Jackie Kennedy and the naked billion dollars: 50 years since the first case of 'revenge'

"Sometimes I have to undress to put on my bathing suit. My wife does the same," said an undaunted Aristotle Onassis when journalists showed him a copy of the Italian magazine Playmen in December 1972. In that issue, his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, widow of President John F. Kennedy, appeared completely naked during her summer vacation on the private island of Skorpios (Greece). The Greek tycoon did not seem surprised or outraged by the unauthorized images of Jackie, then 43, as God had brought her into the world: sunbathing without a bikini, without worries and without losing her elegant demeanor of former student of the Miss Porter boarding school.

The reaction of the Americans was not the same. Pirated copies of Playmen appeared in New York and Washington. Jackie's photographs caused a stir and outrage in public opinion and a small earthquake in the highest political spheres. A few months later, in February 1973, Screw magazine published the images in America. "Jackie Kennedy naked!" was the cover headline chosen by Al Goldstein, owner and publisher of the pornographic pamphlet. Inside was a photo titled "Jackie Kennedy's Billion-Dollar Bush," a derogatory and misogynistic play on words that referenced the former first lady of the United States and her husband's immense fortune, at the time estimated at $1 billion ($000 billion today). about 100,000 million euros).

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It was not the first time that photographs of a celebrity of the stature of Jackie Kennedy without clothes were published. But the former first lady wasn't just any celebrity. She was the "widow of America," the most photographed woman in the country, the holy grail of paparazzi. Al Goldstein sold 144,000 copies of Screw in the first week and more than half a million in the following weeks. It was the most successful issue in the history of the publication, which closed in 2003 on the verge of bankruptcy and unable to pay salaries to its employees. It was also a first and incipient case of revenge, a practice of sexual harassment that consists of disseminating intimate images without the consent of the person who stars in them. Another person's private sexual content is shared without their approval and for the purpose of causing embarrassment.

According to American journalist Christopher Andersen, former editor of People magazine, Aristotle Onassis was behind the publication of the photos with the intention of harming his wife. In his book The Good Son: JFK Jr. and the Mother He Loved, Andersen recounts how the shipowner bullied his wife, mocked her and used his contacts in the press to publicly humiliate her. Andersen says the Greek tycoon, tired of her despising him, orchestrated the operation by providing 10 photographers with detailed maps and time plans of when Jackie would be on the beach in Skorpios.

Cover of 'Srew' magazine, 1973, about the photos of Jackie Kennedy.

That would explain how photographer Settimio Garritano managed to circumvent the safety of Skorpios and be in the exact place, at the right time and day, to hunt Jackie resting, reading, napping, doing yoga, swimming, smoking and sunbathing naked. "She knew she was photographed in Skorpios. Why did he want to show himself? I never thought it would happen," the Italian paparazzi said years later. The photojournalist publicly acknowledged that an employee of Olympic Airways, Onassis' airline, was the one who tipped him off about Kennedy's stay on the island, and that a Skorpios worker revealed to him that the lady liked to sunbathe without clothes.

Garritano never confirmed whether it was Onassis himself who was behind the leak, but he did admit that Alexander Onassis, son of the shipowner, was aware of the existence of the photographic material. "I mentioned that there were some nude photographs of Jackie. He said, 'I want them published!' Jackie didn't like her, and neither did her sister Christina. He explained that if they were published, Ari would be furious and hopefully get rid of his new wife."

The scoop sullied the intimacy of Jackie, who had not consented to these portraits. But he was not the only victim in this case of abuse. Her children, Caroline, 15, and John, 12, were bullied because of the photos. Shortly after its publication, Ari Onassis began planning his divorce, but the scandal coincided with the tragic death of his son Alexander, who died in a plane crash in January 1973. The tycoon fell into a depression and, according to publications of the time, blamed his wife for the incident. Society chroniclers reported that he was superstitious and believed she had brought with her "the tragedy of the kingdom of Camelot".

Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis on a boat trip on the Nile River in 1974.Bettmann (Bettmann Archive)

Larry Flynt, founder of the pornographic magazine Hustler, republished Jacqueline Kennedy's banned photographs in 1975. "I have made the smartest investment of my life by buying the nudes of Jackie Onassis that I published in the August issue of '75. The rest is history. If the photographer had asked me for a million dollars, I would have paid him," she wrote in her autobiography, Sex, Lies and Politics.

But neither Flynt, Goldstein nor Onassis managed to sink Jackie. The Greek millionaire died in 1975, without signing his divorce from the former first lady. He left him a fortune of 26 million dollars. After the shipowner's death, she issued a statement saying: "Aristotle rescued me at a time when my life was shrouded in shadows... We lived many beautiful experiences together... for which I will be eternally grateful." Widowed for the second time, she began working as an editor, publishing autobiographies of celebrities such as dancer Gelsey Kirkland, singer Carly Simon or fashion icon Diana Vreeland. She also began an affair with Maurice Tempelsman, a diamond merchant and financier who took over managing her fortune and quadrupled the $26 million Kennedy had inherited from Onassis.

Jackie O. escaped the intrigues of Ari Onassis, but remained the holy grail of paparazzi until his death in 1994. She won several battles in that war against the media, such as the restraining order against Ron Galella, the photographer who became famous photographing and chasing her around the world in the seventies and eighties. For a New York judge, President Kennedy's widow was a victim of harassment. His case made visible for the first time the frictions between press freedom and the right to privacy of celebrities. Jackie managed to set a precedent.