CNN’s new John F. Kennedy Jr. documentary unearthed a heartbreaking final letter that Jackie Kennedy wrote to her son days before her 1994 death from cancer.
Family friend Gary Ginsberg revealed in the three-episode docuseries American Prince that, while Jackie was on her deathbed, she shared encouraging words for her then 33-year-old son about his place in their family’s grand political legacy.
“I understand the pressure you’ll forever have to endure as a Kennedy even though we brought you into this world as an innocent,” Jackie wrote to John. “You, especially, have a place in history, no matter what course in life you choose.”
She poignantly concluded, “All I can ask is that you continue to make me, the Kennedy family and yourself proud.”
Jackie was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in December 1993 and immediately underwent a course of chemotherapy. This treatment was ultimately ineffective, as the cancer spread to Jackie’s spinal cord, brain and liver by March 1994. Jackie died in May 1994, only a few days after she confirmed in a press release that she was stopping all treatment.
The former first lady’s diagnosis came at the same time as her nephew Anthony Radziwill had a recurrence of testicular cancer. In American Prince, Anthony’s wife, Carole Radziwill, opened up about how Jackie and Anthony broke the news about their respective cancer diagnoses to one another in the same phone call. (Anthony died from cancer less than a month after John, his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bessette were killed in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard in July 1999.)
“I remember [Anthony] saying, ‘OK, you go first.’ Then, [Jackie] said, ‘I have bad news that I’ve been diagnosed with lymphoma,’” Carole, 61, recalled. “The end [for Jackie] came pretty quickly. I remember it was a Sunday when we all were together, and [by] Thursday, she passed away.”
Carole looked back on how Jackie’s death impacted John, as his mother had been very assertive over the lawyer-turned-magazine editor’s career and dating choices throughout his lifetime.
“John and Jackie, they were really close,” Carole said. “He was heartbroken and it was a very hard time for him, but there was almost, I would say, an emancipation [after Jackie’s death]. I think, for the first time, he felt free to do what he wanted to do in a way that he wouldn’t have when his mom was alive. A lot of good came out of that.”
Jackie never got to meet her future daughter-in-law, Carolyn, as the couple had not gone public with their budding romance by the time the former first lady died in May 1994. Later in American Prince, Carole reflected on how neither she nor Carolyn ever truly felt like they fit in with the Kennedy clan.
“It’s a big family, and like all big families, there’s a lot of politics and quirks that you just have to learn. Maybe John’s family more than other families,” Carole admitted. “There was a higher expectation and [Carolyn] didn’t play the game. She didn’t suck up to anyone, no one in his family.”
The RHONY alum then explained, “Carolyn and I came from a very similar background. I grew up very from humble beginnings, like working class, upstate New York. Her mom was a single mom raising three daughters in a very working-class neighborhood. I think we felt like a real sisterhood because of it. We were like the ultimate outsiders.”
American Prince premieres on CNN Saturday, August 9, at 9 p.m. ET, with new episodes continuing each Saturday through August 23.
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