November 1, 2025 • 20 mins
Pod Crashing episode #403 with Lyra Smith and George Civeris from the podcast The United States Of Kennedy. iHeartPodcasts Launches "United States of Kennedy" - A New Podcast Series Examining the Cultural Impact of the Kennedy Family The weekly series will unpack the defining moments that fueled America's obsession with the Kennedys.On June 30th, iHeartPodcasts launched "United States of Kennedy," a new weekly podcast series that will explore our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty and the ways in which one family has continued to shape American life for decades. Each week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris will deep dive into one aspect of the Kennedy story, examining the people and events that have left an enduring imprint on American politics, media, and collective memory.Episode one will introduce listeners to the patriarch of the Kennedy family, Joe Kennedy. Living out the American Dream, Joe amassed a huge fortune and gave his children a launching pad to political and cultural dominance. From Ted Kennedy's infamous car accident in Chappaquiddick, JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's tumultuous relationship and untimely deaths in a plane crash, the numerous conspiracy theories surrounding President Kennedy's assassination, to RFK Jr.'s unlikely rise in the MAGA era, "United States of Kennedy" will unpack the defining moments that fueled America's obsession with the Kennedys.Episodes available here:Https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-united-states-of-kennedy-281493472/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sure, we're on iHeartRadio, Spotify and every digital platform there is.
But why go there searching for everything we've got when
you can just go to arrow dot net A R
R O E dot net. I just want to thank
you for being a part of the conversation. Let's do
some podcrashing. Episode number four oh three is with Laris
Smith and George Severis from the podcast The United States
(00:21):
of Kennedy O Shaman O'shaman. What's up, mister Michael, Michael, Michael,
Ain't nothing going on but a bunch of people from
Hyanna's Port getting into trouble.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Eh, that's good, Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I was gonna say, wow, that's pretty good there, Michael.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I was.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I was actually trying to emulate me or Quimby, but
it came out as one of the others that are
still in there.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We well, hey, ay off, you can talk to these
fine folks. I'm not gonna go have a sip and
look for Willie.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
You guys should put something together here that I just
I just love it in the way that this is
the reason why podcasting has become so huge around the world.
You did your homework, and you continue.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
To do your homework thanks, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I mean, because I mean the way that you guys
are sharing a conversation. This is not news reporting or
anything like that. You are physically sharing a conversation. And
I feel like I'm eavesdropping.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Thanks, I mean that that has uh, that was the goal,
because they're I mean, the Kennedy's are, They're alive. They're
like our understanding of them is always changing, and it's
an ongoing conversation, and it's you.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Know, we are learning along with we.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
You know, we learn about the week's topics. I mean,
we obviously have some pre existing knowledge, but we learn
about the week's topics. We have this big research doc
that is prepared for us. We sort of pick our
favorite things that we really want to touch on. We
often will have a guest that is an expert on
the thing, whether it's someone sort of you know, grave
and serious, like a historian or a journalist, or if
(01:56):
it's someone more fun like we'll do episodes about films
about the Kennedys and will invite a film critic or
a cultural commentator or something. And I think something that's
very fun about the Kennedy's is that they're almost this
blank canvas upon which anyone can project their different thoughts
and biases. And for some people they are you know
(02:18):
this really, you know, these statesmen that are brave and
courageous and or the hope of American progressivism. And then
of course for other people they are the devil. And
so it's just like a lens through which really to
talk about twentieth century American history, on American mythology, and
because they are also like pop culture figures and just
(02:39):
fun characters that have been written about for so long,
it doesn't feel like you're eating your vegetables. It feels
like you're, you know, watching a reality show.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
You speak of that blank canvas. Dude, I'm that guy
that spent the eighties doing nothing but reading stories in
the National Inquirer about the Kennedy family. I mean, that's
where I got my news. And then, boy, have you
ever straightened me up with your podcast?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's funny.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, our latest episode is about the Oliver Stones JFK.
And our guest Amy Nicholson is the La Times film
critic and incredible thinker in the in the world of
like film criticism. She said the exact same thing, like
she was like I was a kid raised on National Enquirer,
(03:24):
and I thought all of this was the truth. How
was I to know any differently as a child reading this?
And so, yeah, it's been that was really interesting, like
going through that movie and then finding out like what's
real and what's not, what's been fictionalized to the extreme
by Oliver Stone.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
While still you know, like at the heart of.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
It, it's not like a cut and dry, clear case.
There's a lot of mystery still.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of mystery in the assassination.
There's still a lot of mystery in terms of what
happened to Chepi critic. There's a lot of mystery in
terms of what you know jfkse personal life was, like,
it's so much of so much of the research that
we have done is a process of like first thinking
you're debunking something and you found the real truth, and
(04:14):
then and then eventually sort of becoming comfortable with living
in the uncertainty because it's just really impossible to know
exactly what happened every time, and all these stories are
so chock full of conspiracy theories and conflicting narratives that
the best you can sort of do is present all
(04:36):
of them and you know, hope that your listener is
smart enough to draw the right conclusions.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, episode number two, the Mysterious Woman, the way you
built that episode, I couldn't get enough of it. And
the reason why is because I didn't know that she
was shy. I didn't know. I mean, I knew about
the fashion side of her life. But there's a lot
of things that you uncover in identifying the unknown Woman
for JFK.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah, so the episode about Carolyn Bassett, Yeah, oh, that
was a really fun one. That was a really fun one.
And there's a renewed interest in uh JFK Jr. And
Carolyn Bessett because there's about to be a Rod and
Murphy show that I believe it's called American Love Story,
and it's going to be all about their love affair
in the nineties, which of course ended in tragedy because
(05:23):
they because they died in a plane crash.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Wow, just just the way that you that you bring
it together, even talking about Kate Moss and the Kennedy family,
because I mean, there's so much involved in this and
you're going, I didn't this is what I call it.
And in radio, when when when? When? You break down
a band and you see where other people have played
in other bands. We call that the family tree. The
Kennedy's are the same way. They are connected to so
many family trees and roots.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Oh yeah, I mean it is. It's very interesting. Also
you'd see like Maria Shreiver, Kennedy, Patrick Schwarzenegger of course
her son Kennedy. But then when you realized that like JFK.
Junior was linked to so many different actresses, and the
fact that like they were, that Jackie O was really,
(06:10):
you know, later in her life, was an international socialite.
The connections just go on and on and on and
on and on. And I think what you were saying,
like about Carolyn bis Set that to me was so
wildly interesting that I thought that I knew who she
was because she was JFK. Junior's wife. She was incredibly famous.
(06:33):
But like the fact that she went from being working
in a retail store of Calvin Klein in the Mall
to being the you know, stylist for their absolutely top
A list clientele in New York City within a year.
I mean, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's a crazy story.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Wow, do you think she had to go through a
family test just like Princess Diana did. I mean she
Princess Diana had to be the perfect person for Charles.
I mean, I just feel like that JFK. Junior would,
I mean, did the family have to you know, interview
her first and say all right, all right, you're good,
You're good.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Well, that's where the conflict is. I mean, he didn't
he dated who he wanted to, you know, And she
actually never met Jackie.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
She never met Jackie, which is something I really I
didn't know until until we did that episode. And of
course because she never met Jackie, there were and because
she was so kind of unknowable and there are only
like a few seconds available of audio of her speaking
at all. She never gave any televised interviews or anything
(07:35):
like that. You know, talk about a blank chevast. People
really could project whatever biases they had onto her. But no, JFK.
Junior actually dated. He dated Daryl Hannah for a very
long time. He did it, Sir Jessica Parker. He dated Madonna.
He was a real kind of man about town, and
I think that was what people found so fascinating about
(07:56):
him is that he really was a very public figure.
He was like biking and rollerblading around New York City.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
He was.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
He founded a magazine and so he would throw these
big parties that had you know, celebrities and political figures
and whatever else. And so he really was sort of
an early he makes high and low. Basically, I'll tell
you what I thought.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
I really liked him deep inside my heart. And then
when you guys talked about how he just walks into
a bar with everyday people, I liked him even more,
even more, and I said, damn white, and I go
to New York to meet this guy.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
That's true. Yeah, And I think that also is like
that's the that's the pull of you know, being a
public figure you or that you.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Know, that's the upside and the downside. It's like this
insane privilege, insane opportunity potent, like the potential to do
whatever you want in a way that you know ninety
nine point nine nine nine percent of people will never
ever ever experience. But then also he clearly had this
strong desire to be a normal person and go and
(09:05):
sit down and talk to people who do who don't
recognize him, don't know who he is, and he just
wanted to be like friendly and social on that level.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And yeah, I mean the people who met him in
that way were you know, very complimentary.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's so on Kennedy. I mean, really, he wasn't trying
to get the limelight like everybody else. He's just being JFK.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Junior.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I think that like something else about him that is
interesting in terms of like the Kennedy profiles, that like,
he really wanted to be an actor at one point
and was not allowed to pursue it. So I'm gonna like,
I guess technically I should walk back a little bit
(09:52):
when I said although he could have, he could have
done it.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
I think he had that natural I mean it's funny
like you say he didn't want to be a public figure.
He definitely did want to be a public figure. But
I think he it wasn't as craven as what we
think of today when we think of, you know, an
influencer or a Hollywood actor or something like that. I
think he really was sort of a natural born I
(10:15):
guess politician, even if that's not the actual career he chose.
Like he was really seamlessly able to be this charming,
charismatic figure that was also at the same time basically
unknowable it's funny. There's a parallel between him and Jack Schlosberg,
who is jft's grandson, who has now become sort of
a social media phenomenon. He does these funny videos and
(10:39):
sometimes he's shirtless, and he's like a sort of kind
of like poking fun at himself for being a Kennedy.
And there's something about him where he, much like JFK Junior,
used the media apparatus of his time, which was print media,
Jack is now using the media apparatus of his time,
which is social media and and social media video. So
(11:02):
somehow every generation the Kennedy's figure out a way to
kind of use the media ecosystem in their advantage and
be at the center of conversation.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Please do not move. There's more with Lira and George
coming up next. The podcast is called The United States
of Kennedy. We're back with Lira and George. You were
talking a few seconds ago about about hearing her voice
only two times. You know, I rewound that my iHeartRadio
five times because I wanted to identify her voice because
(11:31):
that's the only time I've ever heard her speak, And really,
that was such a shocking moment. Where do you find
something like that.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Well, we have wonderful researchers at iHeart that help us
find not just I mean not just the clips which
also like you know, it's like I wouldn't have known
to go searching for a three second long clip of
Carolyn besseaid, because I didn't know it existed beforehand. But
(12:00):
then we talked to experts every week, and we had
Glennis McNichol was our guest for Carolyn Bessett Kennedy, and Glennis,
like lived in New.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
York at this time. She saw Carolyn on the street.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
She's very you know, very involved in like fashion and
writing about fashion and writing about culture of fashion and
so like. Carolyn was a huge icon for her, and
we learned a lot about Carolyn, like through Glennis's experience.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
How far can you dig into the Kennedy story without
them knocking on your door saying, ah, that was a
little bit too much.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I would love it if they did that.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
I would too.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
I think that would be that would be a sign
they were doing something right. I mean, it's funny, like,
there's so much there have been so many salacious things
written about them over the years that I really do
think it has to get a really crazy level for
them to get involved. Although I will say, you know,
I mentioned Jack Schlasberg earlier, who is JFK's grandson, as
(13:08):
I said, and he has been very vocal about being
against the upcoming Ryan Murphy show about JFK Junior and
Carolyn Bissett. He just like is he thinks it's an abomination,
and he keeps making fun of Ryan Murphy and tagging
him in photos and making fun of his appearance and
all this stuff. And so you know, maybe if we
(13:28):
if we interviewed someone from that show, maybe they would
really come for us.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
My generation was was Ted Kennedy. I mean that that's
all I had when I was a kid. And and
oh my god, you know the stories are the rumors
that everything. He just sat there and you just kept saying, stop, stop,
There's got to be more to this man than what
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, yeah, I mean that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Our chap Equitic episode. I had always thought that the
story was a pretty simple story, and then we learned
that there's it actually probably went down very differently than
what we had thought. What the what Ted Kennedy told
(14:12):
the world at the times probably not what happened and
that was really interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I do think that like.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
He's a figure that is you know, quite there's like
lots of scandal with him. He's in multiple plane crashes
on top of chap Equittic. He's also like the baby
brother his two big his two big brothers were assassinated
with you know, very within a very short period of time.
(14:44):
He and he you know, was one of the siblings
who went to see Rosemary Kennedy after she'd been lobotomized
and was in uh was in a home for the
rest of her life. So you know, there's more to
him than than just than just like the tragedy. He's
(15:06):
got some he's got like a pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Life on his own.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Now you read more and more about these people and
you want to see them as just one thing, whether
it's victims or villains or heroes. And of course when
you learn about Chepiquittic, it sounds so suspicious. And then
of course it was for anyone who watches Succession. It
was dramatized on Succession, and Kendall played the Ted Kennedy basically,
(15:30):
I mean, for anyone who doesn't know who's listening, you
know what happened to tepiquittck. Very briefly is that Ted
Kennedy was driving a car, there was a woman on
the passenger seat, the car crashed and the women the
woman ended up dying. But then there's a lot of
controversy about how long Ted Kennedy waited before going to
the police. Was she actually alive for a few minutes
or hours and could have been saved if he had
(15:51):
gone earlier. So anyway, you know, you read something like
that and you're like, this is a privileged young man
who was only looking out for himself and blah blah,
And then you read about other parts of his life
and he and about all the tragedy he's faced, everything
he has lost, you know, how it affected his career.
So it is it's difficult to paint anyone in two
(16:12):
dimensional terms. When you sort of read about them over
and over again week after week, you know, anyone can
sort of become sympathetic.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
One of the things that I find inspira inspiring about
Joe Kennedy is the fact that he actually comes from
the silent generation, and yet that man was so strong.
It's like, how did he even step into those shoes
when those also from the silent generation were just basically
trying to seek just any type of answer.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I mean, Joe Kennedy had an insane internal motivation.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, he had.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I mean we talk about like the American dream and
somebody going from rags to riches, and you know, not
saying that he's an entirely admirable figure, but he had
an insane goal for his life and his family, and
he achieved it.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Technically, Yeah, he was like he was, you know, pathologically ambitious,
and we all, I'm sure know people that are some
version of this, But I mean he wanted to be
like I was about to say, he wanted to be
king of the world, but in fact, he wanted his
family to be the first family of the world. I mean,
he conquered finance, He was involved in Hollywood. He of
(17:23):
course was involved in politics. He basically hand picked which
of his children would pursue which thing, and then you know,
was able to very swiftly pivot if something didn't work out.
I mean, originally Joe Junior was supposed to be sort
of the chosen one. He tragically died very young. Then
it became JFK. I mean it was he was really
(17:47):
I mean, even the Lyra mentioned Rosemary Kennedy who was lobotomized.
That's like a really dark example of his desire to
control everything. I mean, one of his daughters, Rosemary, was
sort of problematic in his eyes.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
She had.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Some difficulties in school and had some intellectual disability and
also was in some ways, in his mind, making the
family look bad. So he was like, what can we
do to stop this? Which is incredibly, incredibly, sort of
depressing to think about. But he just was a He
was the archetype of a fierce patriarch that wanted his
(18:23):
family to succeed above all else.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
And the Kennedy story continues even today with Robert. I mean,
and the thing is, I still can't figure out if
this is an eyesore or if this man is going
to be changing things. But I just know that name
Kennedy is attached to it.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Yeah, I mean his presidential run really all he had
was the Kennedy name. Yeah, that seemed to be the
big draw is that we would have another Kennedy president.
To the people who were you know, excited about him,
and you know he, I mean you talk about like
a complicated figure in a cop llocated life. He has
(19:02):
lived like four different lifetimes, and you know, I think,
like you know, part part of the good side of
him has been in the past. I would argue, like
his very public and candid discussion of getting sober and
(19:25):
you know what drug addiction did to his life, to
his family. But then on the other side you learned
about how he was actually like pretty horrific to his family.
And then now he's done like one eighty after one
eighty and and he's very hard to pin down exactly
(19:47):
what's going on with him. I mean, he he talked
about the worm in his brain affecting his decisions. We
we will get there, but yeah, he doesn't. He seems
to still be like capitalizing simply on the name, and
(20:09):
I mean that just like goes to show how powerful
the name Kennedy is.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Wow, you guys have got to come back to this
show anytime in the future. The door is always going
to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
This was great.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Will you guys be brilliant today? Okay, thanks so.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Much, you too.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Thank you
Sure, we're on iHeartRadio, Spotify and every digital platform there is.
But why go there searching for everything we've got when
you can just go to arrow dot net A R
R O E dot net. I just want to thank
you for being a part of the conversation. Let's do
some podcrashing. Episode number four oh three is with Laris
Smith and George Severis from the podcast The United States
(00:21):
of Kennedy O Shaman O'shaman. What's up, mister Michael, Michael, Michael,
Ain't nothing going on but a bunch of people from
Hyanna's Port getting into trouble.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Eh, that's good, Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I was gonna say, wow, that's pretty good there, Michael.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I was.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I was actually trying to emulate me or Quimby, but
it came out as one of the others that are
still in there.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We well, hey, ay off, you can talk to these
fine folks. I'm not gonna go have a sip and
look for Willie.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
You guys should put something together here that I just
I just love it in the way that this is
the reason why podcasting has become so huge around the world.
You did your homework, and you continue.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
To do your homework thanks, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I mean, because I mean the way that you guys
are sharing a conversation. This is not news reporting or
anything like that. You are physically sharing a conversation. And
I feel like I'm eavesdropping.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Thanks, I mean that that has uh, that was the goal,
because they're I mean, the Kennedy's are, They're alive. They're
like our understanding of them is always changing, and it's
an ongoing conversation, and it's you.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Know, we are learning along with we.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
You know, we learn about the week's topics. I mean,
we obviously have some pre existing knowledge, but we learn
about the week's topics. We have this big research doc
that is prepared for us. We sort of pick our
favorite things that we really want to touch on. We
often will have a guest that is an expert on
the thing, whether it's someone sort of you know, grave
and serious, like a historian or a journalist, or if
(01:56):
it's someone more fun like we'll do episodes about films
about the Kennedys and will invite a film critic or
a cultural commentator or something. And I think something that's
very fun about the Kennedy's is that they're almost this
blank canvas upon which anyone can project their different thoughts
and biases. And for some people they are you know
(02:18):
this really, you know, these statesmen that are brave and
courageous and or the hope of American progressivism. And then
of course for other people they are the devil. And
so it's just like a lens through which really to
talk about twentieth century American history, on American mythology, and
because they are also like pop culture figures and just
(02:39):
fun characters that have been written about for so long,
it doesn't feel like you're eating your vegetables. It feels
like you're, you know, watching a reality show.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
You speak of that blank canvas. Dude, I'm that guy
that spent the eighties doing nothing but reading stories in
the National Inquirer about the Kennedy family. I mean, that's
where I got my news. And then, boy, have you
ever straightened me up with your podcast?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's funny.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, our latest episode is about the Oliver Stones JFK.
And our guest Amy Nicholson is the La Times film
critic and incredible thinker in the in the world of
like film criticism. She said the exact same thing, like
she was like I was a kid raised on National Enquirer,
(03:24):
and I thought all of this was the truth. How
was I to know any differently as a child reading this?
And so, yeah, it's been that was really interesting, like
going through that movie and then finding out like what's
real and what's not, what's been fictionalized to the extreme
by Oliver Stone.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
While still you know, like at the heart of.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
It, it's not like a cut and dry, clear case.
There's a lot of mystery still.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of mystery in the assassination.
There's still a lot of mystery in terms of what
happened to Chepi critic. There's a lot of mystery in
terms of what you know jfkse personal life was, like,
it's so much of so much of the research that
we have done is a process of like first thinking
you're debunking something and you found the real truth, and
(04:14):
then and then eventually sort of becoming comfortable with living
in the uncertainty because it's just really impossible to know
exactly what happened every time, and all these stories are
so chock full of conspiracy theories and conflicting narratives that
the best you can sort of do is present all
(04:36):
of them and you know, hope that your listener is
smart enough to draw the right conclusions.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, episode number two, the Mysterious Woman, the way you
built that episode, I couldn't get enough of it. And
the reason why is because I didn't know that she
was shy. I didn't know. I mean, I knew about
the fashion side of her life. But there's a lot
of things that you uncover in identifying the unknown Woman
for JFK.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah, so the episode about Carolyn Bassett, Yeah, oh, that
was a really fun one. That was a really fun one.
And there's a renewed interest in uh JFK Jr. And
Carolyn Bessett because there's about to be a Rod and
Murphy show that I believe it's called American Love Story,
and it's going to be all about their love affair
in the nineties, which of course ended in tragedy because
(05:23):
they because they died in a plane crash.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Wow, just just the way that you that you bring
it together, even talking about Kate Moss and the Kennedy family,
because I mean, there's so much involved in this and
you're going, I didn't this is what I call it.
And in radio, when when when? When? You break down
a band and you see where other people have played
in other bands. We call that the family tree. The
Kennedy's are the same way. They are connected to so
many family trees and roots.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Oh yeah, I mean it is. It's very interesting. Also
you'd see like Maria Shreiver, Kennedy, Patrick Schwarzenegger of course
her son Kennedy. But then when you realized that like JFK.
Junior was linked to so many different actresses, and the
fact that like they were, that Jackie O was really,
(06:10):
you know, later in her life, was an international socialite.
The connections just go on and on and on and
on and on. And I think what you were saying,
like about Carolyn bis Set that to me was so
wildly interesting that I thought that I knew who she
was because she was JFK. Junior's wife. She was incredibly famous.
(06:33):
But like the fact that she went from being working
in a retail store of Calvin Klein in the Mall
to being the you know, stylist for their absolutely top
A list clientele in New York City within a year.
I mean, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's a crazy story.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Wow, do you think she had to go through a
family test just like Princess Diana did. I mean she
Princess Diana had to be the perfect person for Charles.
I mean, I just feel like that JFK. Junior would,
I mean, did the family have to you know, interview
her first and say all right, all right, you're good,
You're good.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Well, that's where the conflict is. I mean, he didn't
he dated who he wanted to, you know, And she
actually never met Jackie.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
She never met Jackie, which is something I really I
didn't know until until we did that episode. And of
course because she never met Jackie, there were and because
she was so kind of unknowable and there are only
like a few seconds available of audio of her speaking
at all. She never gave any televised interviews or anything
(07:35):
like that. You know, talk about a blank chevast. People
really could project whatever biases they had onto her. But no, JFK.
Junior actually dated. He dated Daryl Hannah for a very
long time. He did it, Sir Jessica Parker. He dated Madonna.
He was a real kind of man about town, and
I think that was what people found so fascinating about
(07:56):
him is that he really was a very public figure.
He was like biking and rollerblading around New York City.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
He was.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
He founded a magazine and so he would throw these
big parties that had you know, celebrities and political figures
and whatever else. And so he really was sort of
an early he makes high and low. Basically, I'll tell
you what I thought.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
I really liked him deep inside my heart. And then
when you guys talked about how he just walks into
a bar with everyday people, I liked him even more,
even more, and I said, damn white, and I go
to New York to meet this guy.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
That's true. Yeah, And I think that also is like
that's the that's the pull of you know, being a
public figure you or that you.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Know, that's the upside and the downside. It's like this
insane privilege, insane opportunity potent, like the potential to do
whatever you want in a way that you know ninety
nine point nine nine nine percent of people will never
ever ever experience. But then also he clearly had this
strong desire to be a normal person and go and
(09:05):
sit down and talk to people who do who don't
recognize him, don't know who he is, and he just
wanted to be like friendly and social on that level.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And yeah, I mean the people who met him in
that way were you know, very complimentary.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's so on Kennedy. I mean, really, he wasn't trying
to get the limelight like everybody else. He's just being JFK.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Junior.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I think that like something else about him that is
interesting in terms of like the Kennedy profiles, that like,
he really wanted to be an actor at one point
and was not allowed to pursue it. So I'm gonna like,
I guess technically I should walk back a little bit
(09:52):
when I said although he could have, he could have
done it.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
I think he had that natural I mean it's funny
like you say he didn't want to be a public figure.
He definitely did want to be a public figure. But
I think he it wasn't as craven as what we
think of today when we think of, you know, an
influencer or a Hollywood actor or something like that. I
think he really was sort of a natural born I
(10:15):
guess politician, even if that's not the actual career he chose.
Like he was really seamlessly able to be this charming,
charismatic figure that was also at the same time basically
unknowable it's funny. There's a parallel between him and Jack Schlosberg,
who is jft's grandson, who has now become sort of
a social media phenomenon. He does these funny videos and
(10:39):
sometimes he's shirtless, and he's like a sort of kind
of like poking fun at himself for being a Kennedy.
And there's something about him where he, much like JFK Junior,
used the media apparatus of his time, which was print media,
Jack is now using the media apparatus of his time,
which is social media and and social media video. So
(11:02):
somehow every generation the Kennedy's figure out a way to
kind of use the media ecosystem in their advantage and
be at the center of conversation.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Please do not move. There's more with Lira and George
coming up next. The podcast is called The United States
of Kennedy. We're back with Lira and George. You were
talking a few seconds ago about about hearing her voice
only two times. You know, I rewound that my iHeartRadio
five times because I wanted to identify her voice because
(11:31):
that's the only time I've ever heard her speak, And really,
that was such a shocking moment. Where do you find
something like that.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Well, we have wonderful researchers at iHeart that help us
find not just I mean not just the clips which
also like you know, it's like I wouldn't have known
to go searching for a three second long clip of
Carolyn besseaid, because I didn't know it existed beforehand. But
(12:00):
then we talked to experts every week, and we had
Glennis McNichol was our guest for Carolyn Bessett Kennedy, and Glennis,
like lived in New.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
York at this time. She saw Carolyn on the street.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
She's very you know, very involved in like fashion and
writing about fashion and writing about culture of fashion and
so like. Carolyn was a huge icon for her, and
we learned a lot about Carolyn, like through Glennis's experience.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
How far can you dig into the Kennedy story without
them knocking on your door saying, ah, that was a
little bit too much.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I would love it if they did that.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
I would too.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
I think that would be that would be a sign
they were doing something right. I mean, it's funny, like,
there's so much there have been so many salacious things
written about them over the years that I really do
think it has to get a really crazy level for
them to get involved. Although I will say, you know,
I mentioned Jack Schlasberg earlier, who is JFK's grandson, as
(13:08):
I said, and he has been very vocal about being
against the upcoming Ryan Murphy show about JFK Junior and
Carolyn Bissett. He just like is he thinks it's an abomination,
and he keeps making fun of Ryan Murphy and tagging
him in photos and making fun of his appearance and
all this stuff. And so you know, maybe if we
(13:28):
if we interviewed someone from that show, maybe they would
really come for us.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
My generation was was Ted Kennedy. I mean that that's
all I had when I was a kid. And and
oh my god, you know the stories are the rumors
that everything. He just sat there and you just kept saying, stop, stop,
There's got to be more to this man than what
you're saying.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, yeah, I mean that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Our chap Equitic episode. I had always thought that the
story was a pretty simple story, and then we learned
that there's it actually probably went down very differently than
what we had thought. What the what Ted Kennedy told
(14:12):
the world at the times probably not what happened and
that was really interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I do think that like.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
He's a figure that is you know, quite there's like
lots of scandal with him. He's in multiple plane crashes
on top of chap Equittic. He's also like the baby
brother his two big his two big brothers were assassinated
with you know, very within a very short period of time.
(14:44):
He and he you know, was one of the siblings
who went to see Rosemary Kennedy after she'd been lobotomized
and was in uh was in a home for the
rest of her life. So you know, there's more to
him than than just than just like the tragedy. He's
(15:06):
got some he's got like a pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Life on his own.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Now you read more and more about these people and
you want to see them as just one thing, whether
it's victims or villains or heroes. And of course when
you learn about Chepiquittic, it sounds so suspicious. And then
of course it was for anyone who watches Succession. It
was dramatized on Succession, and Kendall played the Ted Kennedy basically,
(15:30):
I mean, for anyone who doesn't know who's listening, you
know what happened to tepiquittck. Very briefly is that Ted
Kennedy was driving a car, there was a woman on
the passenger seat, the car crashed and the women the
woman ended up dying. But then there's a lot of
controversy about how long Ted Kennedy waited before going to
the police. Was she actually alive for a few minutes
or hours and could have been saved if he had
(15:51):
gone earlier. So anyway, you know, you read something like
that and you're like, this is a privileged young man
who was only looking out for himself and blah blah,
And then you read about other parts of his life
and he and about all the tragedy he's faced, everything
he has lost, you know, how it affected his career.
So it is it's difficult to paint anyone in two
(16:12):
dimensional terms. When you sort of read about them over
and over again week after week, you know, anyone can
sort of become sympathetic.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
One of the things that I find inspira inspiring about
Joe Kennedy is the fact that he actually comes from
the silent generation, and yet that man was so strong.
It's like, how did he even step into those shoes
when those also from the silent generation were just basically
trying to seek just any type of answer.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I mean, Joe Kennedy had an insane internal motivation.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, he had.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I mean we talk about like the American dream and
somebody going from rags to riches, and you know, not
saying that he's an entirely admirable figure, but he had
an insane goal for his life and his family, and
he achieved it.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Technically, Yeah, he was like he was, you know, pathologically ambitious,
and we all, I'm sure know people that are some
version of this, But I mean he wanted to be
like I was about to say, he wanted to be
king of the world, but in fact, he wanted his
family to be the first family of the world. I mean,
he conquered finance, He was involved in Hollywood. He of
(17:23):
course was involved in politics. He basically hand picked which
of his children would pursue which thing, and then you know,
was able to very swiftly pivot if something didn't work out.
I mean, originally Joe Junior was supposed to be sort
of the chosen one. He tragically died very young. Then
it became JFK. I mean it was he was really
(17:47):
I mean, even the Lyra mentioned Rosemary Kennedy who was lobotomized.
That's like a really dark example of his desire to
control everything. I mean, one of his daughters, Rosemary, was
sort of problematic in his eyes.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
She had.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Some difficulties in school and had some intellectual disability and
also was in some ways, in his mind, making the
family look bad. So he was like, what can we
do to stop this? Which is incredibly, incredibly, sort of
depressing to think about. But he just was a He
was the archetype of a fierce patriarch that wanted his
(18:23):
family to succeed above all else.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
And the Kennedy story continues even today with Robert. I mean,
and the thing is, I still can't figure out if
this is an eyesore or if this man is going
to be changing things. But I just know that name
Kennedy is attached to it.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Yeah, I mean his presidential run really all he had
was the Kennedy name. Yeah, that seemed to be the
big draw is that we would have another Kennedy president.
To the people who were you know, excited about him,
and you know he, I mean you talk about like
a complicated figure in a cop llocated life. He has
(19:02):
lived like four different lifetimes, and you know, I think,
like you know, part part of the good side of
him has been in the past. I would argue, like
his very public and candid discussion of getting sober and
(19:25):
you know what drug addiction did to his life, to
his family. But then on the other side you learned
about how he was actually like pretty horrific to his family.
And then now he's done like one eighty after one
eighty and and he's very hard to pin down exactly
(19:47):
what's going on with him. I mean, he he talked
about the worm in his brain affecting his decisions. We
we will get there, but yeah, he doesn't. He seems
to still be like capitalizing simply on the name, and
(20:09):
I mean that just like goes to show how powerful
the name Kennedy is.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Wow, you guys have got to come back to this
show anytime in the future. The door is always going
to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
This was great.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Will you guys be brilliant today? Okay, thanks so.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Much, you too.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Thank you
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