George, JFK Jr.’s Real Magazine From Love Story, Ended in Failure. Its Photo Shoots Were Legendary.
The mid-’90s was a glossy magazine gold rush, just before the internet yanked the rug out from under legacy media. But despite all his fame and familial connections, Kennedy initially struggled to get funding for his magazine because back then, the idea of a political lifestyle magazine sounded crazy to publishers. That sounds even crazier from the vantage point of 2026, living in a country where the president is a former TV star, many of his Cabinet members were plucked from Fox News, and they all regularly rage about talk show hosts and NFL halftime performers. The culture we now live in was just revving up when George began. Rupert Murdoch was unleashing the Fox News channel; The Real World invented reality TV; Microsoft released Windows 95; and Amazon.com was born. Americans treated O.J. Simpson’s trial and Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater testimony like soap operas. In this gaudy new tabloid landscape, George made a place for itself. Its mantra was simple: serious topics, but make them fun. The debut issue, featuring supermodel Cindy Crawford on the …
