Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy: A Scandal That Shook Hollywood and Washington

Marilyn Monroe was more than just a Hollywood icon—she was a woman caught between fame, love, and the darkness that followed her everywhere. She was adored by millions, yet deeply lonely. She was powerful, yet powerless in a world that controlled her every move. When she got involved with John F. Kennedy, the most powerful man in America, her life took a turn and she could never escape.

Marilyn Monroe wasn’t born into stardom. She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, a little girl lost in the foster care system of Los Angeles. Her mother was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, leaving Marilyn to bounce between orphanages and different homes where she often felt unwanted. As a child, she was abused, neglected, and desperate for love. That desperation followed her for the rest of her life. When she was 16, she married her first husband just to escape an uncertain future. But she wanted more than just stability—she wanted the world to know her name. And so she set out to become Marilyn Monroe.

Hollywood loved Marilyn’s face, her body, her charm—but it never really cared about her soul. She worked her way up, posing for photos, taking small roles, and playing the game. But behind the dazzling smile, she was exhausted. Studio executives treated her like a commodity, men saw her as an object of desire, and the media wrote about her as if she wasn’t a real person. She longed to be taken seriously, to be respected as an actress, not just a sex symbol. She studied method acting, pushed for better roles, and even started her own production company to fight back against the system. But no matter how hard she tried, Hollywood kept her trapped in the image they had created.

Marilyn’s love life was a storm of passion and pain. She married baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, who adored her but wanted to control her. He hated the idea of men looking at her, hated her fame, and when their marriage fell apart, she was left feeling more alone than ever. Then came playwright Arthur Miller, the intellectual who promised her the depth she craved. But even that marriage didn’t last. He wrote about her, analyzed her, but in the end, he couldn’t save her from herself. And then, there was John F. Kennedy.

Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy’s rumored affair remains one of the biggest scandals in American history. She was Hollywood’s most desired woman, he was the nation’s most powerful man. The details are blurry, the evidence is debated, but one thing is clear—Marilyn fell hard.

She was drawn to powerful men, maybe because she had spent her whole life feeling powerless. JFK was charming, charismatic, and he made her feel special. But to him, she was likely just another beautiful woman. Some say their affair was brief, a fling that meant nothing. Others believe she thought it was something more—that she hoped for love, for a future, for something real. She sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to him in a dress so tight it looked like she had been sewn into it. The world watched, the whispers grew louder, and soon, the affair that was never meant to be public became impossible to ignore.

After her alleged affair with JFK ended, some say she became involved with his brother, Robert Kennedy. Was it revenge? A desperate attempt to stay close to the world she had been pushed out of? No one knows for sure, but one thing is certain—Marilyn was getting too close to power, and power didn’t like loose ends. Rumors spread that she knew secrets, that she had written things down in her diary, that she was a risk to the Kennedys. Whether any of it was true, we may never know. But Marilyn was spiraling, and no one was there to catch her.

Marilyn’s most formidable enemy was not Hollywood, not the tabloids, not the men who tried to control her. It was herself. Her struggles with anxiety, depression, and insomnia were well documented. The pressure to be perfect weighed heavily, and she found solace in pills and alcohol. She longed to be taken seriously, to be seen beyond the manufactured image. But the industry was unkind to women who didn’t fit the mold. Even as she fought back, she was drowning inside. Her life serves as a reminder to every actress today: mental health matters. Seek help, find balance, and never let the industry consume your soul.

By 1962, Marilyn was exhausted. Her career was slipping, she was heavily reliant on pills to sleep, to stay calm, to function. She had been fired from her latest film, her relationships were in ruins, and the men she had given so much to had all walked away. On August 5, 1962, she was found dead in her bedroom. The official cause? A barbiturate overdose. But even in death, the questions remained. Was it an accident? Was it suicide? Or was it something more sinister? Some believe she knew too much about the Kennedys, that she had become a liability. Others think she simply couldn’t bear the weight of her loneliness anymore.

Marilyn Monroe’s story is one of beauty and pain, of dreams and destruction. She wanted to be loved, but love always slipped through her fingers. She wanted to be respected, but the world only saw her as a fantasy. And in the end, she became larger than life—not just a woman, but a legend.

For young actresses today, Marilyn’s life is both an inspiration and a warning. She proved that you can come from nothing and reach the stars, but she also showed how brutal the industry can be, how fame can consume you, how power can destroy you. Marilyn Monroe was not just a blonde bombshell, not just a scandal, not just a tragedy. She was a woman who wanted to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. And even now, decades later, the world still can’t stop talking about her.