Carolyn Bessettefirst met Ethel Kennedy in September 1994, several months after she began datingJohn F. Kennedy, according to J. Randy Taraborrelli’s new bookThe Kennedy Heirs, excerpted in this week’s PEOPLE.
When Carolyn asked John what his aunt was like, he responded, “…She’s just…Aunt Ethel,” Taraborrelli writes.
Carolyn asked him if she should call her “Aunt Ethel,” according to the new book, and “John winced,” adding, “If I were you, I think I’d probably go with Mrs. Kennedy.”
At the first family dinner with all the Kennedy cousins at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Carolyn was not expecting to be quizzed about current events, as was the family tradition. And, Taraborrelli writes, she was unsure of herself when Ethel asked her opinion on the federal assault weapons ban. Ethel’s response? “You may want to read up on it.”
Her confidence shaken, Carolyn later told a friend she had no plans to go back to the family compound.
Still, says Taraborrelli, “Carolyn tried to fit in — and that speaks to her tenacity and her desire to please John.”
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After she and John had a well-publicized fight in Central Park in February 1996, Taraborrelli writes, Ethel summoned Carolyn to Hickory Hill, her home in Virginia, where they had a frank talk.
“Ethel was surprised when Carolyn admitted to insecurity related to John,” Taraborrelli writes.
“But you’re so beautiful,” Ethel told her, “and so smart. Why?”
Carolyn told her she often felt she was in John’s shadow.
She also told her, “I think you’re more powerful than any of the other women John has dated,” and advised her to never change who she was inside.
“Ethel was tough,” says Taraborrelli, “but then she also tries to protect Carolyn.”
After she and John were invited to the wedding of Ethel’s youngest, Rory Kennedy, in July 1999, Carolyn called Ethel to tell her she just “didn’t have it in her,” Taraborrelli writes.
But she changed her mind a few days later, deciding to accompany John and bring along her sister Lauren, whom they planned to drop off in Martha’s Vineyard.
On July 16, John’s plane crashed, killing him and his two passengers.
Although the Kennedys rarely speak about their tragic deaths, Ethel, according to the new book, confided to a close friend last year that she often thought about Carolyn, who had been so excited to marry into the family, but had also struggled, because, as now 91-year-old Ethel told her friend, “Being a Kennedy isn’t for the faint of heart.”
For more about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
source: people.com
