Exactly what happened on the night of August 4, 1962? This episode meticulously examines the official version of events – as well as the inconsistencies - that show Marilyn Monroe's death could not have been suicide. The lack of any pill or capsule in her stomach; the absence of vomit; the bruises omitted from the autopsy report; the glass window smashed from inside her room; the four hour gap between her housekeeper finding her body and the arrival of the police…

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The days leading up to Marilyn Monroe's death are crucial to understanding why she died. There was the humiliation at a party held by Frank Sinatra and mobster Sam Giancana, the increasing reliance on alcohol and prescription drugs, heightened surveillance by Hoover, and the growing panic from the Kennedys about the contents of her Little Red Book. The men in her life were suddenly invested in the idea of her death…

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Marilyn’s affair with John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby would prove to be the defining feature of her life and death. It put her at the center of a triangulated power struggle between the President, Hoover’s FBI, and the Mob. 

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Marilyn had learned to use her sexuality to great effect. As a 16-year-old, her first marriage (to factory worker Jim Dougherty) helped her escape childhood abuse, and later, she cultivated relationships with powerful Hollywood execs and directors to help kickstart her career. This chapter examines her marriages and sexual partners.

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The glory years: during which Marilyn not only made a succession of smash hit movies, but also enjoyed relationships with a series of high profile men – including Sinatra and his rat pack buddy Peter Lawford. By the time of her marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, she was perhaps the most famous, and most lusted after woman on the planet.

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In this chapter we examine how Marilyn finally escaped a life of poverty, abuse and abandonment she was born into – and how she wasn’t averse to using whatever weapons were in her formidable armory to help achieve her dream of making it big in Tinseltown. With spectacular effect.

From her early modeling career to getting a break in Hollywood, bleaching her hair blonde and changing her name – as Norma Jeane became Marilyn Monroe. The roles were small, until she utilized the “casting couch”, becoming the lover first of influential Fox exec Joseph Schenck and then Johnny Hyde, VP of William Morris.

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In this chapter we will examine how the woman born as Norma Jeane Mortensen was rejected by those closest to her and dreamed of escaping her life of foster homes, orphanages and repeated sexual abuse.As a woman, Marilyn Monroe was the most glamorous star the world had ever seen - but as a girl Norma Jeane had the most dysfunctional of childhoods and we discover the effect that tough upbringing had on Marilyn’s view of men... and how that was to resonate on all her later relationships – including with the first husband that history has mostly forgotten.

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She is the greatest female star Hollywood ever produced and in most people’s minds, the 20th century’s definitive sex symbol but on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe’s incredible light was suddenly, shockingly, snuffed out and 57 years later, the full facts of her death remain hidden.

Now learn the real story as we show how in the course of her brief time in the spotlight, Marilyn Monroe became a pawn at the center of a deadly power struggle between the President of the United States, his Attorney General brother, the highest levels of the Mafia, J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, Frank Sinatra, and America’s hidden Communist threat.

The woman who had used her sexuality to hold sway over men her whole life was ultimately undone by her choice of lovers – and become little more than a puppet in their deadly schemes against one another.

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The Killing of Marilyn Monroe is an explosive new 12-part podcast from the creators of Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood. Marilyn Monroe’s name, beauty and legend is still as iconic today as the night she died 57 years ago. But unlike the legacy of her stardom, shadowy conspiracies and unanswered questions continue to linger over what happened in the hours, days and weeks before the blonde bombshell took her final breath, naked on her bed and surrounded by a deadly cocktail of prescription pills. The coroners verdict: “Probable suicide”. Yet many believe it was murder. This original 12-part series investigates the secret life Marilyn hid from the world, juggling affairs with Rat Pack crooners, President's men and mob bosses… and chronicling every encounter in her infamous “Red Diary”. Some say she knew too much, got in too deep, became a threat to the most powerful and dangerous men in America. For the first time, and in unprecedented detail, The Killing of Marilyn Monroe will uncover exactly what she knew – and what it cost her. The series premieres on 8/19/19.