

In the book’s final chapters, Gillon illuminates how, despite the challenges in his life, there was a resolve to John as he became more clear about his future and was finally able to answer a key question: What was he here to do? In the final months before John was killed, the two were barely on speaking terms.

While he had a very close bond to his sister, Caroline Kennedy, Gillon’s book details the mounting tension between them. His nearly lifelong therapy was an immense help to him but also made him a fantastic listener and problem-solver for his friends.” You could tell he had spent a lot of time analyzing himself and by doing so, he had a better sense of other people. There were two things John always had scheduled: his massage and his therapy appointment.”Īs a result, Gillon says, “John was the best person in the world to get advice from. “There was one day a week where you knew where John was. “John was pretty open about his therapy,” Gillon tells PEOPLE. Kennedy’s privilege and pain and for never-before-seen photos from friends, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday. But, as Gillon reveals, those expectations also led him to question who he really was and he was in therapy almost his whole life. With his confidence and charm, John carried the weight of history with an uncommon grace.

more complex, more introspective and more human than the world ever knew. Twenty years after the plane crash that killed John, his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, Gillon’s biography, America’s Reluctant Prince, which is excerpted in this week’s PEOPLE, reveals a JFK Jr. “There’s probably no one who’s ever walked this earth that was the focus of such media attention their entire life,” Gillon says. Growing up the only son of the assassinated President John F. Kennedy Jr.,” says his friend and historian Steven M. “No one will ever live a life like John F.
