JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Secrets Of Their Marriage
People|June 3, 2019

Nearly 20 Years After Their Deaths, A New Book On The Kennedy Family Examines The Storied Couple’s Passion—And Problems

JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Secrets Of Their Marriage

“Being a Kennedy isn’t for the faint of heart,” Ethel Kennedy confided to a close friend last spring. According to The Kennedy Heirs, a new book by J. Randy Taraborrelli, she was wondering if the 1960s assassinations of JFK and her own husband, Bobby, were at the root of the addictions, untimely deaths and scandals that have plagued the family’s third generation —Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy’s grandchildren. “You just don’t get over something like that,” Ethel continued. “People think you move on. But guess what? You don’t.”

Especially, perhaps, if you’re JFK Jr., raised with little memory of the father the world revered, expected to fulfill his aborted promise and all too aware of his womanizing ways. In an exclusive excerpt, Taraborrelli digs beneath the glossy veneer of JFK Jr.’s life to reveal his particular issues with love and legacy and how those ghosts affected his relationship with wife Carolyn Bessette. “John didn’t want to be like many of the men in his family; he wanted to have a good marriage,” says Taraborrelli, who interviewed scores of witnesses to Kennedy history for his book. But by the time the plane John was piloting crashed into the sea on July 16, 1999, killing him, Carolyn and her sister Lauren, his marriage was in trouble. “He and Carolyn loved each other,” Taraborrelli says, “but their struggles were much more real than people realize.”

In 1994, one month after his mother’s death, John had dinner with a friend.

This story is from the June 3, 2019 edition of People.

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This story is from the June 3, 2019 edition of People.

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