Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Book Dispels Rumor About Final Flight with JFK Jr. [Video]

For decades, rumors have swirled that a spa appointment was the reason John F. Kennedy Jr., 38, his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, 33, and her sister Lauren, 34, were late to the airport the night of the fateful plane crash that killed all three on July 16, 1999. Now, a new biography is addressing it.

In Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, excerpted in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, author Elizabeth Beller writes that John, Carolyn and Lauren were all stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. John drove Lauren to the airport, where they met Carolyn who arrived separately. The plan was for John to drop Lauren off in Martha’s Vineyard before he and Carolyn flew to Hyannis Port for his cousin Rory’s wedding the next day.

“Tabloids put forth an alleged timeline in which Carolyn lingered for hours getting a pedicure,” Beller writes. “Yet an eyewitness …