Mamie Van Doren Claims Infamous Marilyn Monroe & JFK Affair Was Just a One-Night Stand

Jason Brow July 29, 11:30 am

Was the rumored torrid love affair between the silver screen’s biggest star and a sitting President of the United States really a single moment of passion? As one of the “Three Ms,” Mamie Van Doren stood shoulder to shoulder and bust to bust with on-screen sex symbols, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. And in a new interview, the 94-year-old Van Doren dished on the Some Like It Hot star, saying she and Monroe were “good friends” — and that Monroe’s infamous relationship with John F. Kennedy may have been much shorter than previously believed.

“We liked each other,” Van Doren told IndieWire. “I got to know Marilyn. I was 12 years old when I first met her, she was at the Blue Book Modeling Agency at the Ambassador Hotel, and I lived out back at the Ambassador Hotel. And when I was a kid, I would go into the swimming pool all the time, and I used to see her modeling all the time.”

Despite the 5-year age gap, Monroe and Van Doren formed a friendship and over the years, the Sex Kittens Go to College star said they’d “see each other all the time at parties, and I knew what she was doing all the time.”

“Marilyn always thought she had to have a man with her,” Van Doren said of Monroe’s many high-publicized marriages (James Dougherty, Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller) and love affairs. “She’s always looking for a father, but she was crazy about [John F.] Kennedy.”

“I think they only went to bed one time, and then he passed her on to his brother,” said Van Doren, inferring Monroe’s alleged tryst with Robert “Bobby” Kennedy. “And she got hung up on Bobby [Kennedy], and she just couldn’t stand rejection anymore.”

Monroe died in 1962 in what was ruled a probable suicide. Conspiracy theories have developed in the decades since, with many alleging that the Kennedys had a hand in covering up her alleged involvement with both John and Robert (who were both married at the time, to Jackie Onassis and Ethel Skakel, respectively).