JFK Jr.'s Wife Carolyn Bessette 'Urged' Him to Call Prince William and Prince Harry After Princess Diana's Sudden Death

Carolyn Bessette urged John F. Kennedy Jr. to call Prince William and Prince Harry after their mother, Princess Diana, was killed in a car accident in August 1997, a new book claimed.

Diana died at the age of 36 after sustaining injuries in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris. Her vehicle was being pursued by paparazzi, and she later died at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.

Kennedy Jr. could relate to their grief, as his father, former president John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963, and his mother, Jackie Kennedy, died after battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1994.

The outpouring of public grief was overwhelming in both circumstances as their families had courted fame.

"That dissonance in grief was something John understood — and when Carolyn heard the news of Diana's death, she urged him to call William and Harry to offer his condolences," author Caroline Hallemann wrote in The Kennedys and The Windsors: The Story of Two Dynasties, One Born, One Made released Tuesday, June 2. "John was one of the few people who could truly empathize with what Diana's sons were going through — having to put on a brave face while publicly mourning."

Hallemann added, "Not only because of his experience at his father's funeral, and just a few years later at that of his uncle Bobby, but also because he was still fresh in his grief over his own mother. But after thinking about it, he decided against calling the princes, given that they were not particularly close."

Instead, Kennedy Jr. paid tribute to Diana in his political lifestyle magazine, George, later that year, as he had wanted her for the cover.

An article titled "The Lady Vanishes: The People's Funeral for Diana, Princess of Wales" showed the public in mourning.

Prince William and Prince Harry remembered the last time they spoke with their mother in the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy.

William said, "Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know, 'See you later.' If I'd known now obviously what was going to happen, I wouldn't have been so blasé about it and everything else."

Shared his sibling, "I can't really necessarily remember what I said, but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was."

Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash along with Bessette and her sister in July 1999.

He left Essex County Airport in Fairfield, N.J., piloting a single-engine Piper Saratoga plane himself.

They were on the way to cousin Rory Kennedy's wedding in Hyannis Port, Mass., but planned to drop off his sister-in-law first in Martha's Vineyard.

Kennedy Jr. and Bessette married in 1996.

He was 38, while Bessette was 33.