As the 25th anniversary of John F Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s death approaches next month, DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan’s new book has shed fresh light on their troubled relationship.
In ‘Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed’, Callahan tells how, on the day the couple died – July 16, 1999 – their marriage was effectively over.
‘John had moved out of their marital flat,’ Callahan writes. ‘[But] the last thing he wanted was the press speculating about his marriage.’
And so, JFK Jr. insisted on piloting Carolyn and her sister Lauren to a family wedding. Off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, he crashed his small private plane, killing them all.
In truth, the press had long known their relationship wasn’t happy – with no evidence more damning than their infamous fight in a New York park on February 25, 1996, just months before their wedding.
The couple infamously fought in a New York park on February 25, 1996, just months before their wedding.
On the morning of the fight, photographer Angie Coqueran was extra vigilant.
Photographer Angie Coqueran captured the psychical altercation and sold the photos to the National Enquirer.
The images shocked the world: JFK Jr. appearing to smack Carolyn, pull her engagement ring from her finger, Carolyn in tears. In accompanying video footage you can hear muffled screams.
Now, almost three decades later, Coqueran has exclusively given DailyMail.com a visceral blow-by-blow account of the argument.
‘The Kennedys were my specialty,’ Coqueran says, ‘I’d just bought a new Chevy Blazer and loved to drive around in Tribeca [in Lower Manhattan] where JFK Jr. and Carolyn shared a loft apartment.
‘They liked to eat at Bubby’s [on Hudson Street], and I lived only a bicycle-ride away, so I’d often see them and get pictures.’
But on the fateful February morning, Coqueran was extra vigilant. JFK Jr.’s beloved mother Jackie Kennedy-Onassis had died in May 1994, and now her possessions were being sold at auction by Sotheby’s.
On the morning of the fight, Coqueran had seen the auction listing published in the New York Times.
‘I thought [JFK Jr.] was bound to be in a highly emotional state. He was very close to his mother,’ she recalls. ‘So when I saw him and Carolyn walking and noticed a copy of the Times tucked under his arm, I knew what was in it.’
The couple walked with their dog down from Tribeca to Battery Park.
The couple walked with their dog down from Tribeca to Battery Park in lower Manhattan.
‘John got up and moved away from her to walk the dog. Then I could hear screaming,’ Coqueran says.
‘People always say the fight was in Washington Square Park, but that wasn’t the case. The park they always went to was Battery, right by the water. The National Enquirer deliberately withheld that fact because not many people knew where to find them for pictures.’
Coqueran positioned herself in a public restroom at the park, watching out of a window and training her lens on the couple as they sat down on a bench to read the newspaper together.
‘Then it got heated. John got up and moved away from her to walk the dog, moving out of my view for a few seconds,’ she says. ‘But then I could hear screaming – from both of them – and I knew I had to get the pictures.’
Coqueran repositioned herself and watched as the explosive fight unraveled.
‘Carolyn was trying to grab something from him – I always assumed it was the dog leash – and he pushed her back multiple times, like he was going to smack her. In some shots you see his hand up against her face,’ she says.
‘At one point, when she was grabbing the leash, he grabbed her hand ring and pulled off her engagement ring. It looked like the ring broke because John looked down to the ground and had to pick up two pieces.’
‘The whole thing was very public, and it made me really uncomfortable and nervous.’ she added. ‘But eventually they stopped arguing and there was a lot of sitting in silence on the park bench.’
The couple then left the park, at which point Coqueran heard John tell Carolyn: ‘I don’t even know her… I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘The whole thing was very public, and it made me really uncomfortable and nervous,’ Coqueran says.
‘At one point he sat down on the curb outside the park and put his head in his hands,’ she recalls.
‘They argued back and forth a bit more and Carolyn had tears rolling down her face. Eventually they hugged,’ she added.
‘My theory is that the argument started because he was ticked off about the New York Times listing about his mother,’ Coqueran says, ‘but when young couples start fighting they tend to bring everything up. Carolyn seemed to be referring to another woman and John was trying to dismiss her.’
‘The whole thing was about an hour long,’ she added. ‘At one point he sat down on the curb outside the park and put his head in his hands. They argued back and forth a bit more and Carolyn had tears rolling down her face. Eventually they hugged.’
Seven months later, on September 21, 1996, the couple wed in a private ceremony on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia.
‘I believe he married her for damage control,’ Coqueran says. ‘When he took her ring off it looked like he was over the relationship. But after the pictures got out, perhaps he felt he had to do it.’