Jackie Kennedy Called Her Marriage to Aristotle Onassis Her ‘Biggest Mistake,’ Memoir Says

A posthumously published memoir claims Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis privately described her marriage to Aristotle Onassis as the biggest mistake of her life. The account comes from architect John Carl “Jack” Warnecke, who dated Kennedy from 1964 to 1966 and later remained in contact with her. In an excerpt obtained by People, Warnecke recalls Kennedy expressing frustration about her life on Onassis’s private island, including being allowed to decorate only one room. He wrote that she told him she believed marrying the Greek shipping magnate had been the biggest mistake she had ever made. The recollection appears in Warnecke’s book, “Camelot’s Architect: The Untold Story of Jackie Kennedy, Lafayette Square and a Secret Romance,” scheduled for publication on Nov. 10. Warnecke said the two maintained a friendship after their romantic relationship ended. He described them growing closer again following Onassis’s death in 1975, and recalled Kennedy offering opinions on his serious relationships with other women. In the memoir, he wondered whether her advice might also have been a way of testing him. The architect characterized their later closeness as an “exciting secret affair,” while making clear in his account that it was not physical. Kennedy and Onassis married in 1968 and remained together until his death. Kennedy died in 1994, aged 64. The memoir’s account offers Warnecke’s recollection of private conversations, rather than a new public statement from Kennedy herself.