Carole Radziwill's Mother-in-Law Reveals What Life Was Like with Sister Jackie Kennedy
Her new book gives an intimate look at the life of the very private #RHONY relative.
Carole Radziwill opened up about her experiences with one of the most famous dynasties in American history, the Kennedys, last season of The Real Housewives of New York City as she recounted her memories with late husband Anthony Radziwill, whose mother Lee Radziwill is the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. We've never seen Lee on RHONY, as the 82-year-old now lives out of the public eye, but now she's pulling back the curtain on her extraordinary life in her new book Lee.
In the book filled with photos, copies of memorabilia, and memories, Lee describes how she connected with Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, on living beside a high-profile woman during a visit to a Buckingham Palace for a dinner hosted by the royal couple for President John F. Kenney and his wife in 1961. "We took a tour through the [palace] art gallery and Prince Phillip (sic) said to me, 'You're just like me – you have to walk three steps behind, '" Lee writes in her book, as previewed in this week's issue of PEOPLE.
Of course, being around one of the most famous women in the world has its drawbacks. "We were always surrounded by too many people – the banquet at the presidential mansion was absolute hell," Lee writes in the book, describing her 1962 trip with Jackie to India and Pakistan.
In addition to devoting a chapter of the book to her life while Jackie was First Lady of the United States from 1961 until President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Lee paints an intimate portrait of what it was like growing up with her sister and their parents Janet and John Bouvier III. Lee describes their father in the book as "dashing - in every sense" and "to Jackie and me he was life-enhancing."
Their parents divorced when Lee was seven years old, and two years later, their mother married Hugh Auchincloss. "I felt my world had crashed," Lee writes about how she felt when she heard the news.
Still, Lee had a close-knit relationship with her mother and Jackie. The three would go to the village fair every year when they vacationed in East Hampton, Lee describes in the book. The sisters would continue to vacation together as adults in Montauk, New York. Lee even rented Andy Warhol's old oceanfront fishing camp for two summers in the 1970s. "It was the best," she writes.
Lee hits bookstores December 8. Until then, you can find out more about the book in this week's issue of PEOPLE.
The RHONY cast also knows a thing or two about vacationing in the Hamptons. Relieve their brunch battle out East in this clip from last season, below.
