An explosive new book by DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan raises an explosive new theory about John F. Kennedy Jr’s 1999 plane crash that killed him, his wife Carolyn Bessette and his sister Lauren.
‘Don’t ask: The Kennedys and the women they destroyed’ has been published in a four-part Mail exclusive series covering the wild lives and scandals of the dynasty’s wives and mistresses, from Jackie Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe.
In today’s final excerpt, Callahan delves into the private struggles of JFK Jr. and Bessette’s marriage, and examines how the couple came to die. Below, we detail the ten most shocking revelations:
An explosive new book by Maureen Callahan raises an explosive new theory about John F. Kennedy Jr.’s 1999 plane crash that killed him and his wife Carolyn Bessette.
1.
Callahan raises the explosive theory that JFK Jr. was on a “murder-suicide” mission when he crashed his plane, killing himself, Carolyn and his sister Lauren off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999.
Despite worsening visibility and advice from experienced pilots to stay on the ground, JFK Jr. insisted on flying. Once in the air, he cut off all communication with air traffic control and nearly collided with a commercial airliner.
2.
Lauren Bessette only joined the couple on the fatal flight to “negotiate a kind of peace,” Callahan writes.
In 1999, JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s marriage was on the brink of collapse. He had already moved out of the New York apartment he shared with Carolyn. But “the last thing he wanted was for the press to speculate about his marriage.”
So, Lauren offered to join them to smooth things over.
3.
An investigation into the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board found that JFK Jr. was solely responsible for the plane crash.
Carolyn’s mother, Ann Freeman, received millions in a 2001 Kennedy family wrongful death settlement.
4.
Carolyn enjoyed insulting her boyfriends, “beating them down” until they “felt nothing,” Callahan writes.
Carolyn’s motto was, “Go out with them, train them, leave them.”
She also had a jealous streak. Once, after seeing an ex-boyfriend light another woman’s cigarette, she trashed her apartment and attacked him on the street.
‘Don’t Ask: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed’ has been published in a four-part Mail series covering the wild lives and scandals of the dynasty’s wives and mistresses.
5.
Plagued by insecurities, Carolyn believed herself ‘jolie laide‘(ugly-pretty), Callahan reveals.
Working as an advertising director at Calvin Klein in the ’80s and early ’90s, she “studied” models, trying to understand how they “stayed so thin” and maintained their good looks.
After she began dating JFK Jr, in 1994, she “turned toward her psychic reinvention.”
‘She was only 28 years old but she started erasing her small facial lines with Botox. ‘She plucked her thick, lush eyebrows, bleached and ironed her hair, and lost 15 pounds with the help of cigarettes and cocaine (to kill her appetite),’ Callahan writes.
6.
After marrying JFK Jr. in 1996, “almost immediately there were problems.”
They argued regularly, even in public. They infamously rowed in New York’s Washington Square Park in February 1996. JFK Jr. was photographed “pushing” Carolyn and then trying to “tear off her engagement ring so hard that the stone broke,” Callahan says.
7.
When her marriage collapsed, Carolyn fell into depression. She began taking “antidepressants in addition to cocaine,” Callahan reveals.
Carolyn “confessed to her mother that she was still thinking about her ex-boyfriend, a (Calvin Klein) underwear model.”
Carolyn and her sister Lauren Bessette photographed in New York City, 1998.
8.
Despite having no experience in journalism or business management, JFK Jr. decided to launch ‘George’ magazine in 1995.
“With his friend and partner Matt Berman, he enrolled in a two-day course called ‘How to Start Your Own Magazine,'” Callahan writes.
He then began spreading the idea around the city, seeking an investment of $20 million.
One executive called his speech “the worst presentation I’ve ever seen in my life.” Within two years, the magazine was on the brink of insolvency.
9.
JFK Jr. “almost killed” his first serious girlfriend, Christina Haag, “more than once,” Callahan writes.
A near-death kayaking experience occurred in 1986, when he took her kayaking on the open ocean in Jamaica. He forced Christina to kayak through rough seas and they both nearly drowned.
Afterwards Christina told him: “We could have died.” To which he replied: ‘Yes… but what a way to go.’
10.
Before their marriage, when Carolyn and JFK Jr. were dating, “she loved to put him down in public, calling him homophobic names in front of his fashion friends, making fun of him with that male model he always kept in the background.” , Callahan writes.