Pod Insights Hot History Kiki Preston: The Girl with the Silver Syringe About this episode Hello Divas! Today we're back with the story of Kiki Preston, the gilded age nepo baby whose life spanned from the streets of Paris to the plains of Africa and the sidewalks of New York City to the drawing room at Buckingham Palace, with her infamous moniker surmising a life that was steeped in equal parts drama, deceit, dukes and drugs!
But what does this nickname do to her historical legacy? Is it the full picture? And just how much of her history is shaped by the monarchical powers at be? Let's find out together!
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Til next week, Ainslie x
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 One of the most dramatic and scandalous nicknames in history. The Girl with the Silver Syringe. Relentless in their pursuit to be amused, more often attaining this through drink, drugs and sex. But in the heart of London, with a British prince, rumours of an affair with an American socialite drug addict wasn't just going to be swept under the rug. Kiki was reportedly pregnant with his illegitimate son. Oh my gosh, the horror. What do you mean? An illegitimate-born royal? Never. Turns out, guys, it really does pay to have former lovers with African party houses.
0:49 Speaker 00 This episode of Hot History deals with themes of substance abuse, addiction and self-harm. If this content could be triggering for you in any way, please refrain from listening and ensure to take care of yourself. I've also linked several resources in the show notes, should these aid you. Hi, guys, and welcome back to Hot History, where we cover all the things in history that you probably should know but don't. I'm Ainslie Harvey, your hot historian here, ready to chat about the woman who may have one of the most dramatic and scandalous nicknames in history. The Girl with the Silver Syringe, aka Kiki Preston, is the Gilded Age nepo baby whose lifespan from the streets of Paris to the plains of Africa
1:31 Speaker 00 and the sidewalks of New York City to the drawing room at Buckingham Palace. With her infamous moniker summarising a life that was steeped in equal parts drama, deceit, dukes and drugs. So let's get into it today by rewinding it all the way back to 1898. Where one Edward Erskine Gwynn and Helen Steele announced the arrival of their daughter, Kiki, whose actual name was Alice, to the rest of American high society. Oh yes, guys, you best believe, we are sticking with the late Gilded Age from last week, but instead of the Widener family, we're dealing with some far more heavy hitters.
2:15 Speaker 00 You see, Kiki's father, who was nephew to railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt II, arguably the biggest deal amongst the New Money crowd when it came to society. Meanwhile, her mother was the great granddaughter of one of the signatories to the US Declaration of Independence. So, as far as pedigree goes here, Kiki had some pretty strong stock. But what the family did not have was a particularly happy home life. For after their 1896 wedding, Edward and Helen's marriage was absolutely on the rocks. So much so, that they even publicly separated at one point before Kiki's birth. Despite these troubles, though, the couple also managed to have two sons, Edward Erskine Gwynn Jr. and Edward C. Gwynn,
3:00 Speaker 00 and spent time together as a family between 1898 and 1904 in Paris, Nassau County, and Park Hill in New York. So all very civilized here. Super typical for these American society families. However, where their relations like the Vanderbilts and the Whitneys paired their fancy last names and fancy vacations with deep pockets, the Gwynns were not so lucky. Or as the New York Times put it, Edward had extravagant tastes without business employment, the result of which led him to bankruptcy over a rather nice set of jewels. So as the story goes, Edward was in Paris around 1899,
3:40 Speaker 00 where he decided to take out a pretty sizable loan worth around $50,000 at the time, from a jeweler in order to purchase some diamonds. What those were and who they were for, we still do not know. But what we do know for certain is that Edward was unable to pay this back, the fact of which led him to make some pretty drastic changes to his property portfolio back home. So in February nineteen oh one, and guys, the timing is really important here, so keep it in mind. Edward transferred his interest in his property to his mother, Louise. Now, the reason, like I said, that timing is important is because later in nineteen oh one,
4:20 Speaker 00 that same Paris moneylender filed suit against Edward for the unpaid loan of nearly fifty thousand dollars. When it became clear he was unable to pay this, and from here, things get messy. Because the following year, Louise Gwyn, his mum, dies. And the property he had transferred to her did not revert to him, but rather placed into a trust for her grandchildren, leaving Edward to file a petition in bankruptcy with liabilities of over fifty six thousand dollars and a total assets of just fifty seven dollars. This all just seemed too convenient for the Paris lender, as though Edward had almost purposely transferred his actual assets to his mother to avoid them being taken.
5:03 Speaker 00 What? Never. Oh my gosh, who would think that? But it was their theory, and they decided to test it in court. However, in an act of strange fate, Edward, on the very day his case was to be brought in court, died of acute kidney problems at only thirty five years old. Now, at this point in time, Kiki was five years old. And while the family property was safe in the trust, like I said, the Gwyn name took a direct hit. And the family had direct loss in their father. Unfortunately, it wouldn't get much easier for them. When four years later, the Paris moneylender launched a new legal attack against the Gwinds, demanding their property in lieu for the unpaid loan of forty thousand dollars
5:48 Speaker 00 on the basis that Edward had made the transfer to avoid the payment, like I said, very suspicious. In the end, though, the judge ruled that the realty transfer performed by Edward to his mother was not made with the intent to defraud creditors based on the timings. But still, the creditor persisted, only being scared away by the family's various robber barons and wealthy relatives who threatened to intervene. And so Kiki and her family were saved. However, this whole period of her life made Kiki very aware that wealth and happiness were fragile things. They could be ripped away at any moment and your life changed forever, which gave the young Kiki a predisposed ambition to enjoy every single moment of her life.
6:34 Speaker 00 Which, after the death of her father, her life was spent primarily in the city that captured her heart: Paris.
6:42 Speaker 00 So here she was surrounded by cobblestones and flower stalls with the ebb and flow of the Seine as its central artery. Paris was the perfect place for the young family to spend their time following this tragedy. While they did occasionally return to New York and were educated in England, Paris truly became Kiki's home and she soaked up its bohemian nature and cosmopolitan crowd like a dry beauty blender under a hot tap. And it's no wonder, guys, Paris in the early twenties was the place to be alive. From Hemingway to Picasso, Zelda Fitzgerald to Josephine Baker, the city was awash with spectacles of wealth, genius and possibility.
7:23 Speaker 00 And it was within this scene where the skirts were shorter, the morals were looser, and most importantly, the parties were grander, that Kiki Gwynn reportedly had her first taste of show business, performing as a cabaret dancer alongside native Parisians and foreigners alike. And it was around this time that Kiki met her first husband, Horace R. Bigelow Allen. As a former US Army man turned business executive, we've got to be honest here. Horace wasn't like the kind of men who came to the clubs and bars that Kiki frequented. He was kind and tidy and very, very American. But he was also something else.
8:06 Speaker 00 Kiki's chance at her own life away from the Gwynn name. So after a brief courtship, she agreed to marry him.
8:15 Speaker 00 At first, by all accounts, Kiki enjoyed the novelty of marriage, especially in Paris. I mean, like, what's not to love? But ultimately, having a husband did not provide her with the kind of fun and freedom that she thought it would. Instead, it was something else entirely. Pretty boring. The Allens weren't a bohemian couple who lived a fast-paced, fascinating life. They were mundane, passing through the everyday existence of their ordinary life. They had two children, they went to parks, they drank coffee in warm cafes and sat down for dinner around a small table each evening.
8:54 Speaker 00 Later confessing the only fun she had was in the buzzy jazz bars they occasionally visited for certain events, Kiki was stuck. But it was these small glimmers into a different life and different crowd that gave her hope. Speaking of which, let's do a bit of a roll call here on exactly who Kiki was rubbing shoulders with in these jazz bars to give this first impression. So, to start off with, we have Countess Alistair Janz, heiress to a Chicago meatpacking fortune, who married into the French nobility, had a Black Panther as a pet and eventually turned into a wannabe vengeful murderess. Next, we have Joslyn Hay, the Earl of Erle, British aristocrat turned fascist under Oswald
9:37 Speaker 00 Mosley, who was also shot over his affairs. There was Lady Adina Sackville, a renowned husband swapper who ravished men in her green onyx bathtub, and gambler, womanizer and prolific alcoholic Raymond de Trafford. Kiki fell in love with this mismatch of murderers and miscreants and she soon found herself sneaking out at every moment possible to become a permanent fixture in their set. Horace, however, wasn't having it and divorced Kiki in 1924 before setting out for the stereotypical divorced middle-aged man's paradise that is the Bahamas. But Kiki didn't mind, to be honest, she was actually pretty glad to be free of him,
10:21 Speaker 00 and quickly remarried, this time to Jerome Preston, a wealthy investment banker whose associates described him as "an untamed creature of instincts". I mean, he already, like, from the get-go guy, sounds far more fitting for Kiki. And when it became clear that he loved to party with other women as much as Kiki loved to party with other men, the union was a done deal. So this wild pair are a match made in heaven, and with Jerome's deep pockets, they began enjoying the very best of what life had to offer, which turned out not to be Paris or New York or London, but Kenya.
11:00 Speaker 00 Controlled at this point in history by the British, Kenya was recognised as a British East African colony, and as such, brought many wealthy socialites and aristocrats from the West who took up residence on the African plains, so they could essentially do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, however they wanted, with whoever they wanted, away from the prying eyes of good society. And there was one place in particular that attracted these scandalous socialites like moths to a flame: Happy Valley. Described as one of the most beautiful places on earth, Happy Valley was situated in the lush and expansive Kenyan Highlands. With its wide open plains, its rolling hills, and its fresh whipped breeze lapping off nearby Lake Nivasha,
11:46 Speaker 00 Happy Valley became the Shangri-La for European expats who filled their days with sun and their nights with sin, which, to the Preston's, seemed like pure heaven. So tempted by the promise of this wild land and wild times, they soon moved into a large house on the shores of Lake Nivasha, alongside Alistair Janes, Jocelyn Hay, Lady Adina Sackville, Raymond Trafford, and more. Here, they bred racehorses, they hunted big game, they engaged in underhand business deals with local authorities, learnt archery, sunbathed nude, rescued orphaned lion cubs, and of course, guys, partied hard.
12:30 Speaker 00 Described by author Ulf Aschen, the Happy Valleyites were witty, attractive, well-bred and well-read. Being relentless in their pursuit to be amused, more often attaining this through drink, drugs, and sex. Oh yes, divas, to be a part of the Happy Valley set was to delight in afternoon orgies, exchange spouses, and consume enough contraband to send an elephant keeling over. Kiki, in particular, was an avid drug abuser. Reportedly staying up all night and sleeping all day, Kiki would wake midway through dinner to join the rest of her friends, not for food, but for refreshment at the end of a needle,
13:12 Speaker 00 becoming, in no uncertain terms here, a junkie. Her drug abuse was so rampant while in Kenya that she began carrying the famed Silver Syringe, which hung from a long chain around her neck, hence the nickname. She was so renowned for her drug abuse that the second wife of Swedish Baron Braun von Blixen Finnick, who sounds like a reindeer off Santa's sleigh here, once said that she's very clever with her needle, great fun and very witty, and never made any bones about morphine. She always looked marvelous. She would be quite open about it, digging the needle into herself while we sat up drinking whiskey. And she wasn't wrong here. After so, so many years of practice, Kiki could find a vein with surgical precision, which, rather sickeningly,
13:57 Speaker 00 was something that her friends found utterly hilarious constantly, bemused by and encouraging her ongoing drug abuse as a fun character quirk. But it was no joke. By the late 1920s, her addiction had gotten so out of hand that she was receiving regular and incredibly large supplies of "her goods" from one of Africa's most prolific and dangerous drug dealers, Frank "Greswald" Williams. Armed to the teeth, involved in a number of money laundering schemes, and according to the Newcastle Herald at the time, was hopelessly demented, continuously intoxicated, and proposing to every woman he met. This was a dangerous and damning man, but Kiki was desperate.
14:40 Speaker 00 And as such, when her morphine, heroin, or cocaine supply was running low, she would call Frank, who would replenish her with not just a few bottles or packets or vials, but a private plane full of drugs to restock her supply. But substances weren't Kiki's only vice. She also loved sex. With a list of lovers that traversed multiple continents, Kiki had affairs with actor Rudolph Valentino, the bisexual son of the Argentinian ambassador, Warner Bros. top-paid actress Kay Francis, as well as several Parisian cabaret dancers. Plus, of course, her fellow Happy Valley set members. But there was one who superseded them all.
15:25 Speaker 00 Entirely titled gorgeous and utterly off limits. Prince George, Duke of Kent, was the youngest son of British King George V and the brother of future kings Edward VIII and George VI. And he was, as it turns out, a bit of a naughty boy. Dashing, yet intent on almost never following orders, George had hoped for a successful career in the Royal Navy. However, after failing to respect his superiors and developing severe seasickness, I'm doing inverted commas, BT dubs, this was just a lie, he just was naughty and they said that he was sick so couldn't be in the navy. He was instead now destined for a life of sloppy handshakes and petting babies.
16:08 Speaker 00 But before that royal mundanity began, he decided to take a holiday to Paris. It was here, within the smoke-filled haze of a jazz club, that George first locked eyes with the young, beautiful and dangerously uninhibited Kiki, who was back in the city after a jaunt in Happy Valley. George was instantly obsessed and approached her through the haze. From that moment on, the pair were attached from the hip, spending their time indulging in all matters of mortal sins, including, of course, prolific drug abuse. Reports today suggest it was Kiki who first introduced the young prince to substances, although his time spent around sailors and clubs in various ports makes this claim far more likely to be a fabrication
16:52 Speaker 00 of pro-monarchical media than fact. But we do know that together they indulged like there was no tomorrow, holding themselves up in what essentially amounted to a drug den. The situation became so dire at one point that the palace were forced to quite literally drag George away from Kiki back to London. She, of course, simply followed him, packing her bags the next morning to carry on her affair with the young prince, who was loved up and drugged up in equal measure now. While rumours were swirling in Paris of an affair between these two in the early days, no one really cared. But in the heart of London, with a British prince, rumours of an affair with an American
17:37 Speaker 00 socialite drug addict wasn't just gonna be swept under the rug. And so Kiki's arrival in London was when this affair went from mere fodder to a full-blown scandal. Especially when it came to light, hold on to your hats here, that Kiki was reportedly pregnant with his illegitimate son. Oh my gosh, the horror, what do you mean? An illegitimate-born royal? Never! Now, I wanna be clear. So much of this story is super murky and like, just fuelled by gossip and, you know, tabloid headlines. But, the story goes that Kiki was in fact pregnant by George and to avoid the fallout
18:18 Speaker 00 of this becoming public knowledge, she went to Bern in Switzerland to have the child, a baby boy reportedly named Antoine, who was secretly adopted by New York publisher Cass Canfield. The boy was then given a new name and a new life as Michael Temple Canfield and grew up to become an American diplomatic aide and, interestingly, first husband of Lee Bouvier, making him Jackie and John F Kennedy's brother-in-law. So quite a man in and of his own right, but despite all of this success and fame, the rumours of his true parentage lurked over him forever, especially once he entered adulthood as a near spitting image of the young Duke of Kent.
19:01 Speaker 00 Now, like I said, this is lots of lots and lots of gossip and rumours, but there are many theories about this poor guy. Future King Edward VIII always believed to his dying breath that it was Kiki who had mothered him, while other reports later claimed that his actual birth mother was the daughter of a Canadian coal merchant whose reputation wouldn't survive an illegitimate child. Regardless, the noise of such a scandal was too loud. And day by day, the gossip mongers drew closer to publishing a full-blown exposé about George's affairs with other men and women, including Kiki. And after love letters between the prince and a young Frenchman were stolen and used as part of a grand blackmail scheme,
19:45 Speaker 00 the palace were forced to intervene and made it clear in no uncertain terms that Kiki had to leave Britain. She, of course, couldn't have cared less. When did she ever do what she was asked of, right? But George was a cog in an institution whose name and usefulness since World War I were constantly questioned. And he could not carry on the affair any longer. In the end, Edward stepped in, shipping Kiki back to New York with her actual husband and dragging George to a country house on the Windsor Estate where he was slowly weaned off the drugs before making a rather unconventional match with Princess Marina of Greece.
20:23 Speaker 00 Now, we won't spend too long here, but she is a super fascinating figure and I wanna just chat a little bit about her. Just introduce you. So Marina and her family were not active royals at this time in history, having lived in exile in Paris since around 1924 after fleeing Greece, which suffered a series of upheavals following the First World War, which basically led to like the total abolition of monarchy. It was then replaced with a republic, so these guys are living in exile. So her choice as a match for the son of the British king is kind of an odd one. Especially when you pair this with the fact that she was relatively unknown and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.
21:07 Speaker 00 But she was glamorous and the lack of knowledge about her made the match all the more alluring, right? You have something to learn rather than knowing everything. And this distracted from any unsavory reporting that may come out about the prince. In exchange for tales of how the couple met, what dress Marina would wear to the wedding and how George proposed. Now, if this sounds very like Kate and Will's 2011 People Magazine and hardly the kind of thing the British press would publish in 1934, you'd actually be wrong. This unit was really the first time the press exposed more intimate details about a royal romance, which prior to 1934 had been deemed entirely inappropriate.
21:52 Speaker 00 Whether this was a direct act by the palace to detract from the prince's negative press, especially with Kiki, or a wider reflection of the appetite for human interest stories in a post-war Britain, we don't quite know for certain. I am willing to say it's definitely both. But the effect here was brilliant. Marina and George weren't just royals, they were modern celebrities, becoming the first royals to consent to filmed interviews, wave at crowds and kiss on camera, pushing an idealised glamorous relationship, the grand crescendo of which was their November 1934 wedding. Kiki meanwhile, during all of this, spent her time between Paris, Kenya and New York
22:36 Speaker 00 City. She kind of carried on as usual, living in this golden period of good company, good times and, minus being separated from George, relatively good spirits. But this wouldn't last forever. In fact, it was around this time that Kiki experienced the first of a series of events which shook her to her very core, reminding her of a lesson she learned as a child: nothing lasts forever. When news reached her that her brother, Edward Erskine Jr, had suffered a heart attack and was barely hanging on for life, Kiki was five years old again, weeping for the loss of her father. Believing Edward to be on the verge of certain death, she picked up, she
23:20 Speaker 00 packed up and she flew right back to Paris to be by his side. She was racked with anxiety and unsure what she was walking into. However, rather miraculously, he survived. She was relieved of this, of course, but this would only go on to scare her as to the certainty of her own mortality, the result of which was even more erratic behaviour, if that's even possible at this point. She began secretly corresponding with George again and even managed to see him for a one-time reunion in the south of France, which saw George forcibly removed from the premises yet again. But living life to its fullest, even with her connection to George,
24:03 Speaker 00 which did bring her genuine comfort by all accounts we have, did not keep Kiki safe from further tragedy. The next of which struck in 1933 when her first cousin, William K. Vanderbilt III, died while driving home from his father's mansion in Florida. Kiki's brother Erskine, the same one who had already almost died, was also in the car, once again miraculously surviving. This, however, was just the first in a line of tragedies to drown Kiki. Six months after William's death here, her own husband Jerome Preston abruptly died from pneumonia at the age of 37 while staying at the Hotel Pierre in New York. He'd only been there for a week, and while fortunately, Kiki was with him for his passing,
24:49 Speaker 00 it's hardly comforting for the now 36-year-old widow. While they both were prolific philanderers, they all were at this time, they were a good match who genuinely cared for one another. And Jerome's death made her realise that this was the first time she'd ever really been alone. Unfortunately, the pylon continued the following year when her brother-in-law and famed sportsman Lewis Thomas Preston died at the age as Jerome had. You know, she's becoming incredibly superstitious, she's about to become 37 as well. It's like, just it's a really terrible time for her, which goes from bad to worse when her brother, Ed Wood, the escape artist, yes, he gets in another near-death experience.
25:33 Speaker 00 But this time, it is rather serious. He was tried, he was found guilty and slowly paralysed by his injuries from this really horrific car crash and lost all function completely by 1938. At this point, Kiki now remains almost permanently in the US. She closed up her Kenya house and it was just as well for in 1941, a true horror would wash over the whole Happy Valley set when her dear friend and fellow resident Jocelyn Hay was murdered. Now, this case is quite long and complex and like still unsolved, but everybody knows who did it. So like, I'm not gonna deep it too much, I'll just give you the basics. So Jocelyn Hay, we already spoke about him at the top.
26:16 Speaker 00 He is the 22nd Earl of Errol and was, as all Happy Valiers were, a serial womanizer, philanderer and gambler. Described as predatory, he copped the brute force of many husbands whose wives he targeted, including by almost all accounts, Sir Jock Delves-Broughton, who arrived in Kenya accompanied by his brand new wife Diana. Thirty years, his junior Diana was stunning and very well aware of her powers of attraction, so much so, that she actually had an affair with a fellow passenger on the boat to Africa? Now, Jock was all too smitten that he even managed to land this incredible woman in the first place, so he just turned a blind eye to Diana's affairs.
27:02 Speaker 00 However, that seems to have changed when Diana met Jocelyn, because he soon turned up dead. Found in the back of his car on the night of January 24th, 1941, Jocelyn had spent the evening dining with Diana and Jock before taking Diana dancing and dropping her home, after which, he shot in the back of the head. The only evidence here, white scuff marks on the back of the car seat. Now, straight away, the police arrest the obvious suspect, Jock, who was brought to trial but found not guilty due to limited evidence, leaving Jocelyn's murder unsolved for all these years. However, new evidence, only in the last few years actually, almost certainly sees Jock pulling the trigger here.
27:47 Speaker 00 Revealing he was wearing a pair of white pimsol shoes on the night and had agreed for a neighbour to pick him up after the crime in exchange for cash for his failing business. And so another man in Kiki's life passes on, followed by her dear friend and fellow Happy Valier, Alistair Jans, who committed suicide after being diagnosed with uterine cancer and undergoing a hysterectomy.
28:10 Speaker 00 With five of the great men in her life dead and one of her best girlfriends also gone, Kiki clung to any word from those who remained, chief amongst them, George, and was thrilled when he wrote to her that he would be visiting New York in 1941 and wished to see her. Separated by distance and time, you'd think this might be kind of awkward, or at the very least, like, nerve-wracking, a bit like on edge. But it was as though they'd never been apart. Now, knowing these two's track record, right? You'd think they'd use their time to get hot, heavy and high. However, they remained shockingly sober for this visit,
28:52 Speaker 00 using their time instead to hatch a wartime plot. Yes, for those of you well-versed in 20th century, the Second World War is well underway. And as part of this, George's brother-in-law, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, was caught in the crosshairs. Holding a certain sympathy for Adolf Hitler, Paul was placed under house arrest in North Africa by the Allies during World War II. Used to a certain standard of living and freedom, George was seriously concerned that Paul would take his own life and wanted Kiki's help to ensure this didn't happen. Now, you're probably thinking, one, what on earth can Kiki do? And two, what on earth can she do from New York?
29:34 Speaker 00 Well, it just so turned out that the location of Paul's internment was Lake Nijascha, the very same lake where Kiki still had her Happy Valley house, which sat fully furnished and unoccupied. Turns out, guys, it really does pay to have former lovers with African party houses. For Kiki, who was all too familiar with the tragedies of death, agreed to have Paul, his wife, and the Allied officers who were watching them moved into a home where they would spend the rest of the war. Having spent their evening working on this grand plan and catching up for old times' sakes, George and Kiki parted. This would be the final time they saw each
30:15 Speaker 00 other. The short comfort that George may have provided to Kiki was now gone, as was he, dying in a mysterious plane crash, the circumstances of which remain classified to this day super suspicious. The news reached Kiki, and the weight of her grief was made all the more worse by the realities of the war setting in. Paris, the home of her youth, was taken over by the Nazis and many of the young men she'd once flirted and danced with were dead. The world no longer seemed to make sense to Kiki. And the final blow truly came in 1944, when her son Ethan Allen was killed during the Normandy landings. By this point, grief
30:57 Speaker 00 totally consumed the once bright and bouncing American socialite, whose life was all about living to the fullest. Now she realised the one fundamental truth, that her life only seemed to make sense when surrounded by the people she loved. It was they who made her whole, not the drugs or the parties or the sports, each other. And now with so many of them gone, Kiki's world didn't make sense. She entered a deep depression, her companion Lillian Turner confirming this, saying that at that point, Kiki had long since left the party. Unable to be left alone for periods of time, her great joy in each day became the glass of milk that Lillian brought her before bed. And it was this small ritual
31:41 Speaker 00 that saw her enter Kiki's bedroom one night in December 1946, but instead of finding her sorrowful friend, she saw nothing but an open window. Dropping the milk to the floor, the glass and white liquid stretched across the hardwood, Lillian ran to the fifth floor balcony, where she saw Kiki Preston's lifeless, pyjama-clad body below.
32:03 Speaker 00 Dying at age forty-eight, a mere two days before Christmas, Kiki joins the list of ghosts she once loved in the world beyond ours. So there we have it. A quick, short, sharp little history lesson for your Friday about a truly tragic and outrageous woman whose life was defined by many things. History remembers her for the scandals, the sex and the silver syringes that dominated her youth. But this version is heavily inspired by the monarchical powers at B, which pushed this agenda to minimize any relationship between George and herself, to distract us from the reality.
32:43 Speaker 00 That British princes aren't perfect. What? Shock, horror, what do you mean? This version places the blame firmly at Kiki's feet, reducing her to nothing more than an empty-headed junkie that frittered her life away. But we know that's not true. Kiki was a woman heavily influenced by the losses of her youth in stealing a passion for life that saw her see and do more than any of her aristocratic predecessors would have dreamed. For better and of course, for worse. Whether it was meeting new people, travelling to exotic lands or trying wild and outlandish pastimes, she honed a spirit for life that led her to love the group of misfits who didn't seem to fit anywhere but with one another.
33:25 Speaker 00 A connection which we today may not be able to understand, but one which defined her, breeding both innate fearlessness and the debilitating addiction which followed her. There's no denying, nor shying away from the fact that substance abuse was something she not only encouraged in her own life, but in others. In this, she was morally grey. Like the majority of aristocratic men, both during and before her time, we just gloss over them because they're allowed to be grey. Women, on the other hand, are not afforded this same luxury. Evident in Kiki and so many other women's historical reportings. Something I can't wait to keep on picking with you all by digging into more of their stories in the coming weeks.
34:09 Speaker 00 And that brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History. Like I said, a short, sharp one. Thank you so much for following along with me on this episode. Before you go, I would love to remind you guys to submit your hot takes on whether we have the right to destroy history. So the episode is in, I think, two weeks. And I want to hear from you guys, from Epstein Island to the palaces of Saddam Hussein, alongside Hitler's Berghof, copies of Mian Camp, Queen Victoria's Diaries, the Romanovs palaces. Do we have a right to destroy things because of what they represent? Or is it all history which needs to be preserved? Let me know what you think, either via DM, or you can send me an email at [email protected] .
34:53 Speaker 00 We will be right back in your feed next Friday, guys, to talk about something I have been wanting to deep dive on for so long. The myth, the legend, and the facts of the lost city of Atlantis. As always, guys, if you are looking for some more hot history before then, then you can follow us on Instagram at Hot History Club and on TikTok at hot dot history. It has been a pleasure getting down and dirty in time with you as always, and I will speak to you all next Friday. Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye.
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