As the sister of John F Kennedy and the eldest daughter of the formidable and famous Kennedy clan, Rosemary Kennedy should have been American Royalty like so many of her siblings. Instead, she was the family’s dirty little secret—and her horrific fate casts a dark pallor on the vaunted American dynasty.
Rosemary was the Kennedy family's eldest daughter and was growing into an attractive adult when her father grew worried that she would prove to be dangerous to the family’s reputation.
Already worried about her mental capacity, which was the same as an eight- to twelve-year-old child, Joseph Kennedy brought his daughter to a mental facility and forced her to have a lobotomy, which left he severely incapacitated for her entire adult life. He did this all without telling his family about it, and it would be 20 years before family members visited her at the mental institution where she spent the rest of her life. She passed away in 2005.
