JFK Jr. Revealed How His Mom, Jacqueline Kennedy, Disagreed With His Dad in His Final Interview

Just two months before his tragic 1999 death, John F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with Katie Couric in what would turn out to be his final interview.

The George magazine founder “was kind, self-effacing, and surprisingly open,” the former Today host reflected in a story on her Katie Couric Media website on Monday, February 23, adding that he spoke of being raised by single mom Jacqueline Kennedy after his father, John F. Kennedy‘s 1963 assassination.

“She parented for both of them,” John told Couric in the May 1999 interview, which was reposted on the site. “I think she was deliberate in ensuring that his interests and his concerns were part of our upbringing. And some of her own, which were not his. I think there was a dynamic there that was healthy.”

He went on to explain that his mother — who was later married to Aristotle Onassis from 1968 to 1975 — “didn’t come from a political family” and tried to raise her children without political aspirations.

“I think there was a lot about politics and the life of politics, especially for young children, that she thought was heady stuff,” he continued. “And that it was better to have a sense of who you are and your own place in life before you really took that on. That kind of healthy skepticism, I think, was an important part of her parenting. It probably made my sister’s and I’s life easy.”

John, 38, and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, 33 — who are the subjects of the new FX series, Love Story — died in a plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999.