[4] After her mother nearly died in an auto accident, Judith withdrew from school at the age of 14 and was tutored at home.
An FBI investigation into JFK’s assassination and certain mob dealings uncovered Exner’s name and brought them to expose her to the nation.
[4] She described the circumstances of the 18-month relationship she had with then-Senator John F. Kennedy, beginning in 1960, which continued after he was elected President of the United States.
In her 1977 memoir, she said that she became one of JFK's mistresses for about two years, frequently visiting him in the White House after he was elected president.
[4] Exner received additional media attention on a national level when she testified in 1975 before the Church Committee investigating CIA assassination attempts on Fidel Castro.
Exner may have changed certain aspects of how she told her story largely in the interest of her own safety and security and that of her family, and to protect the reputation of certain individuals whose reputations were at risk as a result of the intense media and public attention being focused on them, and not because her story was inherently fictitious, dishonest, or fabricated.
[7] Journalists and some historians have also alleged that Kennedy had a number of affairs, citing a memo by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as part of the evidence.
[10] In a 1988 interview with Kitty Kelley of People magazine, Exner told a very different story about Giancana and Kennedy.
[3] In 1997, Exner alleged more details and changed her story, in separate interviews with Liz Smith of Vanity Fair and Seymour Hersh.
Her earlier accounts of her affair with Kennedy were supported by FBI reports, Secret Service and White House phone logs and staff documentation.
[5] Exner's memoir was adapted as a made-for-TV movie, Power and Beauty (2002), directed by Susan Seidelman, in which she was played by Natasha Henstridge.
In the 2004 episode "In Camelot" of the TV series The Sopranos, the character of Fran Felstein is based on Judith Exner.
In 2016, she appeared as a character in the third episode of the first season of the television series Timeless, played by Elena Satine.