to be a battle with her sibling over who could be more glamorous, more scandalous, and finally, more tragic.
The sibling rivalry began in childhood. Their father cruelly preferred the elder Jackie, calling her “the most beautiful daughter a man ever had.” Later in life, Jackie happened to marry her sister Lee’s ex, Aristotle Onassis. And finally, Jackie actually cut her sister out of her will entirely, leaving her nothing.
Clearly, the relationship didn’t improve as the years went by—though a recent book has revealed the chilling betrayal that may explain why Lee was left out in the cold.
According to one of Jackie’s biographers, the former First Lady had a clear and justified vendetta against her little sister. That’s because—get this—Lee may have had an affair with John F. Kennedy right behind Jackie’s back. In which case, the whole “marry Aristotle Onassis and cut her completely out of my will” thing makes a whole lot more sense.
Eventually, even the lives of American Royalty calm down. Besides her divorce from Herbert Ross in 2001, Lee Radziwill lived out the rest of her years in relative quiet. When she passed in 2019 at the ripe old age of 85, she did it like a true East coast socialite, spending her final moments in her apartment on the Upper East Side in New York.
