Martha Stewart’s haunting warning to JFK Jr. stays with her decades later

Aashna
A still from Netflix
A still from Netflix's Martha (Image via YouTube/Netflix)

Some memories stay with you long after the moment has passed and Martha Stewart is revisiting one such tragic memory involving JFK Jr., days before his passing in 1999.

Stewart, a renowned businesswoman and television personality, recently made a cameo appearance in the Season 16 premiere of The Real Housewives of New York, alongside the main ensemble of Sai De Silva, Erin Lichy and Jessel Taank and newcomers Hailey Glassman, Erika Hammond and celebrity makeup artist Daisy Toye.

While sitting in Toye's makeup chair during The Real Housewives of New York Season 16 premiere, Martha Stewart opened up about the advice she gave JFK Jr. before his fateful flight: to take a co-pilot with him. Here's the full story.


Martha Stewart’s chilling warning to JFK Jr. before his final flight

FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette brought the most haunting chapters in the Kennedy family’s history into focus and explored the complicated ties between JFK Jr. (played by Paul Anthony Kelly) and his wife, Carolyn Bessette (played by Sarah Pidgeon).

During her appearance on Bravo's reality series, Martha Stewart revealed that she advised JFK Jr. to get a co-pilot for the fateful flight to his cousin's wedding. Stewart, who was running the Martha Stewart Living magazine at the time, revealed that John called her to get some advice on his George magazine. At dinner, when Martha Stewart asked JFK Jr. about his weekend plans, she advised him to take a co-pilot with him:

"I said to him, ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ And he said, ‘Oh, we’re going to a wedding in Martha’s Vineyard. And I’m taking my wife and her sister.’ And I said, ‘Well, who’s flying?’ He said, ‘I’m flying.’ I said, ‘You have a co-pilot, right?’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t need a co-pilot.’”

Martha Stewart confessed that John Kennedy brushed off her advice but she had carried those words with her for years:

“I’ve thought about that so many times that I told him to get a co-pilot. I feel sorry.”

On July 16, 1999, JFK Jr., Carolyn and her sister Lauren took off from the Essex County Airport in Fairfield, with Kennedy in the pilot’s seat of his single-engine plane. As depicted in FX's Love Story, the couple was headed to the wedding of John's cousin Rory when their plane experienced spatial disorientation and went missing near Martha's Vineyard. The incident resulted in their deaths, which remains one of the most harrowing tragedies.

Martha Stewart's latest revelation offers a deeply personal glimpse into the Kennedy family tragedy. While it's hard to know whether Stewart's advice would have changed anything, the details of the tragedy make her memory particularly chilling.


In addition to Martha Stewart's cameo, Season 16 also marks the return of veteran Carole Radziwill (Seasons 5-10), who was married to JFK Jr.'s maternal cousin, Anthony Radziwill.

The Real Housewives of New York City Season 16 releases weekly episodes on Bravo.

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Edited by Aashna