Ethel Kennedy Net Worth | Celebrity Net Worth
What Is Ethel Kennedy's Net Worth?
Ethel Kennedy is an American human rights advocate who has a net worth of $50 million. Ethel Kennedy is the widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and after his assassination in 1968, she established the non-profit organization the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Ethel received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 during the Obama administration. Kennedy is the subject of the 2012 HBO documentary "Ethel," which earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and won several awards at film festivals.
Early Life
Ethel Kennedy was born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of Ann Brannack and George Skakel, who were killed in a plane crash in 1955. Ethel grew up in a Catholic household with six siblings, Patricia, Ann, Georgeann, George Jr., James, and Rushton. Her nephew Ciarán Cuffe is a Member of the European Parliament. Kennedy's father founded Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, which later became part of SGLCarbon.
Ethel studied at the all-girls school Greenwich Academy, and after graduating from Manhattan's Convent of the Sacred Heart in 1945, she enrolled at Manhattanville College. There, she met Jean Kennedy, who would eventually become her sister-in-law. Ethel met Robert Kennedy (aka Bobby) on a ski trip in Quebec in late 1945, but he began dating her sister Patricia during the trip. After that relationship ended, he started dating Ethel. She campaigned for Bobby's brother, future U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in his 1946 congressional campaign, and she wrote her college thesis on "Why England Slept," the thesis John wrote as a senior at Harvard College, which was published in 1940. Ethel earned her bachelor's degree in 1949.
Career
After marrying in the early 1950s, Ethel and Bobby lived in Charlottesville, Virginia. After Bobby earned his law degree, they moved to Washington, D.C., and he took a job with the Department of Justice. He managed his brother John's successful 1952 Senate campaign in Massachusetts, after which he started his career with the federal government working his way up to becoming an Attorney General of the United States and a United States Senator for the state of New York. After Bobby's tragic death in 1968, Ethel established the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (which was later renamed Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights). According to the center's website, "We work with the bravest people on earth—partners at home and around the world—to realize Robert F. Kennedy's dream of a more just and peaceful world. Working to expose injustice and heal pain and suffering, our pursuit of racial and economic equality forms the foundation of all our programs at RFK Human Rights."
Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries, and she hosted a $28,500-a-plate fundraising dinner for him at her home during the summer of 2008. In 2012, she appeared in the HBO documentary "Ethel," which was directed by her daughter Rory. Described as "a documentary on Ethel Kennedy that provides an insider's view of a political dynasty, including her life with Robert F. Kennedy and the years following his death when she raised their eleven children on her own," the film won awards at the Nantucket Film Festival, Ashland Independent Film Festival, Sarasota Film Festival, BendFilm Festival, and Gracie Allen Awards. "Ethel" also won a Humanitas Prize and earned five Primetime Emmy nominations. Kennedy played herself in the 1992 "Cheers" episode "Daddy's Little Middle-Aged Girl," and she has appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar," "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," "60 Minutes," "Today," and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
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Personal Life
Ethel became engaged to Robert Kennedy in February 1950, and they married at St. Mary's Catholic Church on June 17, 1950. The couple welcomed 11 children together: daughters Kathleen, Mary Courtney, Mary Kerry, and Rory and sons Robert Kennedy Jr., Joseph, David, Christopher, Michael, Douglas, and Max. Kathleen was Maryland's Lieutenant Governor from 1995 to 2003, Joseph served in the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1999, and Robert Jr. announced his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election in April 2023. David died of a drug overdose in 1984, and Michael died in a ski accident in 1997. In 1962, President Kennedy enlisted Robert and Ethel to tour more than a dozen countries during a month-long goodwill trip, and the host countries reportedly viewed the couple as stand-ins for John and Jacqueline. Ethel became a widow on June 6, 1968, the day after Bobby was shot by Sirhan Sirhan. She was pregnant with their daughter Rory at the time of his death. Kennedy later said that she would never get married again, but she spent quality time with singer and family friend Andy Williams, who escorted her to various events.
Awards and Honors
In 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan presented Ethel with the Robert F. Kennedy medal. In 2014, a Washington, D.C. bridge was renamed the Ethel Kennedy Bridge "to honor her for her devotion to many social and environmental causes during her later years, especially in the neighborhoods along and near the Anacostia River." That year then-President Barack Obama awarded Ethel the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work "advancing the cause of social justice, human rights, environmental protection, and poverty reduction by creating countless ripples of hope to effect change around the world."
Real Estate
The Kennedy family owned an estate in McLean, Virginia, known as Hickory Hill, which John and Jacqueline Kennedy purchased in 1955. Ethel and Robert bought the home after the 1956 Democratic National Convention. The family listed the home for $25 million in 2004, and they took it off the market in late 2008. In December 2009, Ethel sold the home for $8.25 million.
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