THE SECRET LIFE OF AN AMERICAN PRINCE

WHEN JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. AND WIFE CAROLYN BESSETTE DIED IN A SHOCKING PLANE CRASH, THE WORLD WAS LEFT WONDERING WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

HIS death marked the end of a dynasty. Just before 10 p.m. on July 16, 1999, the Piper Saratoga plane John F. Kennedy Jr. was piloting plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., instantly killing the political scion, wife Carolyn Bessette, 33, and her sister Lauren Bessette, 34. Investigators determined that the amateur pilot — who’d broken his ankle in a paragliding accident six weeks earlier — suffered from spatial disorientation while descending in the foggy night. Takeoff had been delayed almost three hours after John and his sister-in-law got stuck in traffic en route to a New Jersey airport and Carolyn insisted on getting a pedicure. Divers discovered their bodies, still strapped into the wreckage, five days later.

Now, nearly 25 years later, the world remains fascinated by the doomed fairy tale of the political prince. In the decades since the tragedy, heartbreaking details of the love and loss have emerged about the dashing son of the late President John F. Kennedy and his styleicon wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, with people close to the heir of the political dynasty and founder of the buzzy magazine George continuing to reveal secrets of his too-short life. “I don’t believe John ever fathomed that he would die at 38,” friend Lisa DePaulo told one outlet. “He didn’t buy into things like the Kennedy Curse.”

AMERICAN ROYALS