JACQUELINE KENNEDY

THE SINGER OPENS UP FOR THE FIRST TIME ABOUT THE RECENT DEATH OF HER BELOVED SISTER BONNIE

After the assassination of JFK, the beloved first lady spiraled into depression and heavy drinking — until love saved her.

She may have been older, but Anita Pointer always looked up to her sister Bonnie. “She was the star of the show — always,” Anita, an original member of the Pointer Sisters, tells Closer.

“She’d go off choreography and go up to the edge of the stage. Sometimes she’d fall! But she was so courageous and so wanting to make the most of everything.”

Anita, 72, talked about her sister and her memories of the Grammy-winning group with Closer for the first time since Bonnie’s death from a cardiac arrest in June. "Its been one of the most trying times of my life,” admits Anita, who saw cancer take her daughter, Jada, in 2003 and younger sister June three years later. Anita stopped performing in 2015 and released a memoir, Fairytale: The Pointer Sisters’ Family Story, earlier this year. “I keep them all in my heart,” she says. “Bonnie is so recent, so it really, really hurts.”

SIBLING REVELRY

Bonnie left the group to pursue a solo career before early 1980s hits like “Jump (For My Love)” and “I’m So Excited,” but Anita enjoys looking back to the days when they would write songs together — and fight over wardrobe choices with June. “We had one [outfit] we really wanted to wear, but June didn’t. She went in the bathroom and set hers on fire! We’re lucky we didn’t burn the hotel down,” she laughs.

The sisters often had “fusses,” Anita says. “We were all so jealous! We would race each other through the streets of Europe to shop — and tell the [store owners], ‘Don’t sell this to my sister!’ But when you’re family, you really deeply love each other and you find a way to work it out.”

Today Anita is proud that the Pointer Sisters continue with original member Ruth, 74, her daughter Issa, 42, and granddaughter Sadako, 36. “I am just so grateful for the time I had working with my sisters,” she says. “It was the thrill of a lifetime.”

“We had things planned,” says Anita of Bonnie (left). “My best friend is gone.” When the Pointer Sisters debuted in 1973, they were a quartet of sisters (from left) Bonnie, Ruth, Anita and June.