Random Famous Historical Families With Eerie Curses You Can't Deny (11 items)

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  (#2) Legend Says The Grimaldi Family Was Cursed By Witches

  Grimaldi was once one of the most powerful families in Genoa, eventually becoming lords of Monaco in the 15th century. In the 13th century, however, a witch supposedly cursed the Grimaldi name as recompense for a vicious act committed by Lord Rainier I. According to the legend, he assaulted a young girl, and she later learned the ways of witchcraft. She used her knowledge of the dark arts to ensure no Grimaldi would ever find happiness in marriage.

  This curse may have manifested into something far more sinister, considering that Princess Grace, the wife of Prince Rainier II, passed in a 1982 car crash. Her daughter Stephanie, who survived the incident, endured one failed marriage and several other failed relationships later in life. Grace's other daughter, Caroline, also had a tumultuous love life, with an early divorce, a second husband who died in a speedboat accident, and a third husband (a prince) with a reputation for aggression and medical problems.
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  (#1) The Kennedy Curse May Be The Most Infamous

  The Kennedy Curse is one of the most documented cases of a family curse. Heartache and tragedy span through generations of the Kennedy family tree. In the late 1940s, Joseph Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish both perished in plane crashes. Rosemary Kennedy struggled for years with developmental issues - leading to a tragic lobotomy that only made things worse - before passing in 2005.

  John F. Kennedy was supposed to turn the family’s luck around, and most were optimistic when he became president; however, his presidency ended in catastrophe when Lee Harvey Oswald fatally shot him in 1963. Five years after JFK’s assassination, a lone gunman named Sirhan Sirhan murdered his younger brother, Robert Kennedy, in Los Angeles.

  Two of Robert Kennedy’s children perished in tragic incidents, one in the '80s of a drug overdose and another in the '90s in a skiing mishap. Additionally, in 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. - JFK's son - lost his life alongside his wife and sister-in-law in a plane crash.
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  (#10) A World Of Riches Couldn't Stop The Getty Family Curse

  In 1957, J. Paul Getty found oil in the Middle East's Neutral Zone, which ballooned his bank account to 10 digits. Unfortunately, all that money couldn't save him from a life of tragedy. He lived through the self-inflicted end of his oldest son and the overdose of his daughter-in-law.

  Further, Getty's grandson, J. Paul Getty III, was kidnapped as a teenager by Italian gangsters in 1973. In 1981, a drug overdose and stroke left Getty III partially blind, paralyzed, and unable to speak. 

  The alleged curse reared its head again in 2015 when Andrew Getty - another grandson - died mysteriously.
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  (#5) The Guinness Family Is Marked By Tragedy

  Arthur Guinness was born in Kildare, Ireland, in 1725 and crafted the beer that forged both his legacy and fortune in 1759. After he married, Guinness and his wife had 21 children - 11 of whom tragically never reached adulthood. Whispers of a curse surrounding the Guinness family began when members began suffering from addiction and perishing in unusual ways.

  Some of Guinness's grandchildren fell into alcoholism or were committed to psychiatric institutions. In 1944, extremists killed Guinness's descendant, Lord Moyne. In 1966, Tara Browne - the 21-year-old heir to the brewery - was in a fatal car crash. In 1978, Lady Henrietta Guinness jumped off of a bridge. The same year, Dennys Guinness was found dead from an overdose, while a car wreck killed one of John Guinness's sons. Another Guinness relation, Olivia Channon, suffered a fatal drug overdose in 1986. Robert Hesketh, married to a Guinness descendent, also passed from an overdose in 2004.
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  (#7) The Wadiyar Royal Family Curse Played Out Almost Exactly As Promised

  Alamelamma, the wife of King Tirumalaraja - who ruled the Vijayanagar Empire before Wadiyar came into power - placed the Wadiyar curse on Raja Wadiyar of the Mysore Kingdom in the early 15th century when Wadiyar came in and took her husband's throne. Alamelamma fled, taking her jewels to the nearby town of Talakadu. When officials came to apprehend her, she spoke a three-part curse before jumping into the Cauvery River to end her life.

  The curse condemned Talakadu to become a "barren expanse of sand" and for Malangi, a village near the river, to "turn into an unfathomed whirlpool." The curse also condemned the kings of the Wadiyar family to "not have children for eternity." While events didn't play out exactly as Alamelamma asked, they came eerily close. Talakadu became a desert-like place (full of sand), the river near Malangi commonly sees whirlpools, and the Wadiyar family has only birthed male children in alternate generations, which has made it difficult for kings to have direct heirs.
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  (#3) The Von Erich Family Curse Left Only One Surviving Son

  In the 1950s, wrestler Jack Adkisson created his sinister alter ego, Fritz Von Erich, and began what would become a successful career in the sport. The Von Erich family curse began during this time, in 1959, when Jack's six-year-old son was lost in a bizarre electrical accident: knocked unconscious by a short circuit in his family's trailer park, he fell into a puddle and drowned.

  Jack's remaining sons went on to become successful wrestlers, though they, too, suffered unfortunate fates: David Von Erich died suddenly in 1984 at age 26 during a wrestling tour in Japan, reportedly from acute enteritis of the upper intestine, though he was rumored to have mixed alcohol with a bottle of sleeping pills; Mike Von Erich, after shoulder surgery in 1985, contracted toxic shock syndrome, which he narrowly survived. He suffered from an altered mental state and sunk into poor mental health. He ended his own life in 1987 at the age of 23.

  In 1986, Kerry Von Erich was wounded in a motorcycle incident that led to the eventual amputation of his foot. After struggling with pain and drug addiction for years, he took his life in 1993 at age 33. The youngest son, Chris Von Erich, dealt with numerous health issues which ultimately overwhelmed him: he, too, ended his own life at age 22 in 1991. Six years later, Jack Von Erich succumbed to cancer of the brain and lungs.

  Doris, their mother, passed at age 82 in 2015. Kevin Von Erich is the only surviving member of the family.

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