Here at The Hollywood Gossip, we generally pride ourselves on bringing you the very latest celebrity gossip.

But today, we’re diving deep into Tinseltown history to explore new revelations relating to a scandal that unfolded well before most of our readers were born.

In August of 1962, Marilyn Monroe — arguably the most famous woman on the planet at the time — died from an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates.

She was just 36 years old.

So as not to be morbid, we won’t go so far as to draw parallels between Marilyn and specific stars of today, but suffice it to say, if you can imagine any of 2022’s most towering public figures passing away unexpectedly in their prime, then you can begin to fathom the shock and horror that overwhelmed millions in the wake of Marilyn’s passing.

Of course, that only begins to give you a sense of the national mourning that took place that summer.

Celebrities were far fewer in those days, and they loomed even larger in the public’s collective imagination.

But that’s just one reason that Monroe’s tragic demise is still being discussed and dissected all these decades later.

The circumstances surrounding the death have left a lot of unanswered questions. 

Marilyn’s romantic entanglements with some of the most famous and powerful men of her era have led to rumors of a cover-up and claims that her death was not entirely accidental, as investigators initially claimed.

Now, a new Netflix documentary entitled The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes is offering what the filmmakers claim is bombshell new information about the late screen legend’s final days.

The doc reiterates the claim that Marilyn passed away just hours after an intense argument with Robert F. Kennedy — the brother of JFK, who was then serving as US attorney general.

From there, the film presents witnesses who allege that Monroe did not pass away at her LA home, as has been the accepted narrative for the past 60 years.

“No, she wasn’t [dead at home],” says former Los Angeles ambulance company owner Walter Schaefer, according to the New York Post.

Schaefer says that when one of his drivers picked Monroe up, she was comatose but still alive.

He alleges that she passed away en route to the hospital, and was then returned to her home for reasons that remain unclear.

That version of events is corroborated by author John Sherlock, who claims that Monroe’s final psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, informed him that the actress was alive when paramedics arrived at her home.

“She died in the ambulance,” Sherlock says in the film.

“Then they took her back to the house. [Greenson] told me he was in the ambulance.”

The documentary also features commentary from Anthony Summers, a journalist who has been investigating Monroe’s passing for nearly 40 years.

“What I learned was information that changed completely what we thought we knew about her mysterious death,” says Summers, who serves as the film’s narrator.

“And suggests that the circumstances of her dying were covered up.”

Summers — who is the author of a 1985 book entitled Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe — alleges that both Kennedy brothers ended their affairs with Monroe in 1962 as the events of the Cold War came to present an existential threat to the American way of life.

The journalist stops short of claiming that Monroe was murdered, insisting that despite the murkiness surrounding her death, her passing does not seem to be the result of foul play.

“I did not find out anything that convinced me that she had been deliberately killed,” he says in the film.

Summers notes, however, that suspicious events — such as Robert Kennedy’s efforts to hide the fact that he was in Los Angeles on the day of Monroe’s death — suggest that some sort of cover-up took place.

“The tapes I’ve accumulated while writing the book have never been heard by the public,” says Summers.

“What the evidence suggests is that [the circumstances around her death were] covered up because of her connection with the Kennedy brothers.”

The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes will be available for streaming on Wednesday, April 27.

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