The Wealthy Women Destroyed By Their Own Families (Documentary)

This in-depth, full length documentary examines wealthy women destroyed by their own families through elder abuse, murder, lobotomy, imprisonment, and inheritance theft—from the Astors and Kennedys to French aristocracy and Bakelite fortune heirs.

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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Introduction
1:03 1. Brooke Astor
2. Barbara Baekeland
3. Rosemary Kennedy
4. Blanche Monnier
5. Maggie Astor


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Brooke Astor gave away $200 million to New York institutions including the Metropolitan Museum and New York Public Library before her son Anthony Marshall was convicted on 14 criminal counts.

The philanthropist who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom spent her final years sleeping on a sofa reeking of dog urine while wearing torn nightgowns.

Her grandson Philip Marshall exposed the abuse in 2006, revealing she was denied basic medications and living in squalor despite having over $150 million in assets.

Anthony had sold her beloved Childe Hassam painting for $10 million, taking a $2 million commission, and given himself a 208% raise while she suffered from Alzheimer's.

Barbara Baekeland was the beautiful wife of Brooks Baekeland, heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune, living a glamorous international lifestyle.

Her son Antony became increasingly unstable and obsessed with his mother, leading to rumors of an incestuous relationship encouraged by Barbara herself.

On November 17, 1972, Antony stabbed his mother to death in their London apartment after years of psychological deterioration.

He was declared criminally insane and committed to Broadmoor Hospital before being released to his grandmother's care—where he attacked her with a knife before his final arrest.

Rosemary Kennedy was born in 1918 as the third child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, showing developmental delays that the ambitious family desperately tried to hide.

At age 23 in 1941, without her mother's knowledge, Joseph Kennedy authorized doctors to perform a lobotomy intended to control Rosemary's mood swings and prevent sexual behavior.

The procedure left her permanently incapacitated with the mental capacity of a two-year-old, unable to speak intelligibly or care for herself.

She spent the rest of her life institutionalized at St. Coletta School in Wisconsin, hidden from public view for over 20 years while her brothers pursued political power.

Blanche Monnier was a beautiful French socialite from an aristocratic Poitiers family who fell in love with a man her mother deemed unsuitable in 1876.

Her mother Louise locked the 25-year-old in the attic of their mansion, where she remained imprisoned for 25 years in total darkness.

When police discovered her in 1901 following an anonymous tip, Blanche weighed just 55 pounds, was covered in excrement, and surrounded by rotting food and rats.

Her mother died 15 days after arrest before facing trial, and Blanche never recovered her sanity after a quarter-century of captivity.

Madeleine Astor survived the Titanic in 1912 at age 18, five months pregnant after her 47-year-old husband John Jacob Astor IV secured her a lifeboat seat.

When she remarried in 1916 to childhood friend William Dick, the Astor family immediately stripped her of her trust fund income.

The family forced her to surrender custody of her son John Jacob Astor VI, who was raised by his grandfather's relatives.

She spent decades fighting for access to her own child while the Astor fortune she helped preserve through widowhood was denied to her.

Privilege and bloodlines offered no protection from those closest to them.