Jackie Kennedy Almost Married Architect after Death of JFK. Here's Why Her Mom Stopped Her
New details have been revealed about Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ love life after the death of the president.
An excerpt of the book “Jackie, Janet and Lee” by J. Randy Taraborrelli was obtained by People Magazine and tells of Jackie’s relationship with Jack Warnecke.
Warnecke was an architect, and Jackie hired him to design the memorial for her husband. After that, the two struck up a romantic relationship, which even involved talks of marriage.
“Jack felt that Jackie desperately wanted to land somewhere and she cared for him and he provided a safe haven away from the nightmares and the PTSD that she was still experiencing over Jack and Bobby,” author Taraborrelli told People.
Taraborrelli interviewed Warnecke on the subject before his death in 2010.
“I’m not sure they would have actually married,” Taraborrelli added. “I don’t think it was as serious for her as it was for him.”
It was a discussion about money that sealed the couple’s fate. When Warnecke came clean about his finances, Jackie didn’t seem too interested.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Warnecke told Jackie. “I’m … $650,000 in debt.”
According to Taraborrelli’s writing, Jackie responded by saying that “she was confident he would ‘figure things out,’ sounding — as Jack would later recall it, ‘rather distant.’”
When Warnecke told Jackie he loved her, she leaned close and told him “Goodbye.”
Jackie told her mother of Warnecke’s debt, and she responded by saying, “This is not the man for you.” Apparently that sealed the deal, and her mother’s assessment plus her own doubts sent her scurrying in another direction.
According to Taraborrelli, “That’s when Jackie turned her sights on Onassis.”
“Jack [who had four children from his first marriage] wanted them to be a blended family,” Taraborrelli said.
“They made plans to marry but the problem was Jackie was in the midst of her most violent PTSD over J.F.K. and there was a hole in her that she was never able to fill.
“She was just too traumatized during those years to be for him what she needed to be — in order to be his wife,” he said. In a different circumstance, Warnecke might have been enough.
But after the horrors Jackie had witnessed, she developed an intense need for protection and privacy. Aristotle Onassis could provide her with the security she needed — not a man who was over half-a-million dollars in debt.
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