For the Sinatra biography, Kelley won praise for the quality of her research and willingness to risk a lawsuit, but critics have not rated her other works as highly.

"[4][5] She helped take care of her five sisters, Mary Cary, Ellen, Margaret, Adele Monica and Madeleine Sophie, as well as her brother, John.

He later quit his job to help Kelley with her early books, even looking in the garbage of Elizabeth Taylor and her then husband, U.S.

(1978), a life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which was written at the request of Lyle Stuart, who launched the book into the New York Times Best Seller list.

In the book, Kelley describes John F. Kennedy's womanizing and includes "revelations" about Onassis's love life, her depression and electric shock treatment.

"[11] In 1990, Kelley wrote a piece for People magazine based on interviews she had conducted with Judith Campbell Exner, a former girlfriend of Frank Sinatra's who claimed to have had an affair with John F.

It was subsequently revealed that Exner, who was terminally ill, had been paid $50,000 to talk with Kelley and had not mentioned these "revelations" in her own autobiography, published years earlier.

[21] The book claimed that Nancy Reagan had had affairs with Frank Sinatra, that she frequently relied on astrology, that she had lied about her age, and that she had a very poor relationship with her children, even alleging that she hit her daughter, Patti.

In December 2021, the book's allegation that the future first lady, "was renowned in Hollywood for performing oral sex... not only in the evening but in offices.

However Newsweek also criticized the book's basic factual accuracy, noting that Kelley had reported that Ronald Reagan had allegedly date raped a 19-year-old, when the accuser would have actually been 25 at the time.

[11] The book included an interview with actress Jacquelyn Park, who detailed an alleged affair with Ronald Reagan in the 1950s.

"[27] Michael Korda, who had been the editor for Kelley's previous book on Elizabeth Taylor, asked to excuse himself from this work as he was slated to edit Ronald Reagan's autobiography.

Kelley stated that the Windsors obscured their German ancestry and described scandals surrounding the members of the royal family.

"[35] Michael Crowley of Slate magazine once called Kelley "the consummate gossip monger, a vehicle for all the rumor and innuendo surrounding her illustrious subjects.

"[11] Kelley maintains, "I am an unabashed admirer of transparency and believe in the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment"[36] and, to that end, her writing is about "moving an icon out of the moonlight and into the sunlight."

Crowley, while conceding that Kelley's books, in particular her Sinatra biography, have revealed core truths not addressed by more sympathetic biographers, has also stated that her investigative methods are questionable, and many of the claims in her books have been falsified, as with her 1990 People magazine story about John F. Kennedy and organized crime boss Sam Giancana, and her Nancy Reagan biography.