1 of 4 | (L to R) Then-Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (L) Joan Kennedy (M) and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in New York in March 1980. File Photo by UPI | License Photo
Joan Kennedy, a prominent U.S. mental health and addiction advocate, has died, her family said. She was 89 years old.
The first wife of the late Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, D-Mass., Joan Bennett Kennedy died Wednesday in her sleep at her home in Boston.
“Besides being a loving mother, talented musician, and instrumental partner to my father as he launched his successful political career, Mom was a powerful example to millions of people with mental health conditions,” her son, ex-U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said in the statement.
Kennedy’s death was also announced by Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair Steve Kerrigan, according to The New York Times.
Bennett Kennedy, born September 1936 in New York City, was married to the younger brother of former President John F. Kennedy for more than 20 years prior to their 1982 divorce following her husband’s failed 1980 bid to unseat then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination in the election won by Ronald Reagan.
She was a celebrated classical pianist and music teacher who later channeled her own personal battles to become a nationwide advocate for better addiction and mental health services across the United States.
“Now I’ve been sober for quite a while, and I’ve learned to live my life one day at a time,” she said during a 1981 interview just before her divorce. “I’m so lucky to have isolated my problem and done something about it.”
Kennedy’s death arrived 31 years after former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in New York, and nearly a year to the date of the death of her late sister-in-law Ethel Skakel Kennedy — the wife of slain U.S. Attorney General, later New York’s U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.
She had three children with the late senator. Along with Patrick, former Connecticut state Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Jr., and the late television producer Kara Kennedy, who died in 2011.
Patrick Kennedy, her youngest son, followed in his mother’s footsteps as a mental health and addiction advocate.
“She will be missed not just by the entire Kennedy Family, but by the arts community in the City of Boston and the many people whose lives that she touched,” added the former Rhode Island congressman and current New Jersey resident.
Notable deaths of 2025
Joan KennedyLeft to right, Sen. Edward Kennedy, Joan Kennedy, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis attend a tribute ceremony to Sen. Kennedy at the Shubert Theater in New York City on March 23, 1980. Joan Kennedy, the first wife of Edward Kennedy, who was a prominent U.S. mental health and addiction advocate, died at the age of 89 on October 8. Photo by UPI | License Photo
