Carly Simon, a longtime friend of the lateJacqueline Kennedy Onassis, mourns the former first lady to this day.
In an exclusive interview featured in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, the “You’re So Vain” singer recalls being at Onassis’ bedside as she lay dying at home on Fifth Avenue in May 1994.
Simon first met Onassis, who was 16 years her senior, in 1983 on Martha’s Vineyard.
• For more on Carly Simon’s surprising, enduring bond with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the memories they made together,subscribe now to PEOPLEor pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.
Carly Simon.Liz Linder
“I could be neurotic, bohemian and all over the place; she always had to be so correct,” says Simon. “I was who she wasn’t. I think she got a big kick out of that.”
Over more than 10 years, the two women forged a friendship and reveled in their differences. And when Onassis fell ill with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1993, Simon was there to support her — even though she had to learn about the diagnosis from others.
“Women of that generation didn’t talk about illness,” she says.
Onassis died on May 19, 1994, and she was buried four days later next to her late husband, PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, at Arlington National Cemetery.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (left) with Carly Simon at a Labor Day party.Courtesy Carly Simon
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty
John F. Kennedy Jr. (kneeling) during the funeral of his mother.GREG GIBSON/AFP/Getty
The day after her death, her son, John Jr.,gave a brief statement on the steps of her apartment.
While Onassis’ death at 64 was a tragedy, many in her circle were glad that she’d passed before her son, who diedjust five years after his motherin a plane accident.
Says Simon now: “There was a communal sigh of relief that she didn’t live to see that.”
source: people.com
