What to Know About Diana de Vegh, Who Says She Had an Affair with JFK When She Was 20

In 2021, the then 83-year-old psychotherapist and grandmother of two — long described as a renowned relationship expert, according to Oprah.com — made headlines when she shared a very different side of herself.

That August, Diana de Vegh wrote an essay for Airmail about her affair with the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, when she was 20 years old. Although de Vegh has never spoken publicly in this way, her story about their multi-year relationship did not come completely out of the blue. Descriptions of their affair were previously published in Vanity Fair editor Sally Bedell Smith’s 2004 book on the Kennedys, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House.

At that time, Texas Observer also reported on the relationship, and journalist Robert Sherrill wrote that one of the paper’s most famous editors, Billy Brammer, was dating de Vegh when he learned of her meetings with Kennedy. “Nothing will come of it,” de Vegh reportedly told Brammer, “but he’s got me.”

In September 2021, de Vegh told PEOPLE why she finally decided to tell her story in her own words and shared the tough lessons she learned about society and power from her time with Kennedy.

So what really happened? Here’s everything you need to know about Diane de Vegh’s affair with former President John F. Kennedy.

Diane de Vegh’s affair with John F. Kennedy began in 1958

John F. Kennedy in 1957; Diana de Vegh, circa 1963. Hank Walker/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock; Courtesy of Diane de Vegh

De Vega’s relationship with the man who would become president began one night in 1958, when she caught Kennedy’s eye at a political dinner ahead of his re-election to the Senate.

As she described to PEOPLE in 2021, Kennedy dazzled the room before turning his attention to her. “It was kind of a high-energy spark, and then it focused on me,” she said. “It’s a great trick, I think, to be lively and energetic and charm everybody everywhere. And then you make one person feel, Ohvery special.”

He invited her to another guest appearance the following week, where she said she was charmed by his humor. Eventually, their chance meeting ignited an approximately four-year affair.

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Speaking to PEOPLE in September 2021, de Vegh said she was “absolutely smitten” with Kennedy.

“I mean, he was handsome. He was charming. He worked hard. He had men surrounding me who worked for him and were like, ‘Isn’t this wonderful? It’s so good to see you,'” she said.

In August of the same year, de Vegh said New York Post she carried the burden of the relationship as if it were a “pocket of dead energy”, talking about it off the record to some reporters before deciding to come out publicly.

Jackie Kennedy knew about JFK’s infidelity – and that it was likely to continue in their marriage, the book claims

At least part of the reason for her outspokenness, she said, is a new public focus on the power dynamics in relationships between older men and younger women often highlighted in the #MeToo movement.

“Eventually I started questioning culture because culture was the making of a great man. I mean, John Kennedy didn’t lead his womanizing life by himself. He had it thanks to many, many, many other men,” she told PEOPLE.

Part of the reason for her decision was herself and how she had changed.

President John F. Kennedy photographed at his desk in February 1961. Alfred Eisenstaedt/Pix Inc./The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty

Diana de Vegh and John F. Kennedy’s affair was not romantic

“My thought when I say that now is a) I am so old, but luckily I’m much smarter and now I have a language for my life, my feelings, my imagination,” said de Vegh during August 2021. Airmail podcast appearance accompanying her essay. “Then I had an adrenaline rush, and that was it. So when this star came and shone on me, I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is wonderful’.”

De Vegh’s affair with Kennedy began in 1958, when he was married and twice her age. (What his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, knew and accepted — or tolerated — of his many reported indiscretions has long been a matter of debate, but de Vegh said Jackie never mentioned it in her conversations with Kennedy.)

She admitted it was by no means a traditional relationship, telling PEOPLE, “He never brought me flowers … but they always treated me with kindness.”

Despite this, de Vegh believed it was true love.

“I considered myself madly in love,” she said.

Kennedy, however, “was very scrupulous. He never said, ‘I love you.’ I thought it was a love affair.”

In the end, their relationship “wasn’t a romantic story,” she wrote in her essay. Instead, he taught her hard lessons about her worth and identity, and she said it took “years to recover” — “almost as many years” as it took her to come forward with her story.

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Diana de Vegh and John F. Kennedy separated after his rise to the presidency

Her relationship with Kennedy changed the course of her entire life, de Vegh wrote, and the two strained as he gained political influence.

Still, she remained in love, eventually dropping out of graduate school and moving to Washington, DC, after he was elected president in 1960.

There, she got a job as a research assistant at the National Security Council—a role she later realized Kennedy had arranged for her.

“I was focused on my affair and, on the other hand, I had a serious job and I was going to glamorous parties and it was really nice,” she told PEOPLE in 2021. “I mean, it just felt like a really good life all the time.”

During the inauguration ceremonies in January 1961, de Vegh said she felt something had shifted.

The man I believed I was having an affair with didn’t want to connect certain dots, she wrote in hers Airmail essay. – Actually, he wanted me to be as isolated as possible, alone in the vast sea of ​​his attention.

During their last meeting, de Vegh wrote, she accused Kennedy of not loving her anymore, only to realize he never used those words with her.

John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier sit together in the sun at their family home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, a few months before their wedding. Bettmann/Getty PEOPLE Explained: All About Marilyn Monroe’s Alleged Relationships With JFK and Brother Bobby

Diana de Vegh pictured in 2020 by Kelly Tsai

Diana de Vegh moved to Paris when her relationship with John F. Kennedy ended

After their relationship broke down – de Vegh recalled the “last scene” where he said he was sorry to hear her father had fallen ill – she ended things, left her post on the National Security Council and moved to Paris .

It was in Paris that she heard of Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, saying she was “numb” at the news.

Over time, she started a new life and a new relationship.

After marrying a professor at Yale (where she attended the Yale Drama School), de Vegh moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and eventually returned to New York, where she lived with her two daughters and began working as an actress.

She later returned to the nation’s capital, serving as executive director of the Institute for Policy Studies before opening her psychotherapy practice in NYC at the age of 60.

“For a great man, he was still at the height of the male mythology of his time: to see a beautiful young woman, to have a beautiful young woman,” she wrote of Kennedy in her Airmail essay.

“I was young and blinded. Now I’m old and blind. I’ll tell you what I like better: hands down, old and blind.”

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