A week ago, biographer Caroline Hallemann noted that there were/are many parallels between Carolyn Bessette and the Duchess of Sussex. Those parallels were backed up by many people who knew Carolyn, like Carole Radziwill, who spoke about how crazy it was for both Carolyn and Meghan to marry into these bonkers dynasties. Well, the royalists at People Magazine were absolutely furious about that story, because that’s the only explanation for this completely bizarre People Magazine cover. They’re comparing Princess Diana and Carolyn Bessette, but also making a larger comparison between the Windsor dynasty and the Kennedy dynasty. I feel like the whole point of this strained reach came towards the tailend of the cover story, when the same biographer, Caroline Hallemann, announces that Prince Harry is “floundering” just like John F. Kennedy Jr, and something something Prince William is the true heir to Camelot! I’m being only slightly hyperbolic. Some excerpts:

They came from different countries, different worlds and different dynasties. Yet Princess Diana and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy shared an experience few people could understand: living under the glare of relentless public fascination. In the 1990s they became two of the most photographed women in the world. Their marriages fueled endless speculation. Their clothes inspired imitators. Their every move made headlines. And when both women died tragically young, the world responded in remarkably similar ways: mountains of flowers, wall-to-wall coverage and a sense that something larger than a celebrity had been lost. But Diana and Carolyn were one chapter in a much longer story.

For decades the Kennedys—often described as America’s closest thing to royalty—and the Windsors have captivated the world through a mix of glamour, triumph, scandal and heartbreak. Jackie Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth would come to define the ties between the two families. In the early ’60s, one was a young First Lady helping to usher in a new era of American optimism. The other was a young monarch carrying the weight of a centuries-old institution.

“They had great proximity to power and soft diplomacy but not true political power behind them,” author Caroline Hallemann, whose new book The Kennedys & the Windsors explores the surprising intersections between the most famous political dynasty in the U.S. and Britain’s royal family, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story.

Diana was born into the British aristocracy before marrying Prince Charles. Carolyn built a career as a New York fashion publicist before falling in love with John F. Kennedy Jr. Both faced extraordinary scrutiny.

“It was difficult to join these families,” Hallemann says. “There were rules and expectations coming from within the family—and from the outside world.” How she juggled the demands of public life with family responsibilities was something that had long intrigued Diana about Jackie Kennedy. Hallemann says the princess viewed Jackie as “a real role model” for the way she navigated enormous fame while raising her children.

When Diana died at 36 in a Paris car crash while being pursued by paparazzi on Aug. 31, 1997, the tragedy struck close to home for Carolyn. “She was worried that it was going to happen to her,” says Hallemann. Less than two years later Carolyn, 33, and John, 38, died in a plane crash. By the summer of 1999 three of the decade’s most recognizable figures were gone.

One of John [Kennedy Jr]’s friends told Hallemann that while John barely remembered his father’s funeral, he struggled with the public expectations surrounding his mother’s death in 1994. “He felt he had to play a role for the press and the public when Jackie died,” Hallemann says. “What he really wanted was to escape and be around the people who truly knew her.”

William and Harry have expressed similar feelings, with Harry writing in Spare of his confusion at witnessing strangers mourn a mother they had never met. The cycle continues. When Queen Elizabeth died in 2022, Prince George, 12, and Princess Charlotte, 11, joined the royals before a worldwide audience.

Grief was only part of the inheritance. For all their privilege, John, William and Harry entered adulthood saddled with expectations few could imagine. “They were charismatic figures,” says Keogh. “They were like rock stars. Young women dreamed of marrying a prince or JFK Jr.” Yet fame offered no clear road map. John sought to carve out an identity with George magazine. Decades later Prince Harry would pursue a different kind of independence, stepping away from royal duties with his wife, Meghan Markle, and building a new life in California.

“They were trying to forge their own path outside of their families’ legacies,” says Hallemann. “But they both floundered.”

Meanwhile, William increasingly embraces the role that awaits him, defining himself through initiatives such as the Earthshot Prize. In 2022, when his environmental global challenge came to Boston for an awards ceremony to honor people who are working on eco-solutions to repair Earth, the future King was welcomed by Caroline Kennedy and her children Tatiana and Jack Schlossberg, 33.

[From People]

I don’t understand the need for all of this compare-and-contrast. Yes, both families are dynastic and wealthy. Yes, it would be interesting to talk more about how Carolyn and Diana largely defined the 1990s sartorially and culturally. Yes, there’s real history there, especially given QEII’s jealousy of Jackie Kennedy. But it feels like the whole point of this piece is to say that Harry is “floundering” and that William is embracing his Camelot-like destiny. Don’t believe your lying eyes, I guess.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images. Cover courtesy of People.