Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

by Maureen Callahan

Most embarrassing was a photo of Jackie on the cover of the National Enquirer, her belly distended: “Is she or isn’t she expecting?” Always fanatical about her weight—really, always in the throes of disordered eating, attempting to control the one thing she could—Jackie went on a crash starvation diet. Each day she allowed herself half a grapefruit, a little yogurt, 2½ ounces of meat, one apple, 3½ ounces of green vegetables, and a salad without dressing. Jackie began having panic attacks and outbursts and was still taking drugs: tranquilizers to sleep, possibly amphetamines to kill her hunger. She lost twenty-four pounds in nine days and could barely stand up. She wound up in the hospital, and the European press reported that Jackie Kennedy Onassis might be on her deathbed. Not so, said one of her friends.