JFK, Jr.'s secret diaries
AGC Queen
OVER the last turbulent year and a half of his life, brokenhearted John F.
Kennedy Jr. poured out his anguished thoughts and feelings in a secret diary,
Star has learned.
John's handwritten notes in spiral-bound notebooks covered the slow, painful
demise of his marriage to Carolyn Bessette, his sadness over her increasing
drug use and fears that she was cheating on him.
Sadly, when the Piper Saratoga plane carrying John, his wife Carolyn and her
sister Lauren crashed into the dark, icy waters off Martha's Vineyard on July
16, 1999 -- sources say their marriage was already dead.
Just before the end, JFK Jr. wrote frequently and with fondness of his former
loves -- actress Christina Haag, Madonna, close friend Julie Baker and most of
all, his beloved Daryl Hannah.
There was a sense in the writing that he had made wrong choices along the way
and didn't know how to fix them, say insiders. The death of a good friend in a
car accident had forced John to take stock of his life with Carolyn -- to look
at where he'd been and where he was going.
He had kept journals ever since he was a boy, says John's uncle, Jamie
Auchincloss.
"Jackie encouraged John to keep a journal, both as a way to record what would
one day be history and to help keep his life centered," says the uncle.
Although he rarely spoke about his mom, sources say the diary contains
frequent, loving mentions of Jackie, who kept a detailed diary herself and who
died in 1994.
Only John's closest friends knew of the existence of his private journals, and
even fewer had the opportunity to read sections of them.
But a long-time confidant -- a buddy from his college days -- was with him
during some of his writing sessions and got glimpses of the diary he kept for
1998 and 1999.
"I saw John write in his notebooks many times," says the friend.
"He carried one with him everywhere he went. You'd often see him jotting down
thoughts and observations."
The pal was with John when he was writing in his diary about a year before the
crash.
"We were having coffee at an outdoor restaurant in Greenwich Village," said the
buddy. "I was reading the paper while John had his head down, writing fast and
furiously.
"At one point, he threw down his pen, got up and went to the restroom, leaving
the notebook open on the table. I couldn't help myself ... I looked."
He was with John on several other occasions and was in touch with him just days
before his death.
The friend doesn't know what has happened to JFK Jr.'s journals. But he thinks
the one he was keeping at the end was probably lost at the bottom of the
Atlantic.
Now, nearly a year after the fatal crash, he wants to share his recollections
with Star readers out of love for John -- to show the all-too-human man behind
the Kennedy myth:
JFK Jr. ON MARRIAGE
About a year before John's death, his buddy read this passage when John left
the table at a Greenwich Village restaurant.
"What happened to us, C? What happened to our love?"
The friend says he stopped reading when he saw John returning from the
bathroom.
"He seemed distracted," says the friend. "He looked like he had the weight of
the world on his shoulders.
"I asked him if he was okay, and he looked down at the table. 'Carolyn and I
are fighting,' he said. 'We're not close anymore. We haven't had sex in months.
We're not even sleeping in the same bed!
" 'One minute she's up and happy and the next she's mean and angry. Carolyn and
her gay friends are snorting more and more cocaine, staying locked away in her
room for hours at a time.' "
The friend said he just listened as all of JFK Jr.'s pent up frustrations came
spilling out.
"He told me: 'Some nights I stand by her bedside and stare at her as she
sleeps.
" 'All I keep thinking is how much I want to lie beside her ... ' "
A few months later, the friend was visiting him in his TriBeCa apartment when
he saw JFK Jr.'s open journal on a coffee table. The entry talked about John's
fears that Carolyn was having an affair with her friend, a married antique
dealer.
"It read: 'I can't believe she's doing this to me,' " reveals the friend.
John saw his buddy glancing at the book, but he didn't seem to mind.
"He just looked at me and said: 'My life is a mess and it's all because of
Carolyn. The only question is how do I get myself out of it?' "
JFK Jr. ON HIS MOTHER
Another time the friend was in John's office at George Magazine waiting for him
to finish work. He noticed John scribbling furiously in his notebook.
"Suddenly, John looks up at me and says: 'You know, my mom was so right about
so many things. God, I wish she was still here. There are so many things I'd
like to discuss with her,' " says the friend.
"Then he wrote a few more lines, he closed the book and we left to have a
beer."
JFK Jr. ON PAST LOVES
In April of 1999, Carolyn packed her bags and stormed out of the couple's
TriBeCa apartment. The friend met John at a bar to commiserate. John had his
notebook with him and was furiously writing.
"He told me: 'Carolyn's moved out,' " says the pal. "And then he laughed: 'Not
even Madonna treated me so badly, and she told the world I was a lousy lover!'"
John often got reflective and would think out loud about the other women in his
life, says the friend.
"I'm sure he wrote about all these past loves in his diary. I believe he was
keeping all this information to set the record straight one day -- maybe even
in George magazine," says the friend.
He says John had a soft spot for his old colege girlfriend Christina Haag, says
the friend.
"One time, John told me: 'I'll never forget that summer with Chris in
California, when we Rollerbladed down the boardwalk and then watched the sun go
down. We thought our love would last forever,' " says the pal.
But it was clear to the friend that Daryl Hannah was the great love of John's
life.
"John told me a very funny thing about Daryl and the mermaid call she did in
the movie Splash," said the friend.
"He said, 'When we made love, in the heat of passion, all of a sudden Daryl
would make that high-pitched squeal she did in the movie. We both cracked up.
We laughed so hard, we almost fell out of the bed!' "
Then John got serious and told his friend: "It was marry her or say goodbye
forever, that was the choice. I didn't want to lose her, but I really wasn't
ready for marriage. I figured it was better to part as friends rather than end
up as enemies."
JFK Jr. ON A FALLEN FRIEND
One name that definitely appeared in John's diary was Billy Way, John's former
roommate at Brown University. He had been John's closest friend until a tragic
night in July 1996 when he was run over by a taxi as he was leaving a Manhattan
bar. A devastated John attended the memorial service with Carolyn.
Three years after Way's death, and shortly before John's own, the friend met
JFK Jr. at a TriBeCa coffee shop for breakfast. When he came in, he says John
had his spiral notebook out again.
After the friend sat down and ordered, John looked up over his french toast and
said, "Remember Billy Way from Brown? I still get choked up when I think of how
he died. He was a party guy, too, just like Carolyn. And look at what happened
to him. Dead at 35 -- what a waste!
"I often wish I could pick up the phone and just call him."
JFK Jr. ON THE END
Just two days before the crash, John couldn't take being under the same roof as
Carolyn any longer. He checked into the Stanhope Hotel on Park Avenue, a place
he often used as a retreat when he needed to clear his head.
His buddy got a call from JFK at the Stanhope 36 hours before the ill-fated
flight.
"I asked him what was up," remembers the friend. "He said he was just writing
in his journal, trying to get things straight in his mind. He said he had
breakfast at the hotel with Julie Baker, a girl he used to date, and he wanted
to read something to me.
"He read: 'Saw Jules. Need her strength and support for what lies ahead.'
"I asked him: 'John what does it mean? What are you trying to say?'
"He said: 'This is it, man. I think I'm going to divorce Carolyn.' "
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