John F. Kennedy Jr. had a tempestuous, on-again off-again relationship with “Splash” star Daryl Hannah that came to an end after the death of his mother, Jackie Onassis, in 1994 — and the death of Hannah’s dog.
The two first met on the Caribbean island of St. Martin when they were teenagers and were reintroduced in 1989 by Hannah’s politically-connected stepfather, businessman Jerrold Wexler.
Kennedy was dating Christina Haag and the “Steel Magnolias” actress was in a longterm relationship with singer Jackson Browne when they first began seeing each other, according to the newly released “JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography.”
The book says that Kennedy and Hannah’s relationship was volatile.
In the book, one friend of Kennedy remembers the political scion complaining in 1993 that he was fighting with Hannah because “she’s not getting along with my mother, and so I’m living in the basement of one of my friend’s places now.”
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Another friend described the “Kill Bill” actress as a “sweetheart” but “needy” — a quality that Kennedy “wasn’t great” at dealing with.
Yet another pal says that the couple lacked a “spark. You never saw them look each other in the eye, you know, lovingly. Ultimately, they didn’t see eye to eye on much.”
In May 1994, Hannah held a funeral in Los Angeles for her dog, whose death had been Kennedy’s fault. He had been walking the animal in Central Park when it got loose and was hit by a car.
“It was a freak accident and John was obviously very upset about it,” according to the book.
Kennedy was tasked with transporting the dog’s ashes to LA and used a box “that Daryl didn’t approve of — I think she wanted something gold,” a friend says in the book.
While JFK Jr. was on the West Coast, his mother Jackie — who had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma five months before — took a dramatic turn for the worse in New York City and died days later.
“He was deeply resentful that Daryl dragged him out there to attend a funeral for her dog when his mother was dying of cancer,” a friend recalls.
Carole Radziwill, who was married to JFK Jr.’s cousin Anthony Radziwill, had a meal with Kennedy that Sunday night and says that he was furious he had been forced to spend the weekend attending a canine funeral.
“John felt [Daryl] was punishing him by insisting he fly to LA that weekend,” the former Real Housewife recalls. “It was just a terrible time and a bad omen.”
They broke up soon after and Kennedy began dating Carolyn Bessette, who he married in 1996.
Hannah, now 63, married rocker Neil Young in 2018.
