John F. Kennedy Jr. did not reach out to Prince William and Prince Harry after their mother Princess Diana’s death, despite his bond with the Princess of Wales.
A new biography by Elizabeth Beller alleges that JFK Jr.’s wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, urged the president’s son to contact Diana’s children after she was killed in a car crash while being chased by paparazzi in 1997.
JFK Jr., 38, dealt with the pain of losing a parent when his father, President John F. Kennedy Jr., was assassinated in 1963.
“Carolyn tried to get John to call Princes William and Harry to give his condolences when it came out that Diana had hoped for her sons to emulate John’s modesty in the face of media obsession,” Beller wrote in “Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy,” according to a People excerpt.
But JFK Jr. was hesitant to talk to Prince William, then 15, and Prince Harry, then 12, when they lost their mother because “he didn’t know them and thought that their situations greatly differed.”
Still, JFK Jr. was affected by the death of Diana, whom he “had met once or twice.”
“The fact that she had died while being chased down by paparazzi, he was aware of the fact that their [he and Carolyn’s] lives were becoming overwrought with attention and he was upset,” Beller wrote.
The author said that Bessette-Kennedy’s suggestion for her husband to call Diana’s sons “was lovely,” but he didn’t do it.
“He was, by all accounts, a lovely, gracious person, but maybe that moment was too difficult for him to be able to reach out and say something to someone who’s just lost their parent in a very public and dramatic way,” Beller said about JFK Jr.
Two years after Diana’s death, JFK Jr. and his wife were killed in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
JFK Jr. and Diana’s friendship dated back to their secret meeting in New York City in 1995 when they were two of the most famous people in the world.
According to People, JFK Jr. met with Diana, who separated from Prince Charles three years earlier, because he wanted her to pose for the cover of his political magazine, “George.”
They agreed to meet in a suite at the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side.
J.F.K. Jr. brought his executive assistant, RoseMarie Terenzio, with him to the hotel.
“I remember him saying, ‘There’s no way someone is not going to leak it. There’s going to be paparazzi everywhere,’ ” Terenzio recalled in her 2012 memoir, “Fairy Tale Interrupted.”
“Someone suggested he go in disguise and I said, ‘That’s ridiculous. You’re not doing that!’ “
JFK Jr. and Diana entered the hotel through the front door and avoided the paparazzi. After their hour and a half meeting, Diana told JFK Jr. she didn’t want to pose in his magazine.
Terenzio said that JFK Jr. told her Diana was “very shy” but “lovely” to talk to.
