An upcoming book about the last days of John F. Kennedy Jr. and wife Carolyn Bessette before their tragic death in a small-plane crash, along with Bessette’s sister, suggests that the fairytale duo may have been on the rocks in the days leading up to their untimely end.
The book, “JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography,” comes out next Tuesday — 25 years to the day from when the small plane Kennedy was piloting plummeted into the ocean off Martha’s Vineyard, killing him, Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette on impact.
A quarter century after their death, the public’s fascination with the boy who famously saluted the coffin of his assassinated father, President John F. Kennedy — caught on film by Daily News photographer Dan Farrell — is undimmed.
“Sharing never-before-told stories and insights, his closest friends, confidantes, lovers, classmates, teachers, and colleagues paint a vivid portrait of one of the most beloved figures of the 20th century,” publisher Simon & Schuster says in its description.
From the start, Kennedy and Bessette’s marriage was beset by the numerous pressures of being in the public eye. In the days leading up to their doomed flight, tensions reached a high point.
Bessette had trouble adjusting to the scrutiny and her inability to simply do everyday tasks like walk the dog without being accosted by a slew of photographers. JFK Jr.’s cousin, Anthony Radziwill, was dying of cancer. And Kennedy’s politics magazine, George, was floundering financially as he sought to keep it afloat.
Though accounts concur on the tensions, they differ on whether the stress would have ultimately torn the couple apart. What is known, write co-authors RoseMarie Terenzio, a close friend of the pair, and People editor-at-large Liz McNeil, is that Kennedy had reportedly spent at least one night at the Stanhope Hotel the week before the fateful flight.
Rumors that ex-girlfriend Julie Baker had been there with him were false, Baker told the two in the book.
Schoolmates of both chime in, with Bessette-Kennedy’s college friend Sasha Chermayeff detailing the anxiety inherent in being constantly badgered, which led Carolyn to worry about being kidnapped.
“She genuinely felt she was in danger,” Chermayeff told the authors. “After they got married, it just escalated and escalated and escalated.”
On the night they died, the plan was to drop off Lauren on Martha’s Vineyard while Kennedy and his wife would head to Hyannis Port, Mass., for his cousin Rory Kennedy’s wedding.
After taking off from Caldwell Airport in New Jersey at 8:38 p.m., it was getting dark out, and haze was setting in. Kennedy was piloting a newly purchased, single-engine Piper Saratoga.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that in all likelihood, the lack of visibility contributed to “spatial disorientation” for Kennedy. NTSB investigator Jeff Guzzetti said the plane went into a “graveyard spiral,” in which it circles nose-down, but without the passengers really being aware of what’s happening.
They hit the water at 60 mph and were killed instantly. Their bodies were found pinned under the fuselage at the bottom of the ocean about 7 miles off Martha’s Vineyard a few days later.