Joan B. Kennedy, the former wife of late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy who endured a troubled marriage marked by family tragedies, her husband’s infidelities and her own decadeslong struggles with alcoholism and mental health, died on Wednesday. She was 89.
Her death was confirmed to CNN by the chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, Steve Kerrigan, as well as a spokesperson for her son Patrick J. Kennedy.
The former Joan Bennett, one of the last remaining members of a family generation that included President John F. Kennedy, was a model and classically trained pianist when she married Ted Kennedy in 1958.
Their lives would change unimaginably over the next decade and a half.
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