Name Michael Kennedy | Religion Catholic Political party Democratic | |
 | ||
Born February 27, 1958 ( 1958-02-27 ) Washington, D.C. Spouse Victoria Denise Gifford (m. 1981–1997) Siblings Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., David Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy Children Rory Gifford Kennedy, Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, Jr., Kyle Francis Kennedy Similar People Robert F Kennedy, David Kennedy, John F Kennedy, Joseph P Kennedy II, Robert F Kennedy - Jr Died December 31, 1997 (aged 39) Aspen, Colorado, U.S. | ||
Michael LeMoyne Kennedy (February 27, 1958 – December 31, 1997) was the sixth of eleven children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel.
Contents
Early life
Kennedy was born in Washington, D.C. and named for a long-standing family friend, Irish priest Michael Kennedy of Dungarvan in County Waterford, and Kirk LeMoyne Billings, better known as "Lem", the college roommate of his uncle, President of the United States John F. Kennedy, and a close Kennedy family friend.
Michael was 5 years old when John F. Kennedy, was assassinated and 10 years old when his father, presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, was also assassinated.
Education and career
He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Harvard College in 1980, and subsequently earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1984.
Kennedy was the head of his brother Joe's non-profit organization, Citizens Energy Corporation, which provides heating oil and services to elderly and poor households in Massachusetts and other cold weather states. He also helped organize his uncle Ted Kennedy's re-election campaign for the U.S. Senate against Mitt Romney in 1994.
Kennedy co-chaired the Walden Woods Project, a non-profit organization to preserve Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. In 1994, he co-founded Stop Handgun Violence, a group that raises public awareness about handguns.
Personal life
Kennedy married Victoria Denise Gifford, daughter of former pro-football player and sportscaster Frank Gifford and Maxine Avis Ewart, on March 14, 1981, in New York City.
They had one son, Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, Jr. (born January 9, 1983), and two daughters, Kyle Francis Kennedy (born July 6, 1984), Rory Gifford Kennedy (born November 14, 1987), and resided in Cohasset, Massachusetts, until his death in December 1997. His son, Michael, Jr., and his wife, Mary Campbell, had one son, Michael LeMoyne Kennedy III, in 2014 and one daughter, Quinn Victoria Ethel Kennedy, in 2016. Michael and Mary are expecting their third child. Kyle and her husband Liam Kerr had sons Conor Nash Kerr (2014-) nd Declan Francis Kerr (2016-). A daughter, Conor's twin sister, Josephine Ethel Kerr, died in infancy in 2014. Rory and her husband, David, are expecting their first child, Miller Michael DiCamillo.
In 1997 the news broke that Michael, Sr., was having an affair with the family's former babysitter. Allegations were reported that the affair had begun three years before, when the babysitter was 14 years old. Kennedy took and passed three polygraph tests claiming he had not had sex with the Cohasset teen until she was 16, the legal age of consent in Massachusetts at the time. Kennedy was placed under investigation for statutory rape. The babysitter, however, did not cooperate with prosecutors. Shortly after the scandal began, Kennedy and his wife separated. After the affair, he checked himself into a Maryland rehab center for alcoholics.
Death
Kennedy died on December 31, 1997, in a skiing accident in Aspen Mountain, Colorado. He was playing football while on skis with several other members of the Kennedy family when at approximately 4:15 p.m. he hit a tree. Kennedy was not wearing a helmet or other safety equipment. Some have stated that the family had been previously warned by the ski patrol to cease the activity. Others have stated that the ski patrol issued no such warnings. Following the accident Kennedy was taken to Aspen Valley Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:50 p.m.
He was interred on January 3, 1998, in the family plot at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts.