Inside John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Relationship With Daryl Hannah
Over the course of his short life, John F. Kennedy Jr. seemed destined for many things, not least of which was heartthrob status. During one appearance at an arts event with many of his family members, JFK Jr.'s presence caused a stir, with the crowd shouting, "My God, it's him!" According to Steven M. Gillon's book "America's Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr.," Newsday even took notice. The publication reported at the time, "Here is a young man who must cause the hearts of political kingmakers to throb, their palms to sweat. He has the profile of a matinee idol, and crowds seek him out and bestow on him such precious gifts as attention, respect, and even awe."
It's no surprise, then, that JFK Jr. dated some of the most beautiful, high-profile women of his day. There were romances with Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker, dalliances with models, and even a date with Brooke Shields. Then there was Daryl Hannah, star of films like "Steel Magnolias" and "Splash." JFK Jr. and Hannah's romance burned bright and hot, capturing the attention of the country even as JFK Jr. went through some of the most complicated times of his life.
Theirs was a love that Hannah reportedly never got over. As a source alleged to OK! Magazine, "She seems haunted by her memories and wonders what could have been had their romance endured a bit longer." Take a look at John F. Kennedy Jr.'s relationship with Daryl Hannah.
John F. Kennedy Jr.: Life before Daryl Hannah
John F. Kennedy Jr. is, of course, the son of John F. Kennedy. In November 1960, the president-elect addressed reporters early in the morning outside his Washington, D.C. home. He'd been elected earlier that month and the day before he was down in Florida. However, he hopped a flight back to D.C. as soon as he heard that his wife, Jackie Kennedy, was in labor, and by the time that early-morning press conference rolled around, their son had arrived. "I think she decided — it has been decided — yes — John F. Kennedy Jr.," he announced (via UPI).
Three short years later, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. On November 25, 1963 — the young boy's birthday — JFK Jr. attended his father's funeral. Even as he grew up and became a high-society icon in his own right — as a tabloid fixture, as a law student, and later as the founder of the sensational magazine George — JFK Jr.'s life was forever changed by his father's murder. Biographer Steven M. Gillon told People that the young man hated to talk about what that loss meant to him. "It was a topic that John did not discuss," Gillon said. "The only topic that was absolutely off-limits."
A friend once asked if he would use his magazine to look into the conspiracy theories surrounding his father's death, and he declined. Gillon explained, "Even if he spent the rest of his life trying to find the answers, he said, 'It would not change the central operative fact that I don't have a father.'"
Daryl Hannah: Life before John F. Kennedy Jr.
Daryl Hannah rose to fame in the 1980s thanks to a string of high-profile roles. In "Blade Runner," she played a replicant; in "Splash," she was a mermaid. The latter film paired Hannah with Tom Hanks, another star on the rise. Hannah later told Empire Magazine that their iconic underwater kiss was difficult to film. "You've got to consider the oxygen problems and you don't want bubbles coming out of your nose when you're kissing," she said. "Underwater sex is always over-romanticised."
Hannah also starred in "Wall Street," an Oliver Stone film famous for popularizing the phrase, "Greed is good." Hannah disliked her time on the film, telling The Irish Examiner that she didn't get along with Stone. "He can be a bit of a misogynist sometimes," she said, revealing that she'd never actually watched the final film.
The "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" star was also famous in the '80s for her tumultuous relationship with musician Jackson Browne. During one much-publicized incident, Browne was rumored to have abused Hannah; however, Browne later denied the allegations. In fact, after a documentary about John F. Kennedy came out in 2003, Browne's lawyers requested scenes referencing the alleged incident between him and Hanah be removed. TBS and the producer of the documentary, Fox Television Studios, obliged. The scenes were originally included in the film because Hannah moved on with none other than John F. Kennedy Jr. after her relationship with Browne fell apart.
JFK Jr. and Daryl Hannah met when they were each vacationing in St. Martin
Daryl Hannah and John F. Kennedy Jr. first met in the 1970s, almost a decade before they would kick off their relationship. Both were on vacation in St. Martin when they crossed paths. In "America's Reluctant Prince," biographer Steven M. Gillon wrote that Kennedy was visiting the island with his mother, his aunt Lee Radziwill, and a girlfriend from school named Jenny Christian. Nevertheless, Hannah caught his eye.
After all, it was hard not to notice her. On that vacation, Hannah clutched a teddy bear at all times, all vacation long. In his book "The Good Son: JFK Jr. and the Mother He Loved," Christian Anderson revealed that the stunt was meant to make people pay attention. She brought the stuffed animal to restaurants, to clubs, and even to the beach, never letting it out of her sight. Even though he had a girlfriend on vacation with him, Kennedy couldn't help but be intrigued. "John found it odd that Daryl seemed to carry a teddy bear with her wherever she went," Gillon wrote, "but he also found her fascinating."
Hannah's teddy bear stunt, in fact, would continue long into her first brushes with stardom. A Washington Post profile from 1986 claimed that Hannah had only recently stopped bringing teddy bears when she traveled. Still, Hannah protested the idea that this said anything about her intelligence. She told The Washington Post, "I'm not like a ditz, you know."
They reunited at a wedding
John F. Kennedy Jr. wasn't the only one from an influential family. Daryl Hannah's stepfather was Jerry Wexler, a high-profile Democratic donor. His brother, Haskell Wexler, was a cinematographer who also directed films like "Medium Cool," a movie about the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. In other words, it made sense that Kennedy and Hannah crossed paths again. According to "The Good Son," Kennedy's uncle — Senator Ted Kennedy — tried to set them up on a date in 1988. It didn't work out, but they reunited that year at a wedding anyway. At the time, John was dating actor Christina Haag and Daryl was involved with Jackson Browne.
That year, paparazzi photographed them on a yacht together. Hannah reportedly wanted the relationship to become exclusive, but John was resistant. Her assistant Natalie Cross told "The Good Son" author Christopher Andersen, "Until she was the only woman in John's life, she wasn't about to give Jackson up."
Whenever Hannah and Browne fought, she would turn to John for comfort. According to Andersen, John would tell his friends, "He's mean to her. They've got a lot of problems." On October 1, 1992, those problems came to a head, and John flew out to Los Angeles to bring Hannah back to New York City. Shortly thereafter, they moved in together.
Daryl Hannah and JFK Jr.'s relationship was a rocky one
Almost as soon as they were finally committed to being exclusive, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Daryl Hannah's relationship became quite the rocky one. A close friend of Kennedy's told biographer Steven M. Gillon in "America's Reluctant Prince" that the political scion quickly realized that Hannah was rather self-absorbed. "She was on a little hamster track of her own stuff that she may not ever face and grow out of," the friend recalled Kennedy noticing.
The two frequently fought, and Hannah reportedly kicked him out of their shared apartment at times. Kennedy once told politician Charlie King that he was depressed because of an argument with the "Roxanne" star. "I got into a fight with Daryl, and I'm living in the basement of a friend's house," King remembered Kennedy saying.
They didn't just argue in private; sometimes, their rows happened in full view of other people, right out on the sidewalks of New York City. According to Christopher Andersen's biography "The Good Son," Kennedy and Hannah would fight out in the open about simple things, yelling at one another about which movie they wanted to go see. One friend told Andersen that they suspected the fighting was because Hannah was quite opinionated. "People gave John a lot of room to pontificate. He was JFK's son, after all," they said. "But Daryl grew up around big party donors and politicians as well as movie industry types. She had her own opinions and she let him know."
JFK Jr.'s family weren't necessarily big fans of Daryl Hannah
John F. Kennedy Jr. once got lunch with politician Charlie King, as described in Steven M. Gillon's "America's Reluctant Prince." Among a number of other things that were bugging him at the time, Kennedy revealed, "My mother doesn't really like Daryl all that much."
According to Christopher Andersen's biography "The Good Son," that seems to have been an understatement. While Jackie Kennedy may have liked Daryl Hannah personally, she was convinced that the "Kill Bill" star wasn't right for John. (That's no surprise, considering Jackie's well-publicized feelings about Madonna, another ex-girlfriend of her son). On Memorial Day in 1993, a maid arrived to clean up after a party John and Daryl had thrown at the family's Red Gate Farm, and she was shocked by the state of the place. "The carpets were stained, and there were half-eaten plates of food discarded in every room, and food had even been splashed onto the walls," the maid, Marian Ronan, recalled. That September, Jackie reportedly began refusing to eat meals with Hannah, taking her dinner in her room alone whenever her son brought his girlfriend around for a visit.
Jackie apparently wasn't the only Kennedy who disliked Hannah for John-John. John's sister Caroline, too, wasn't a fan of her presence in their lives. Andersen wrote that Caroline once told her brother, "Kiddo, she's nice. But she's not the one."
John F. Kennedy Jr.'s friends loved Daryl Hannah
While John F. Kennedy Jr.'s family weren't fans of his relationship with Daryl Hannah, that doesn't appear to be the case for his friends. Writer John Perry Barlow told Christopher Andersen in "The Good Son" that they all enjoyed Hannah's presence in their social circle. "She was smart, very smart — nothing like she might seem at first glance. She was a great person to be around," Barlow recalled. That being said, JFK Jr.'s friends also became concerned by the way the famous couple affected one another. "When she was with John they both changed," Barlow said, "and not for the better."
It seems that Kennedy leaned on his friends when tensions with his family grew difficult. In October 1993, the Kennedys were set to attend the wedding of Ted Kennedy Jr., and JFK Jr. brought Hannah as his plus-one. Jackie and Caroline Kennedy both canceled, and John and Hannah were left on their own. Shortly after the wedding, John rang his friends to tell them that they had two days to get up to Martha's Vineyard, because he wanted to marry Hannah. Her friend Sugar Rautbord told Andersen, "She was desperate to marry him."
Three hours after the initial calls went out, John called all his friends back. The wedding was not, in fact, going to happen.
Daryl Hannah wasn't exactly supportive when Jackie Kennedy became sick
In early 1994, Jackie Kennedy underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Steven M. Gillon wrote in "America's Reluctant Prince" that she told John, "We can beat this." Still, his mother's diagnosis weighed heavily on JFK Jr. That month, an onlooker took video of John and Daryl Hannah fighting on the streets of New York City. "What do you want me to do?" he yelled at his girlfriend, according to "The Good Son." As the argument spiraled, he eventually told her, "Beat it!" Getting in a taxi, he left her alone on the sidewalk.
Sadly, Jackie's cancer spread, and that May, she was readmitted to the hospital. John was out of town at the time. "[He] could not be with Jackie that weekend because Daryl insisted that he deliver the ashes of her dead dog and attend its funeral in Los Angeles," Christopher Andersen wrote. "John longed to be with his mother, but he agreed to his girlfriend's request anyway." Despite acquiescing, Hannah was apparently furious with John when she discovered the dog's ashes were kept in a plain box instead of something fancier.
Jackie died days later. John addressed reporters who gathered outside the family home, telling them, "She did it in her own way, and we all feel lucky for that, and now she's in God's hands."
When Jackie Kennedy died, JFK Jr. and Daryl Hannah's relationship fell apart
Jackie Kennedy's death put even more of a strain on John F. Kennedy Jr.'s relationship with Daryl Hannah. In "The Good Son," biographer Christopher Andersen described the scene in New York as photographers were shocked to see JFK Jr. and Hannah rollerblading up to his mother's house for her wake. "John felt he was honoring his mother by doing what he loved," writer and friend John Perry Barlow explained, "because he knew that's what [Jackie] would have wanted." At Jackie's wake, Hannah made small talk about herself and her relationship with Jackson Browne, stunning onlookers.
A few weeks later, they vacationed at Hyannis Port together. Steven M. Gillon wrote in "America's Reluctant Prince" that Hannah was once more concerned about a dog, this time one who was sick, while her boyfriend mourned his mother. "She was going on and on about her dog," recalled JFK Jr.'s friend Sasha Chermayeff, who was there that weekend. "I felt so bad about him that all she cared about was her dog."
Hannah once again pressed John to marry, even proposing to him herself. "I don't respond to ultimatums," he said in response, according to "The Good Son." By that summer, the relationship was done for good. A friend told Andersen, "They were wonderful apart. But when they walked into a room together, they were just these two huge celebrities competing for the same space. It was exhausting to be around them."
After he broke up with Daryl Hannah, John F. Kennedy Jr. met his wife
John F. Kennedy Jr. first met Carolyn Bessette in 1993, while he was seeing Daryl Hannah. Rumors swirled that fall that they were together, even though Bessette was supposedly dating model Michael Bergin. Bessette and Kennedy were photographed together watching the New York City Marathon — a photo that caused problems between Bessette and her beau when it made its rounds soon after. "He's just a friend," Bessette told Bergin, according to "The Good Son." She continued, saying, "I think he's seeing Daryl Hannah. It's nothing."
JFK Jr. and Hannah would break up the following year, and John-John finally pursued Bessette. In his book, Christopher Anderson noted that Bessette and Hannah looked superficially similar. Unlike Hannah, though, Bessette was a good listener. "Her vulnerability, while hidden beneath a tough, funny exterior, made her deeply empathetic to others," journalist Rob Littell said. Their romance was a quick one, though. By the end of 1995, they were engaged, and they married the following fall. Sadly, it wasn't just Kennedy's early life that was marked by tragedy. In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife died in a plane crash.
In 2013, Hannah reflected on her time with the Kennedy family in a sitdown on "The Big Interview with Dan Rather." She expressed her appreciation for their dedication to public service. "I really respect that that's something that they instill in every member of their family," she said. "It was quite a beautiful thing to see."