Jackie Kennedy's Hidden Tapes Expose Secrets Former First Lady Took to the Grave – Including Who She Thought Really Killed JFK
Jackie Kennedy candidly shared her secrets in a series of taped interviews.
May 20 2025, Published 8:30 p.m. ET
The damning secrets former First Lady Jackie Kennedy took to the grave 31 years ago could be exposed sooner than she requested, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Jackie, who died aged 64 from non-Hodgkins lymphoma on May 19, 1994, laid bare her true feelings about world leaders – and who really killed her husband John F. Kennedy – in a series of recorded taped interviews.
Her only request was that the tapes not be released for at least 50 years, but daughter Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg has agreed to make them public decades early.
Jackie was said to have believed vice president Johnson was behind her husband's assassination.
Among the many bombshell revelations in the tapes, one of the most surprising opinions from Jackie centered on her husband's murder.
Jackie blamed his running mate and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson for his assassination.
She recalled in the recording: "Jack said it to me sometimes. He said, 'Oh, God, can you ever imagine what would happen to the country if Lyndon were president?'"
The former first lady doubled down later in the tape about how her husband "worried for the country" if his vice president was ever put in charge.
Jackie's Harsh Review of World Leaders
Jackie branded the late Queen Elizabeth II 'unintelligent and unremarkabe.'
An insider said: "Jackie was absolutely convinced Lyndon Johnson was a pawn in the hands of a high-powered cabal of Texas businessmen who expected LBJ would give them favorable treatment in the Vietnam War contracts and oil policies once he was in the Oval Office."
Johnson wasn't the only world leader to catch Jackie's wrath in the recordings.
She called Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi a "real prune–bitter, kind of pushy, horrible woman" and France's President Charles de Gaulle an "egomaniac."
Most shocking was Jackie allegedly referring to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as a "phony" – and Queen Elizabeth II as "unintelligent and unremarkable."
A Strategic Second Marriage
Jackie confessed she married Aristotle Onassis to protect her kids and 'get out' of the US.
Jackie opened up on her shocking decision to remarry just five years after JFK's assassination, while she was suffering from PTSD and depression from her husband's death, as well as her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy's fatal shooting.
The grieving mother-of-two stunned the world when she married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, who was 23 years her senior.
While the marriage didn't make sense to the rest of the world, Jackie explained it was strategic and ensured the safety of her two young children, Caroline and John Jr.
She was said to have told her closest friends: "If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets... I want to get out of this country."
Author Paul Brandus noted: "She feared for her life and feared for her children.
"Onassis offered security. He had Skorpios, his own private island in Greece, a private army with 75 heavily armed men, and he owned an airline. He could give her anything she wanted."
Jackie's personal assistant, Kathy McKeon, recalled: "A lot of people said, 'Oh my god, what did she marry that guy for?' But he was a good father to John and Caroline.
"He would sit with them at the dining table and ask how was school. He might have been an older man, but he paid attention to them, and they loved him."
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Jackie was said to have her own affairs stemming from her 'desire to seek revenge' over her husband's infidelity.
While JFK was accused of carrying on multiple affairs while married to Jackie, including with Marilyn Monroe, sources claimed the ex-first lady had her own flings on the side.
Jackie's affairs were said to be "primarily driven by Jackie's desire to seek revenge on Jack," according to her close friend William Walton.
Despite the couple's infidelity, JFK was said to be the only man Jackie ever truly loved.
She recalled her family's time in the White House as the "happiest time in my life" on the tapes, as she noted it was also the period when she and JFK "were the closest."
