John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. (November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999), also referred to as JFK Jr., was an American businessman, attorney, magazine publisher, and journalist. He was the son of the 35th U.S. president John F. Kennedy, and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Born shortly after his father's election, Kennedy spent his early childhood in the White House until the president's assassination, after which he became widely recognized for saluting his father's casket during the funeral procession. He later worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan before launching the political lifestyle magazine George in 1995.
A prominent social figure in Manhattan, Kennedy was the subject of sustained media attention throughout his life, including coverage of his marriage to Carolyn Bessette. He was also active in nonprofit work and in supporting his family's political campaigns. Kennedy died in a plane crash in 1999.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, in Washington, D.C., to Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy (née Bouvier). His father had been elected president less than three weeks earlier and was inaugurated two months after his son's birth. Kennedy had an older sister, Caroline, born in 1957. His parents had previously lost a stillborn daughter, Arabella, in 1956, and an infant son, Patrick, who died two days after his premature birth in 1963. His widely repeated nickname, "John-John", originated when a reporter misheard his father calling him "John" twice in quick succession; the family did not use the nickname.
Kennedy lived in the White House during the first three years of his life and remained in the public spotlight. His father was assassinated on November 22, 1963, and the state funeral was held three days later, on Kennedy's third birthday. In a widely broadcast moment, he stepped forward and saluted his father's flag‑draped casket as it was carried out of St. Matthew's Cathedral. NBC News vice president Julian Goodman described the image as "the most impressive... shot in the history of television." The moment was photographed by several journalists, including United Press International photographer Stan Stearns—later chief White House photographer during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration—and Dan Farrell of the New York Daily News. President Johnson wrote his first letter in office to Kennedy, telling him that he "can always be proud" of his father.
Following the assassination, the family continued with their plans for Kennedy's birthday celebration to demonstrate their resolve to carry on despite the president's death. They lived briefly in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., before moving to a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Kennedy grew up. In 1967, his mother took him and Caroline on a six-week "sentimental journey" to Ireland, where they met President Éamon de Valera and visited the Kennedy ancestral home in Dunganstown.
After the assassination of Kennedy's uncle Robert in 1968, Jacqueline took Caroline and Kennedy out of the United States, saying, "If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets ... I want to get out of this country." She married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis later that year, and the family moved to his private island of Skorpios. Kennedy reportedly considered his stepfather "a joke". Onassis died in 1975 and left his widow an annual income of $250,000, though she later settled with Christina Onassis for $25 million in exchange for not contesting the will.
Kennedy returned to the White House with his mother and sister in 1971 for the first time since his father's assassination. President Richard Nixon's daughters gave him a tour that included his former bedroom, and Nixon showed him the Resolute desk under which his father had allowed him to play.
Kennedy attended private schools in Manhattan, beginning at Saint David's School and later moving to Collegiate School, which he attended from third to 10th grade. He completed his secondary education at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After graduating, he accompanied his mother on a trip to Africa. During a pioneering course, Kennedy's group became lost for two days without food or water; he led them to safety, earning credit for leadership.
In 1976, Kennedy and his cousin travelled to the earthquake-affected region of Rabinal in Guatemala, where they assisted with heavy construction work and distributed food. A local priest said that they "ate what the people of Rabinal ate and dressed in Guatemalan clothes and slept in tents like most of the earthquake victims," adding that the two "did more for their country's image" in Guatemala "than a roomful of ambassadors." On his 16th birthday, Kennedy's Secret Service protection ended, and he spent the summer of 1978 working as a wrangler in Wyoming. In 1979, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was dedicated, and Kennedy made his first major speech, reciting Stephen Spender's poem "The Truly Great".
Kennedy attended Brown University, where he majored in American studies. He co-founded a student discussion group that focused on contemporary issues such as apartheid in South Africa, gun control, and civil rights. He was appalled by apartheid when visiting South Africa on a summer break and arranged for U.N. ambassador Andrew Young to speak about the topic at Brown. By his junior year, Kennedy had moved off campus to live with several other students in a shared house, and he spent time at Xenon, a club owned by Howard Stein. Kennedy was initiated into Phi Psi, a local social fraternity that had been the Rhode Island Alpha chapter of national Phi Kappa Psi fraternity until 1978.
In January 1983, Kennedy's Massachusetts driver's license was suspended after he received more than three speeding summonses in 12 months and failed to appear at a hearing. The family's lawyer explained that Kennedy most likely "became immersed in exams and just forgot the date of the hearing". That same year, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in American studies and took a break, traveling to India and spending time at the University of Delhi, where he did post-graduate work and met Mother Teresa.
After the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, Kennedy returned to New York to earn $20,000 a year at the Office of Business Development, where his boss said that he worked "in the same crummy cubbyhole as everybody else. I heaped on the work and was always pleased." Kennedy continued there as deputy director of the 42nd Street Development Corporation in 1986, conducting negotiations with developers and city agencies.
In 1988, Kennedy became a summer associate at Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Phillips, a Los Angeles law firm with strong ties to the Democratic Party, working for his uncle Ted Kennedy's law school roommate and former Democratic National Committee chairman Charles Manatt. Later that year, People magazine named Kennedy its "Sexiest Man Alive".
From 1989, Kennedy headed Reaching Up, a nonprofit group that provided educational and professional opportunities for workers assisting people with disabilities. William Ebenstein, the group's executive director, said, "He was always concerned with the working poor, and his family always had an interest in helping them."
Kennedy earned a Juris Doctor degree from the New York University School of Law in 1989. He failed the New York bar exam twice before passing on his third attempt in July 1990. After his second failure, he said he would continue taking the exam until he eventually passed. Had he failed a third time, Kennedy would have been ineligible to serve as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DA's Office, where he worked for the next four years, handling cases involving consumer fraud and landlord–tenant disputes. On August 29, 1991, he won his first case as a prosecutor.
In the summer of 1992, Kennedy worked as a journalist and was commissioned by The New York Times to write about his kayaking expedition to the Åland Archipelago, during which he rescued a friend after a capsizing incident. He then considered launching a magazine with his friend, public‑relations executive Michael J. Berman, a plan his mother viewed as too risky. According to Christopher Andersen's 2000 book The Day John Died, Jacqueline feared her son would die in a plane crash and asked her longtime companion Maurice Tempelsman "to do whatever it took to keep John from becoming a pilot".