Princess Diana once attempted to help John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, with a haunting letter sent to him before her untimely passing.
In The Kennedys and the Windsors: The Story of Two Dynasties, One Born, One Made, a book written by Caroline Hallemann set to come out next month (2 June), the February 1997 note from Diana to JFK Jr. revealed her concern over the tabloid attention surrounding him and Carolyn.
The pair first met in 1995 at New York’s The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel, where he approached her about appearing on the cover of George magazine.
She turned down the offer politely, though he continued trying to secure an interview in the years that followed.
Her letter, however, suggested she hadn’t ruled it out entirely.
According to an excerpt published in Vanity Fair, Diana wrote at the time: “I hope the media are leaving both you and Carolyn alone. I know how difficult it is, but believe it or not, the worst paparazzi are here in Europe!”
Hallemann’s book claims that the word ‘hope’ was also underlined.
During the 1990s, Diana, JFK Jr. and Carolyn all lived under relentless tabloid scrutiny.
Before and after her divorce from King Charles III in 1996, Diana remained a constant obsession for the press.
Meanwhile, the Kennedys faced similar attention throughout their relationship and marriage.
Diana tragically died in August 1997 after sustaining injuries in a car crash in Paris during a high-speed chase involving paparazzi.
Her partner, Dodi Fayed, and the driver were killed instantly while her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived with serious injuries.
Diana, who was just 36 at the time, was pronounced dead mere hours later at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.
Less than two years later, JFK Jr. and Carolyn died in July 1999 when their plane crashed off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. JFK Jr. was 38, and Carolyn was 33.
Carolyn’s sister, Lauren Bessette, was also on board, and the group had been travelling from New Jersey to Massachusetts, with plans to stop in Martha’s Vineyard before heading to Cape Cod for Rory Kennedy’s wedding.
Their bodies were recovered from the ocean floor days later, with investigators concluding that they died on impact.
Diana’s former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, believed ‘she saw in him a fellow victim, if you can put it that way, of life in the public eye and difficulty of knowing who to trust,’ according to Hallemann’s text.
“And I think that that did create a connection between them. I wouldn’t call it a bond, but an affinity, a recognition of each other’s unusual hardships and difficulties.”
