Talk about burying your lede. Yesterday the Washington Post's Matt Schudel penned a 43-paragraph obituary marking the passing of Fernande Grudet, the "Famed proprietor of [a] Parisian brothel" which counted diplomats, European nobility, businessmen, and politicians among its clientele.
Schudel waited, however, until paragraph number 20 to disclose that President John F. Kennedy was reputed to have once been a customer:
On a visit to Paris, John F. Kennedy supposedly requested the company of a woman who looked like his wife, Jacqueline, “but hot.”
Not only that but:
The former first lady’s second husband, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, was another frequent customer, often accompanied by his lover, opera star Maria Callas.
By contrast, the Daily Mail in Britain led its story with the JFK connection:
France's most famous brothel owner Madame Claude, who supplied call girls for former U.S. president John F Kennedy and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has died aged 92.
During the 1960s and 70s, she controlled a network of hundreds of prostitutes who sold sex to politicians, dignitaries, film stars and singers across Europe.
Claude - whose real name was Fernande Grudet - acted as an agent for the French Resistance during the Second World War before setting up her first brothel in Paris after the war.
Author William Stadiem revealed the names of some of Claude's clients in a biography last year, including John F Kennedy, Colonel Gaddafi and Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando.
According to Claude, murdered U.S. president JFK was a regular client and once asked for a prostitute who looked like his wife Jackie 'but hot'.
