u/StellaOC

I came across this Instagram page for a store called “Bessette.” It seems pretty obvious to me that they’re using Carolyn’s image and maiden name to market and sell luxury fashion. The collage in the post above includes an AI-generated image of Carolyn, along with a few other images. They’ve also apparently been featured in Vogue and Marie Claire.

Their website claims that the name “Bessette” comes from the Scandinavian term “BESAT,” meaning “obsessed.” They also describe the “Bessette Girl” as someone who likes to invest in herself and her wardrobe, someone who appreciates luxury but is considered in her choices and prioritizes quality pieces that transcend trends and seasons.

Does anyone else think they might be deliberately using Carolyn’s image and name to sell their products? I honestly wish her family would do something about this. Last year, when Timex used an image of John wearing their watch on Instagram, Jack Schlossberg commented that his family was going to take legal action, and the post was quickly taken down.

I feel like so many brands are using Carolyn’s image and association with her name to promote and profit from their products. What do you guys think?

From the Greenwich News, August 16, 1984. Carolyn worked at Athletic Attic and modeled clothing for the store in this back-to-school newspaper advertisement.

The clipping said: "SHE'S CUTE, WHO IS SHE? Carolyn Bessette from the Athletic Attic. She wears Danskin parachute pants with a Cotton Colours t-shirt accompanied by Adidas Stan Smith tennis sneakers. All this and the best of athletic footwear and clothing at ATHLETIC ATTIC, 17 East Putnam Avenue, Greenwich.”

Photo by Robin Fellows.

Excerpt from Staten Island Advance by Maureen Seaberg 7/23/1999:

The world knows that John F. Kennedy Jr.'s love of the sea was forged during family holidays at the waterfront Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. Mass. But most people don't know that his wife's family also loved the ocean, and spent their summers on Staten Island.

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's mother, Ann Freeman, was once Ann Marie Messina, a young girl from the Benson-hurst section of Brooklyn who summered on Staten Island with her cousins, according to neighbors who knew her then. Island beaches were vacation destinations in those days, even drawing the young singer Bobby Darin from his Bronx home during the summers. Mrs. Freeman came to Midland Beach for many years before moving to White Plains and marrying William Bessette. She eventually divorced, remarried and settled in Connecticut.

Her mother, Jean Messina, known by those close to her as "Jenny," stayed a New Yorker and still lives in Ossining in Westchester County. She would often bring her family for visits here to see her brother, who lived here year-round. Mrs. Freeman's cousins still live on Staten Island and may attend the invitation-only memorial in Greenwich, Conn. for the Bessette sisters.

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy mentioned her Island relatives fondly in conversations with Dr. Gil Lederman and his staff in recent weeks while a Kennedy cousin was being treated at Staten Island University Hospital. Dr. Lederman and his staff are mourning the loss of both the personal and professional relationships they had forged in recent months with Carolyn Bessette Kennedy while she accompanied her husband's cousin for radiosurgery treatments.

The young woman was hands-on and very interested in the procedure, which was having a positive effect on the un-named Kennedy's health, according to the doctor. Seeing the results, she referred a Ralph Lauren executive to Staten Island University Hospital as well as an unnamed woman in the fashion industry she described as "my best friend."

Lederman said he had planned to ask Carolyn Bessette Kennedy to do some charitable work for the hospital given how pleased she seemed with his department. "I had just spoken to the president of the hospital about it, he told the Advance. Had there been such a gala evening here, Staten Islanders might have gotten to meet the ill-fated young princess of Camelot, who in fact, had more in common with Staten Islanders than many knew.

Photo: Carolyn with her uncle Jack Messina and grandmother Jenny Messina. Jenny, who was married to Carl Messina, passed away in February 2004; Carl died in 1978. Carolyn’s uncle Jack owns a winery in California and, in an interview, recalled that his first encounter with wine came when he walked into his grandfather “Nonno’s” little 4-by-6-foot winemaking room at the back of their home in Staten Island, N.Y.

I wanted to get some opinions on this interview. I found it through the Wayback Machine; it originally appeared on a website called NYNewsFix in July 2004. I've never heard of this site and it's not longer around. Fortunately, I was still able to locate the interview.

The person interviewed used the pseudonym “Roger” and claimed that he attended NYU with John. Do you think his story sounds believable?

FIX: One of the many differing points from authors have been whether or not they (John and Carolyn) were happy in their marriage, from pictures it can be surmised that they were a picture perfect couple, but were they happy?

ROGER: John and Carolyn were happy, they had everything going for them. John's magazine was going very strongly, he was coming into his own right with who he was, things couldn't be better for him. Carolyn was happy too, she had a big nice apartment, lots of money, the party life she wanted, the only downer for her was the paparazzi wanting to take pictures of her when she was with John. They weren't so much bad when she was by herself, that's why she could escape them if she wanted to. If John wasn't around, all she had to do was exit out the back door and have a cab waiting, or a friend. It wasn't that hard really. I helped her a few times. They were really happy
together when they were dating, they didn't have too many fights, until the big one that they had. After that, when they had fights, they had fights. After they got married, the fighting only got worse, it wasn't all the time or anything, just every so often, they would scream, she would throw things, and I even saw her hit John once. But it wasn't so bad really, not as much as people make it out to be. Towards the end of their lives, the fighting got much worse. It went from screaming and throwing an ashtray in the floor to screaming and throwing a vase at John's head. She was uncontrollable. But they weren't always that way.

FIX: What was Carolyn going to do? There has been speculation circulating that she was planning something big, was it a charity or some other Kennedy-esque type of organization?

ROGER: Carolyn had big plans. One of the things I remember about her the most was her drive. The girl had ambition, if she could have bottled it, she would have made a nice profit. She had these huge dreams of being on the cover of every magazine on the racks, controlled of course, but she wanted to be there because of herself, not just because she was John's wife. She was planning on coming out with her own clothing line. She attended a few strategic events to further that dream into a reality. She had a way of talking to a person and when she did, it was like you just knew that what she was saying was the right thing to do, you know? I wouldn't call it manipulation, like some have said, I would call it, her getting her point across and having an inert ability to change people's minds to her way of thinking. She had all the contacts she needed to start her line of things, but she just hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. There were other things in her life that took precedence. She knew that with or without John her clothes would sell, she would always be a celeb afterwards. So it didn't really matter when she started the clothes into production, as long as she did it, actually she was rat holing all of her allowance from John-well as much as she could, to start her business. She used various designers to find what styles she liked, and what ones she wanted to incorporate into her clothing line, and she was going to use those to her advantage. That's why she didn't just wear one designer, she was getting ready to undercut them all, and design her own clothes. She wasn't really interested in charities, she didn't really like any of them. She liked them, but she didn't. You know what I mean?

FIX: There have been several books that have been written recently about the state of John and Carolyn's marriage towards the ends of their lives, why do you think there are so many different viewpoints on that aspect?

ROGER: Well, it all depends. I was around them a lot, before and after they got married, and I can tell you this much. It depends on who was around them on what days of the week. Every couple has problems, they were no exception, they had bad fights, they were strained towards the end. I knew them on both types of days. When they would have a big fight, they would usually do it in the semi-privacy of their home. If friends happened to be over at that time, they just were, they didn't just put the issue on the back burner until after company left, if there was a problem it was going to come out. They could also make up afterwards though, when they were still dating I heard an argument about another woman calling John and leaving a message on his machine, Carolyn was mad. She started accusing him of cheating on her, and called him all kinds of sh*t, and John wasn't one to take it easy, he started yelling right back. They yelled for about twenty minutes before a picture, frame and all, went sailing across the room. I couldn't believe she threw it. When they were done arguing, John was sitting on the sofa, and Carolyn came and dropped to her knees in front of him saying she was sorry for yelling at him like that. They started kissing, but then Carolyn stopped him and said, enough of that, "you know I don't believe in sex as a make up tool." She had some hang-ups, and they all came out, you know?

FIX: What about after the September wedding? How did their relationship change after they got married? Did you see anything change in their relationship?

ROGER: After their wedding in 1996, things were really strained, and they fought more often than not. The last big fight I witnessed was in May 1999. It was about a trip John had taken that Carolyn hadn’t been invited on—not that she would have gone; she just didn’t want John going off on trips without her. She was literally screaming about him having an affair with another woman and how she was glad that she had been seeing several people while they were married. At least she could have decent sex that way. From what I heard, the two of them hadn't been together in that way, in over a year. John told her that "Maybe things wouldn’t be so goddamn tense around here if you would have sex with me once in a while. I’m not a fucking saint Carolyn!"

Only a few close friends knew that John had started seeing Amber again. He initially went to her as a friend; she actually listened to him. They had started spending time together again in the middle of 1998. John had dated her briefly in 1993, but she dropped John when Carolyn entered the scene.
I don’t think he started out with the intention of cheating on his wife, but they weren’t that close toward the end. Carolyn was a very attractive woman, but Amber was hot too, she was a model, but Amber was more compassionate towards John than Carolyn was.

When the fight was over, John ended up leaving the apartment. I wasn’t there when he got back, but I would gather that the argument would have went on. I don’t know if Carolyn already knew that he was seeing someone else or if she found out then, but they were both pissed off. I don’t think that argument was over yet.

FIX: So they were having extramarital affairs?

ROGER: It wasn't like that. The word affair has a very negative meaning. Their relationship wasn't like that at all. They loved each other, but they had other people that they saw for different needs. Some emotional needs, other physical needs. It wasn't that bad really. It was all kept pretty low-key. That's the way they wanted it for the time being.

FIX: Were they happy, were they not, were they going to divorce or have children?

ROGER: Would they have gotten a divorce or had children? John and Carolyn were headed for a divorce. John had already told her to get her things out of his apartment; he didn’t want anything of hers left there when he returned from the wedding. John had been renovating his house on the Cape, and during his vacation from George magazine, he had planned to stay there until Carolyn had removed all of her belongings from the apartment.

John told me and a couple of the guys that he had a feeling Carolyn was going to try to take the Tribeca loft in the divorce, so he had his assistant start looking at other apartments in Manhattan. I mean, she wouldn’t have gotten the compound property or anything, so John wanted to make sure that he had another place in the city. He said he would agree to give her one of the properties in the settlement. Carolyn had her men on the side, but John was really a one-woman man. Carolyn just wasn’t his woman anymore. She had made herself not his. When John would try to talk to her, she would just get mad and storm off.

It was pretty pointless to talk to her. She had a few other men she was seeing as well, but Eric was the only one who was actually serious. Eric had already proposed to Carolyn, and John found out in June 1999. He was pretty well-off, lived in Manhattan, and said he would support them. His business required him to travel from New York to Los Angeles to Seattle.

John had a hard decision to make after he found out about that. He couldn't believe that someone would propose to a married woman, so it was just a hard decision to make, letting someone go like that. I'm sure they still loved each other, but they had grown so far apart, it just didn't make sense to keep it going. He knew that they had separate goals, and that her goals weren't in line with his anymore, so the decision was obvious. It was just actually getting the decision to divorce out there that was hard. So they made plans to let it out, and then they died like that, before they got the chance. Now they're stuck with each other.

FIX: If they didn't want people to know they were seeing other people why are you coming out with this now? Why not say something while they were still alive?

ROGER:  When they were alive they were planning on telling everyone that they were calling it quits. There was no need for those of us that knew to go out and tell everyone. John did things in his own way, and on his own timing. He and Carolyn both had already planned for this. There wasn't a need for anyone to run their mouths before the appointed time. That's not how they would have wanted it. They aren't here any longer, so there isn't a need anymore, I guess, to keep it all a secret. Not too many people knew about who they were seeing. They didn't go out and tell everyone they knew about it. John had learned from his mother about keeping things private until the right time, and he was doing just that. 

He didn't want to ruin Carolyn's reputation by going out and saying she was with someone else, because then the papers would have been filled with stories about how he couldn't keep
his wife happy, and how she was a druggie and cheat. Carolyn didn't want to say anything because she didn't want to see her name beside a headline that said she couldn't keep her husband happy in the bedroom. They had different reasons for doing what they did, and they both knew how to get the best accomplished for them. The other people involved were still mainly private people, they weren't household names, and neither John nor Carolyn saw the need to run their names through the mud by saying that was who they were seeing.

FIX: So, hypothetically, if John and Carolyn hadn't stayed together, do you think Carolyn would have her own line of clothes out now?

ROGER: I think that Carolyn would have her clothing line out by now for sure, she probably would have kicked it off in the year 2000, like one idea she toyed with was the 'New Millenium Fashions' which was a fashion show she wanted to have, so she could have a major kick off for her clothes. She also had a line of cosmetics that she wanted to have with the clothing, because she always complained that her skin was so different from anyone else's and that most brands weren't for her skin, or her skin tone. She was just going to have her own made, for other people like her, that maybe couldn't afford the same really expensive stuff she used.

John and Carolyn weren't going to stay together, but they would have been able to accomplish just as much if not more than they did while they were together. She would have taken off with her fashion trade.

FIX: What would John have been doing at this point?

ROGER: John was preparing himself for life in politics. He wanted to run for public office, and that was something that he was getting ready for. He knew the divorce wouldn't have hurt his chances running for an office, it would only get him more votes, he would be "back on the market" so to speak. He would have almost certainly been guaranteed the women vote, and the gay men vote. He already knew that.

He wouldn't have gotten remarried until probably after the election, he already had it planned, that's the way he wanted it. Only this wedding would have been a major media event. He would have already been voted in, and after that, people would have been able to see what he
could accomplish (in politics), and not just judge him on his looks. With so many stories circulating about John and Carolyn, I don't think it's going to harm anyone to know the truth about them. It's not going to change anyone's opinion of them. People don't deserve to be lied to. John wouldn't have wanted people to be unclear on what had happened, and he would have wanted to have the complete truth known.

FIX: There has been much debate about the truth between John and Carolyn's lives together. Would you ever consider doing a television interview or writing a book of your own?

ROGER: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, me and a couple of John's other friends are in the stages of writing a book. We plan to stand up to every author that has made a mess of things, Klein included. His version of the story made Carolyn out to be a psychopath, that's not correct at all. He didn't include the full story. Things weren't as awful as he tried to pass off. We won't be banking anything either. All of our proceeds will go to charity. Every bit of it. None of us need the money. We have private photos of John and Carolyn that we are thinking about putting in the book. Maybe, in doing that, it will make people buy the book and get the real story. I think the time has come for all of the truth to come out, and not just some hack job on half of the relationship. Carolyn was a very loving person, and I think that will come out in the book. She was also very headstrong, but in a good way. She did get her way, so if she could get her way, how would that be a bad thing?

FIX: What do you miss most about your friends?

ROGER: I think that what I miss the most about Carolyn is hearing what the worst is today, she would always start off a conversation with what was worst and work her way back to the best. She was so vibrant of a character, and that's been snuffed now. I've known John longer, and I remember going to NYU with him, it's tough to have all these memories that are just dead. It's like the memories are still there, but there isn't anything behind them anymore. I miss his animation, it's like when he died, the streets of New York ceased to have life anymore. Everything stopped. It's been tough to go on and have a life knowing that his apartment wasn't filled with him, he wasn't there, as if the rooms were all dark now or something. I miss him more than I could ever be able to express.

What do you think of this interview? Do you believe this “Roger” is telling the truth? It's obvious that "Eric" and "Amber" are pseudonyms as well.

These photos are from their Italy vacation in the summer of 1997.

“John and Carolyn were very playful with one another. They’d cuddle and play footsies under the table. If we were at a group dinner, even across the table, they would be making faces at each other. Sometimes she would just lean over to me and say, ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’” - Lynn Tesoro.

“Truly beautiful people have something otherworldly about them. It’s how I feel about John. Sometimes I look at him while he’s sleeping, and he’s so beautiful, I can’t believe he’s really human.”-Quote from Carolyn, as mentioned in Richard Blow’s book.

No one talked more openly about John and Carolyn’s sex life than Sasha Chermayeff. It’s clearly a subject that bothers her, given that she has repeatedly speculated about why Carolyn allegedly refused to be intimate with her husband. Here’s what she came up with:

1. It must have been Carolyn’s antidepressants and birth control:

“I feel sorry for the drug culture of America that puts everyone on antidepressants without telling them that their libido is going to be shot. Puts them on the pill without telling them that their entire sense of smell is going to change and they may be attracted to people differently. I feel sorry for this whole culture of therapy that says we should go to shrinks who say that the world is all about me me me. And John was at such a different place, waiting to see if this beautiful young woman with all this potential would catch up. He was in the throes of a crisis, stressed out.”

2. Carolyn was still “in love” with Michael Bergin and had alot of “dysfunction”:

“I never quite understood what happened, why that was the way it was, and I felt really sad about it because I wanted so much to see him really, really fulfilled and he wasn't. She wanted to be with John, but she wanted to have sex with the other guy because that is where she felt more at home. John, she was just going to deny. In fact, she just wasn't going to fuck him. Sorry to be crude. John couldn't live like that, and a lot of people can't. Her excuse-that she was really shut down sexually—wasn't really true. But she was shut down from him. He was upset about it. He was in therapy. He may have, eventually, had casual sexual interludes with Julie Baker, a former girlfriend. It is mind blowing, but it happened.

People are so strange, and love and chemistry, and who people want to be with, and intimacy. God knows there's no making any sense of any of it. There was more stuff going on with her than I clearly knew about. There were more serious issues that I wasn't really privy to. Carolyn was in pain. It came from real dysfunction and was dysfunction. She was good at seeming really together but she actually wasn't. Maybe she was a coke addict and sort of a sex addict, who knows?"

3. She didn’t want to have kids.

Apparently John told Sasha “I want to have kids, but whenever I raise the subject with Carolyn, she turns away and refuses to have sex with me."

4.Other word-salad theories from Sasha:

“John told me how fucked up it had gotten with Carolyn, and that they were emotionally very distant. Carolyn refused to have sex with him, and they seemed to be leading entirely separate lives. He never used the word divorce, but it was clear that was what he was alluding to. Carolyn had no idea how badly this was going to take her out, because her whole life revolved around the fact that she was this important person who is JFK Jr.'s wife, and when he tells her that this marriage is falling apart and he's done, it was going to be so hard for her."

“I remember John saying, "She's so shut down." Emotionally they were so disconnected. He had been talking to a friend about them not having sex—they hadn't been sleeping together for a while. John felt really hurt by her. His heart was breaking.”

“I knew John and Carolyn were having intimacy issues, sexual intimacy issues, that last year. She had a lot of anger, but so did he. They were in a painful period.”

……Does anyone else find it strange how hard Sasha tried to figure Carolyn out? And do you notice the pattern? Sasha seems to repeatedly place the blame on Carolyn—whether it’s her medications, her mental health, or personal choices, like whether or not she wanted children. Has it ever occurred to her that maybe they simply didn’t know the whole story because Carolyn was such a private person? And that perhaps John may have shared some of the responsibility, especially if he was involved with other women? For example, if Carolyn knew or suspected that John was having unprotected sex with other women (like Sybil Hill), wouldn’t it be reasonable for her to have concerns about intimacy and the possibility of contracting an STD?

On March 5, 1998, President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton hosted a special White House screening of HBO's Apollo program miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon, in the East Room.

The following anecdote comes from the limousine driver who drove John and Carolyn to the White House:

“Hi, I'm John Kennedy," he said. "Nice to meet you."

I drive a limousine for a living, and on this particular morning in 1998, I had been sent to pick up my client at Signature Aviation in Washington, where private aircraft fly in to Reagan National Airport. My passenger, John Kennedy Jr., was in town for an event at the White House. The occasion was the premiere of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. Because of his father's initiation of the American space program, Kennedy had been invited to the dinner reception. He'd also been asked to make the opening remarks.

On our way to his hotel, Kennedy decided to visit the graves of his parents at Arlington Cemetery. I expected to make arrangements to drive him directly to the grave site, but surprisingly, he wanted to walk in from the visitors center. Either people did not recognize him or they just left him alone, because I didn't see anyone approach him. Kennedy stayed at the graves for only a few minutes, and when he returned to the car, I took him to his hotel. During the ride, he was deep in thought, writing his speech for the White House event. He was cordial, but seemed to be concentrating hard on his writing.

In mid-afternoon, we drove out to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., where we were to pick up Kennedy's wife, Carolyn Bessette.

John introduced me. "Jefferson, this is my wife, Carolyn," he said. My impression at the time was how very normal, very nice these people were. She was lovely, of course, dressed in a classic, simple way. I remember thinking that she was not a raving beauty in the traditional sense, but a very pretty woman, and exceptionally nice.

As we drove back to the hotel, the two of them talked and held hands. Understand that there is a certain intimacy that develops when people sit three feet from you, having a conversation -- it's an inclusiveness that the client can either encourage or avoid. Sometimes they keep their voices softer, for privacy. Other times they direct their comments to the driver. The latter was the case with John and Carolyn.

John took the opportunity of this 20-minute drive to read his speech to Carolyn. As a result, I got to hear it before anyone at the dinner. As you might imagine, the speech was well written, with quotes from President Kennedy woven in. But what happened next was remarkable. When John finished reading, Carolyn leaned forward and kissed him, telling him how much she liked it. There was a slight pause, as John seemed to be forming a thought. Finally, he spoke.

"Now that I'm grown," he said, "when I quote my father, I hear his voice."

Again, Carolyn gave him a warm hug and kiss. I felt as if I had been in on a very personal, very wonderful moment. Later, it would occur to me that I may be the only living person who had ever heard him make that remark.

Later that evening, I drove them to the White House. John wore a sharp, dark suit; Carolyn a simple black dress. It was a lovely, chilly evening, but she didn't wear a coat. We pulled into the White House grounds at the east entrance, by a small fountain. The scene was one I had witnessed often. Secret Service agents politely checked photo IDs against the guest list. Two lines converged on the gate just behind the fountain, forming a large V. Previous trips to the White House had taught me that everyone who enters the White House for an event, no matter how famous, must have their ID checked. Among those in line this particular evening were Walter Cronkite, Tom Hanks and Sen. John Glenn.

I brought the car to a stop and stepped out to open the door for Carolyn, offering her my hand. John got out on the other side and started around the back. As Carolyn emerged, she had a minor static cling problem with her dress, so I stood in front of her as she made a slight adjustment. As she did this, she noticed the lines of people at the gate, and commented, "We can't wait in that line. I'll freeze to death!"

By now John was standing with us. "Why don't you just try walking right in?" I said. "After all, he used to live here." Both smiled, and John said, "I think that's a great idea!"

The couple walked directly toward the front of the line. The agents looked up to see who was approaching, then the waters seemed to part. The agents simply stepped back, clearing a path for the couple to pass through. No guest list was checked, no IDs were requested -- only a simple "Good evening" from the agent in charge as the couple walked by.

And so I waited. Despite a large exodus from the White House at around 11:15, the Kennedys did not emerge until well after midnight. On our short trip back to the hotel, the couple spoke of what a great evening it had been, with John commenting that he had not recognized any of it.

Just what he meant became clear to me only a year later, when, after the July 16, 1999, crash that took the couple's life, President Clinton spoke of the evening they had all spent together at the White House. He talked about the tour of the private quarters he and Hillary Clinton had given John and Carolyn.

I recalled that evening as well, remembering the wonderful brightness of these two young people. It was for me a brush with greatness, a chance to be a witness to a small bit of history. The morning after the White House event, I arrived at the hotel at about 5:20 a.m. to pick John up for an early flight. Carolyn had made other arrangements, so I didn't see her again.

When we arrived at National Airport, John hopped out of the car and grabbed his small bag. He made a point to stop, shake my hand and thank me. He also took an envelope out of his pocket and said, "My wife and I would like you to have this." I thanked him and he was off. I really hoped that the envelope would hold a simple note, signed by him. But it did not. Instead, it held a very generous, very thoughtful tip. Taking the time to put it in an envelope seemed so in character for this fellow. After all, he had been John Kennedy all his life. And he was good at it.

Carole Radziwill also wrote about this event in her book:

The White House is screening a Tom Hanks film about the moon tonight. John has put him on the cover of his magazine, George, and he and Carolyn need to be there. He flies down in the afternoon and comes to the hospital to pick her up. Anthony is still in the ICU. The swelling has gone down, but he looks weaker and is hooked up to so many machines. It's a jarring sight. John is taken aback.

Anthony knows this, and he knows to break the ice. "Try not to embarrass yourself tonight," he says. John has a funny boyish way of eating, with his head bent down and one arm around the plate, as if he is guarding it, the other shoveling in the food. Anthony always teases him about it. "Try to keep your tie clean."

"I'm sorry I have to leave, Sweetie," Carolyn says to Anthony. It is ridiculous, she thinks, to go to the White House to see a movie while he's here in this room. Here is where she wants to be. But that is their life. Before they leave, she takes a makeup bag into the small hospital bathroom. She combs her hair up in a bun, clips it into place, and applies MAC Studio Fix powder on her face. "Before...after," she says, as she dots the circles under her eyes. She finishes up with Ruby Stain.

"I'll come back in the morning," she says as she straightens the picture of Friday. She kisses Anthony good-bye, and then me.

John and Carolyn at the Municipal Art Society's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal Awards (in honor of Stephen Swid) at the Minskoff Theater, New York, New York, April 6, 1998. This event was held just over two weeks after they attended Betsy Reisinger and Kenan Siegel's wedding in Miami on March 21, 1998.

On April 6, Caroline and John made the annual presentation of the Municipal Art Society's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal, which that year was awarded to developer and preservationist Stephen C. Swid who had served as the society's chairman for 14 years. He was instrumental in promoting zoning laws that preserved the bright lights of Times Square and helped attract Disney and other businesses to the area.

According to an article by Rush & Molloy in the New York Daily News:

The party celebrated the Society's campaign to preserve the lights and landmarks of Times Square. Fittingly, it was held at the Minskoff Theatre, in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows that gave guests a spectacular view of Broadway's dazzling signs. As John stepped up to the lectern, he was almost overshadowed by the scantily clad musical stars featured on the Jockey billboard.

"It's difficult to stand before you fully clothed and to compete for your attention with seven people in their underwear," Kennedy quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.

Afterward, Kennedy told the reporters that his dedication to Times Square dated back to his childhood, when his mother took him to the theater, and later, when he worked for the 42nd Street Development Corporation.

"My job on one of those days was to count the number of females who walked by," he said. "The idea was that we could project how safe people felt in the neighborhood by the number of women who walked by."

Excerpt from the upcoming book American Style: The Look and Legacy of JFK Jr by Jeremy Freed (set to be released on October 30, 2026) posted on Instagram:

Did his style evolve after he met Carolyn Bessette?

RMT: It certainly did. In some ways he became more interested in and free with style. Before, he'd just put on whatever tie someone handed him. After, he'd look at two options and go, "Oh, this one's sharp." She also got him a really good tailor. He had these black-and-white gingham pants that were too short, and she said, "You can't wear those anymore." It wasn't a curated, controlling kind of thing, but she pulled him together. She had an influence.

Where did he get his suits?

RMT: There wasn't one place. It'd be Hugo Boss, Zegna, Armani, sometimes Joseph Abboud. Gucci, Versace. A lot of people sent him things, but he knew good men's clothes. For shopping, Barneys was a big one, Bergdorf's. Zegna had a Madison Avenue shop he'd go to. Those were his places.

What influence did Carolyn have on his look?

Matt Berman: Carolyn bought him a lot of clothes and had a big influence on the adult "John style" that people remember. She even sent a guy she knew to the office to give him haircut because she didn't like the way it had been cut before. He wasn't afraid to put on anything she bought him. Sometimes he'd wear an elegant outfit mixed with a silly hat-like a ski hat with a pom-pom-just for fun, but he had the physicality and the sense of humor to pull anything off.

From the JFK Jr biography:

Gustavo Paredes: “After John met Carolyn, he became a dresser. Before, it was always some mishmash of stuff. He had absolutely no style—he had a style of no style. He would wear these kind of balloon pants, cotton with some odd stripes, faded T-shirts. He had a great attraction for color, and he spent a good amount of time in Kenya and Africa and India. He never did wear those Cape Cod, Brooks Brothers, prep-style clothing. But he had an idea of colors from these travels. He'd put African and Indian styles together, but better to do all of one or the other, you can't mesh. And he started getting better haircuts, too.”

Robert Littell: “Later in life, he had at least fifty suits arranged by slight gradation of color in two closets in his apartment. He'd sometimes thumb through my three, usually dirty, suits with grunts of pity, muttering words like "threadbare" and "dry cleaner." Fashion was one of the few areas where John assumed the role of an elitist. He was a natty dresser with a competitive streak, and because style is a sport where nobody gets hurt, he mercilessly vanquished all around him.”

I also want to mention that, at one point, John was styled by Remy Toh, a bespoke celebrity stylist. While I’m not sure exactly when Remy became John’s stylist, the two became friends during the time they worked together.

The first slide shows photos of John’s suits before he was with Carolyn, while the second slide shows his suits after he met her. The biggest difference I notice is that his ties were no longer colorful or patterned. He also began wearing more double-breasted suits and favored darker-colored suits. The tan and silver suits disappeared.

These are some of the books Carolyn read and later gave to a friend who was also struggling with depression. Santina Goodman (RIP) recalled:

"I suffered from depression.... Carolyn and I talked about my depression in such a funny way that I didn't feel uncomfortable letting her know."

Goodman went on to describe how Carolyn found her a therapist, scheduled the appointment, and even accompanied her:

"Before I could yell at her, she said, 'Please, just do it for me.' The way she said that was so kind and loving. I said, 'Okay.' I go to the appointment to meet the therapist. I'm buzzed into the reception area and there's Carolyn sitting there. I'm not sure why, but all we could do was laugh. The therapist calls me in. After one hour, I walk out and there's Carolyn. She says, 'Let's get something to eat.' She didn't mention anything about the session. Before leaving, Carolyn handed me three books: Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison; Prozac and the New Antidepressants; An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. This happened in 1995, and we never talked about it again."

I thought that was very thoughtful that Carolyn wasn't only trying to understand her own experiences, she was also using what she learned to support someone else through a difficult period. Carole Radziwill also wrote about Carolyn giving her advice to see a therapist while she was dealing with Anthony’s terminal illness. Carole also mentioned that Carolyn expressed interest in going to school for a masters in psychology.

Also when the Freemans went to clear out the apartment after Carolyn's death, they found, among other belongings, "a cardboard box marked J.K.—MY BOOKS." Among the collection were Bill Moyers's Healing and the Mind, Barbara Woodhouse's No Bad Dogs, and two cookbooks John had jokingly given Carolyn. Inside the front cover of each cookbook were the phone numbers of their favorite takeout restaurants.

It sounds like Carolyn had a genuine interest in reading about psychology, depression, healing, and recovery. In my opinion, that's a positive thing. Rather than ignoring what she was experiencing, Carolyn educated herself and even used that knowledge to help a friend who was going through a very difficult time.

John's friends interpreted this behavior negatively. One book quotes them as saying:

“She became obsessed with psychology, seeing it as the key not only to liberating herself but to freeing her husband from maladies of which he was blessedly unaware. She talked about ADD and depression, all kinds of categories and problems. John had a different way of seeing life and found much of what she said demeaning to the human experience. Some of John's close friends worried that Carolyn was such a drag on John's high spirits that he too would be pulled down into darkness. Others thought that Carolyn was just going through a phase.”

Do you agree with John's friends' interpretation? I personally see it differently. I think it was a positive thing that Carolyn took the initiative to learn about psychology and mental health, and that she encouraged friends like Santina and Carole Radziwill to consider therapy. To me, that seems more forward-thinking than something deserving criticism, especially given the stigma surrounding mental health at the time.

This post is a list of all known plans John had made with people for the weekend that never happened. In addition to Rory's wedding, John had already made arrangements with at least a handful of other people for that weekend (July 17–18, 1999).

The family wedding: Rory Kennedy and Mark Bailey had originally planned to marry on Saturday July 17, 1999, at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.

RFK Jr. & Mary Richardson: According to RFK Jr.'s diary, he and Mary had planned to spend time with John and Carolyn that weekend. He wrote, "Mary and I resolved we will go see them this weekend and spend a lot of time with them." Mary had recently visited the couple in Manhattan and later told RFK Jr. that Carolyn had confided that John was "so depressed."

Before attending Rory's rehearsal dinner, RFK Jr. stopped by John and Carolyn's house in Hyannis Port, hoping to see them, but they had not yet arrived. He checked the house again later that evening after the day's events, and they still had not come in. As he later wrote in his diary, "I wasn't worried at all because anything can happen with John."

Shortly before his death, John spoke with Peter Kiernan about strengthening his relationship with his cousin Bobby.

Billy & Kathleen Noonan: Billy Noonan wrote that John had made plans to celebrate Billy and his wife Kathleen's anniversary with them and another couple on Nantucket. According to Billy, he had told John about the plans a few days earlier, and John "was game and jumped right in—no excuses and no checking with Carolyn. He was in." The plan was to meet at the boat in Hyannis Port that Friday, gather the couples, and head to Nantucket for dinner.

Dan Samson: A few days before the crash, John called his friend Dan Samson around midnight but did not mention that he was at the Stanhope. Dan was planning to fly into Boston on Friday, and John intended to meet him so the two friends could spend much of the weekend discussing their prospective business partnership. Although John typically spent most summer weekends at his home on Martha's Vineyard, he told Dan that his plans had changed and that he would instead be going to his house in Hyannis Port. He explained that he would still make it to Hyannis Port but would fly to Nantucket on Friday evening to attend a dinner at The Club Car celebrating his friend Billy and Kathleen's fifth wedding anniversary. John acknowledged it would be a long evening after a busy day, but he wanted to be there to raise a toast to Billy and Kathleen before returning to work with Dan on their business proposal.

Dan Samson was waiting in Hyannis to pick up John and Carolyn at the airport and was the one who called Carole when they didn't show up.

Kevin Hynes: According to a 2005 auction listing, John's friend Kevin Hynes had reserved a vacation bungalow in Oak Bluffs for the week John was expected to be on Martha's Vineyard, from Sunday, July 11, 1999, through Sunday, July 18, 1999. Hynes later auctioned the reservation documentation along with other JFK Jr. memorabilia.

In a 2002 book proposal, Hynes wrote that he was waiting for John on Martha's Vineyard on July 16, 1999, when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. He also stated that he took possession of John's Saab, which was on Martha's Vineyard, and drove it back to Manhattan. Hynes later purchased the vehicle from the Kennedy family and eventually auctioned it. Hynes's personal website also stated, "Upon John's tragic death in 1999, Kevin was asked by the Kennedy family to secure John's personal and professional affairs. Kevin also served as an usher at John's memorial service."

Hyannis Port House Renovations: In her memoir, Kathy McKeon wrote that when she last spoke with John during the summer of 1999, he was eager to have the Hyannis Port house ready before the Kennedy family gathered for his cousin Rory's upcoming wedding. At the time, John and Carolyn were overseeing renovations to the property. Kathleen Noonan later shared that "Carolyn and John were going to move there to start a family."

In Billy Noonan's book, he recalled several conversations with Carolyn about the renovations. He wrote that Carolyn had changed her mind about a number of design choices and worried that she had altered the character of the house. She wanted to preserve Jackie's simple elegance and asked Billy what he thought of the wallpaper she had selected for Jackie's bedroom, explaining that she had chosen it because of its small pink shamrock pattern. Carolyn also asked whether the house would be ready by August, as she and John planned to spend time there.

They were set to check on the renovations happening at their house on Saturday with Robert Luddington

Carole & Anthony Radziwill: In her memoir, Carole wrote that she and Anthony had made plans to see John and Carolyn on Saturday night after Rory's wedding (July 17).

According to several sources, John had planned to back in NYC on Monday, July 19:

Matt Berman: In his book, Matt Berman recalled that on the Friday before he left for California, the last thing John said to him was, "See you on Monday, Maestro."

Steve Gillon: John made plans with Gillon to play racquetball at the New York Athletic Club on the Monday after the wedding weekend. John told him that not being able to exercise had been "playing with his head."

Rosemarie Terenzio: She shared that John had a meeting scheduled with Jack Kliger on the Monday following the wedding weekend and had also arranged a meeting with Paul Newman that same day.

It is clear that, had John and Carolyn lived to attend the wedding, they already had numerous plans with friends and family, many of which centered around John. He was expected to return to the city immediately afterward to continue working on George. They did not have had much, if any, private time together as a married couple, despite Carolyn's strong desire for that. She told Rosemarie Terenzio the day she died that she simply wanted "some normal married time," and it appeared increasingly unlikely that she would get it. The underlying challenges in their relationship would likely have remained unresolved. It was clear that they would not have the private time they needed to sort out their issues and confront their problems. This weekend and the week after were full, and their marriage seemed low on the list of priorities.

Do you think John overbooked himself to avoid being alone with his wife, or had he already checked out and stopped trying to resolve their issues?

Article about Ann Freeman living with the loss of her two daughters, published in July 2000:

In the year since a ringing telephone brought awful news to Ann Freeman, the mother of Lauren and Carolyn Bessette has cloaked herself in private grieving, taking refuge only in her family and the Greenwich community that has supported her silence. She has not joined in the public mourning for her daughters and son-in-law, John F. Kennedy Jr., or responded to the mounting rumors about her family’s possibly litigious relationship with the Kennedys.

“People talk about Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy. But they forget that she lost two daughters,” said Mary Marks, the Christ Church secretary who helped Freeman plan the memorial service for her daughters. A close friend says that Ann Freeman “believes very strongly that ‘my children, my two daughters, will live through the lives of the people who love them.’”

Marks and Freeman have not remained close since the memorial; many friends said that the mother has withdrawn from social ties and obligations in her grief. A source close to the Bessettes disclosed, “Ann is so shattered by the loss of her daughters that she rarely leaves the house.” But Marks vividly remembers the last time she spoke to Freeman. The two women overheard a third woman discussing her twins. Marks said, “We were walking toward Parish Hall when two other women walked past us. One of them mentioned to the other that she had just given birth to twins. Ann turned to me and said, ‘I used to have twins.’”

Ann Freeman took it largely upon herself to oversee the details of Lauren's service. Though, according to a friend, "her state is so fragile it's almost as though you hope an arm doesn't break," she had arrived at the church three days beforehand and begun making decisions about flowers and music without her husband or her sole surviving child, Lauren's twin sister, Lisa. "Lisa wanted to stay out of [the planning]," says church organist Fiona Smith. "It was far too emotional for her." And, of course, the weight of sadness was palpable.

Since the memorial service, Freeman has tried repeatedly to keep the press from her doorstep. Earlier this month, she released a rare public statement through her lawyer. “We have been besieged by requests for comments as the anniversary draws near,” it read. “The loss of these three young people whom we loved so much has forever changed our lives. We continue to struggle with our grief and we choose to maintain what’s left of our privacy.”

Neighbors say Ann Freeman refuses to speak John Jr.'s name in the house, referring to the president's son only as “him,” and blames Kennedy for being a reckless daredevil. A friend said, “Ann is still mad at John—she blames him for her daughters' deaths.”

"This past year has been awful. She had to get through Lauren's birthday on November 5. For the Christmas holidays, Ann wanted to go to a place where Christmas is, largely, not celebrated. She and her husband Richard went to India."

“I also think Ann regrets that her daughters were not buried in a cemetery. She doesn’t have a place to visit them and grieve. Their ashes were scattered at sea off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.”

Another stir came when Christopher Andersen released “The Day John Died,” a book reaping much attention and, once again, sending journalists to Ann and Richard Freeman. Is it true Carolyn and John's marriage was stormy? Andersen, the author who has written several books and articles about the Kennedy family, said he knows something about reclusive families, “and I found the Bessettes, if anything, were a tighter little group.”

Ann and Richard Freeman rent an unassuming house on a private road in Old Greenwich, just a few blocks from the town’s exclusive Point Park. They are building a mansion three blocks away. The new home is on a more secluded private road, where enormous mansions are separated by high hedges and there is very little chance a random car would roam by. Privacy, friends say, is paramount to them.

When their youngest married JFK Jr. in 1996, they prepared for the crush of attention by asking family and friends to keep silent. When the press arrived, no one in- the-know spoke. Stories about Carolyn Bessette focused on her more talkative New York friends and information gleaned from her high school yearbook — the only information available in Greenwich.

When news spread that JFK Jr.’s plane was missing, the Freemans again braced for the overwhelming attention accorded all players in a Kennedy saga. News media from around the globe swarmed onto the narrow, twisting roads of Old Greenwich. The family responded by asking the police to close their street and prevent anyone but a few close friends from nearing their house. They sent a spokesman, family friend and local television reporter Grant Stinchfield, to deliver terse messages, beseeching reporters to leave.

Again, the media was left with virtually no new information on the Bessette girls.

“It was all lies, all that lawsuit stuff. And it really hurt Ann,” said Randy Kraft, a friend who works with Ann Freeman at a local shelter for children. “Reporters have been so desperate to get to her, they’ll say anything. We all knew to respect their privacy by not saying anything. I had friends in the local press who are still angry with me because I wouldn’t talk about Ann. They never cooperate with the media, no interviews, no questions, and that is still their position".

Friends say that Ann Freeman, however, is far from healed. She is said to go out regularly. She meets with close friends or attends small functions. But, in general, they say, she is living a broken life. Church secretary Marks said Freeman retreated to her home in the weeks and months after the service and declined offers of counseling or support.

Andersen, the author, said his research revealed direct parallels between Ann Freeman and Caroline Kennedy. “These were women who were very stoic and dignified in public, but behind the scenes they fell to pieces,” he said.

Freeman also gave up volunteering and let the annual fundraiser she usually coordinated go on without her. She did, however, stay in touch with officials at the children’s shelter and created a fund in Carolyn’s memory there. In one of the few statements Freeman has released in the last year, she asked that any gifts in Carolyn’s memory be sent to the Greenwich-based Kids in Crisis shelter. Another fund in Lauren’s memory went to support a scholarship at Hobart and William Smith College, which Lauren attended.

The Carolyn Fund at Kids In Crisis has accepted about $75,000 in donations so far. The Freemans decided just last month to designate the money toward a summer education program. “She wanted other children to have the same kind of love and care her own daughters had,” Kraft said. “That’s her way.”

Ann’s ex-husband, William Bessette, is also struggling to come to terms with the tragedy. A family friend said, “William Bessette has been living with awful grief. He won’t talk about his daughters’ deaths. He is very bitter about what happened.”

William Bessette, who had a distant relationship with his daughters, has also been trying to shield himself from the press. He no longer answers the phone or the door at his apartment in White Plains, N.Y.

Today marks the 27th anniversary of the tragic deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, who were killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The following is an excerpt from the eulogy delivered by Sen. Edward Kennedy:

"From the first day of his life, John seemed to belong not only to our [Kennedy] family, but to the American family. The whole world knew his name before he did. He was a boy who grew into a man with a zest for life and a love of adventure. He was a pied piper who brought us all along. He was blessed with a father and mother who never thought anything mattered more than their children. He had a legacy, and he learned to treasure it. He was part of a legend, and he learned to live with it. He had amazing grace. He accepted who he was, but he cared more about what he could and should become.

For a thousand days, he was a husband who adored the wife who became his perfect soulmate. John's father taught us all to reach for the moon and the stars. John did that in all he did-and he found his shining star when he married Carolyn Bessette. How often our family will think of the two of them, cuddling affectionately on a boat-surrounded by family-aunts, uncles, Caroline and Ed and their children, Rose, Tatiana, and Jack, Kennedy cousins, Radziwill cousins, Shriver cousins, Smith cousins, Lawford cousins—as we sailed Nantucket Sound.

We loved Carolyn. She and her sister Lauren were young extraordinary women of high accomplishment-and their own limitless possibilities. We mourn their loss and honor their lives. The Bessette and Freeman families will always be part of ours. We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb grey hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years."

Hamilton South, one of Carolyn's closest friends delivered a eulogy that reflected Carolyn's tremendous capacity for friendship:

“Her favorite phrase was, 'We need to talk.' That would be the beginning of a two- or three-hour telephone odyssey, a tour of Carolyn's horizon that revealed a range of interest that left you spinning-from this new book to that museum, from fashion to Walt Whitman, from what's in the paper to what's up in town. She could be highbrow and low-down. It left you breathless, exhausted, and hungry for more. To spoof herself, and to cover up what she was really doing, she'd say in these talks, 'Now let's remember, it's all about me! She made it the permanent subject line in her e-mail: 'It's about me.' But that was just another of her secrets—it was never about her. When you talked to Carolyn it was all about you, and all about life."

Excerpt from the eulogy for Lauren Bessette, delivered by her friend Fergal Keane:

“….You will not have learnt much about her from the newspapers or television. She was the least-known of the dead, a high-flying financier who was said to be romantically involved with another one of the Kennedy clan, Bobby Shriver. That was how her life was edited down for public consumption. But Lauren was bigger than that, by a long shot. She reminded me of the lines in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities where he is describing the bodyguard employed by a wily lawyer in Manhattan. Wolfe describes his man as being "less a human being, than a force of nature".

Lauren certainly didn't look like a bodyguard - more a catwalk model - but she never met you with anything less than the full force of her personality. And that was very powerful indeed. Her physical appearance was striking. Tall and statuesque, with long brown hair, she always surged rather than strolled; she was always the figure in the room who demanded the closest attention.”

Reading by Anne Freeman:

The following is an excerpt from “Facts of Faith” by Henry Scott Holland.

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again."

Anne Freeman took it largely upon herself to oversee the details of Lauren's service. Though, according to a friend, "her state was so fragile it's almost as though you hope an arm doesn't break," she had arrived at the church three days beforehand and begun making decisions about flowers and music without her husband or her sole surviving child, Lauren's twin sister, Lisa, a doctoral student of art history at the University of Michigan. "Lisa wanted to stay out of [the planning]," says church organist Fiona Smith. "It was far too emotional for her." And, of course, the weight of sadness was palpable. Church secretary Mary Marks says that as she and Freeman "were walking toward Parish Hall, two other women were walking by us. One of them mentioned to the other that she had just given birth to twins. Ann turned to me and said, 'I used to have twins.' "

At the candlelit service, beneath the church's two Tiffany stained-glass windows and in front of an altar decked with hydrangeas, lilies and pink roses, an all-girl youth choir sang "Ave Maria." Friends recalled the talented Wharton graduate, fluent in Mandarin Chinese, who in 1991 hired on at the investment banking firm of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and had carved out an impressive career track as a senior executive in the company's investment banking division. Though he did not speak, among the mourners was William Bessette, Carolyn, Lauren and Lisa's biological father, who was divorced from their mother. According to at least one college acquaintance, "Carolyn never really talked about him. He traveled a lot, and she never had a lot of contact with him."

Ann Freeman "believes very strongly that 'my children, my two daughters, will live through the lives of the people who love them,'" said a close friend. Marks said Freeman retreated to her home in the weeks and months after the service. She declined offers of counseling and support.

Reading by Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg:

The following lines are from Prospero’s speech in Act IV, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Hamilton South, one of Carolyn’s closest friends delivered a eulogy that reflected Carolyn’s tremendous capacity for friendship. “Her favorite phrase was, ‘We need to talk.’ That would be the beginning of a two- or three-hour telephone odyssey, a tour of Carolyn’s horizon that revealed a range of interest that left you spinning—from this new book to that museum, from fashion to Walt Whitman, from what’s in the paper to what’s up in town. She could be highbrow and low-down. It left you breathless, exhausted, and hungry for more. To spoof herself, and to cover up what she was really doing, she’d say in these talks, ‘Now let’s remember, it’s all about me.’ She made it the permanent subject line in her e-mail: ‘It’s about me.’ But that was just another of her secrets—it was never about her. When you talked to Carolyn it was all about you, and all about life.”

Excerpt from True Compass, memoir by Ted Kennedy:

I spoke at John's funeral at the Church of St. Thomas More in Manhattan. "From the first day of his life," I said, "John seemed to belong not only to our family, but to the American family. He had a legacy, and he learned to treasure it. He was part of a legend, and he learned to live with it."

A lot of people have wondered whether John ultimately would have sought public office. I think he might have, and that he would have excelled. John was really ahead of his time in understanding the link between pop culture and politics. He understood that there were different ways to get information to young people, and that the old ways wouldn't work. His easy way with people was already legendary, as was his gift for using language and images to get his message across.

Over the rest of that summer and into the autumn, I distilled my thoughts about my nephew, the meaning of his short life, the meaning of life, the weight of bereavement, and the obligations of the bereaved. On October 6, I shared those thoughts at a Senate prayer breakfast. This was unusual for me for two reasons. I rarely speak in public on personal matters. It's something my generation was taught not to do.

I also was speaking in a quiet voice, which in itself is a challenge to me. My Republican Senate colleague John Chafee once told me I was "wrong at the top of my lungs." But I wanted to speak in a quiet voice because the louder our voices become, the more we grow strangers to each other and ourselves.

Here's what I told them:

"You know that my family and I have experienced our share of tragedy. We have tried to face that pain, when it has come, with a steadfast religious faith. It has not been a loud and boisterous faith, but it has been a faith of patience, pathos, endurance, and grace. I will not try to tell you that that faith has never, at least temporarily, been shaken. When my brother Joe died in World War II, my father sat on the porch in Hyannis Port night after night, looking out to the sea, while listening to classical music. I was young then and I thought he did that because he liked classical music. But of course, I know now that he did it to cope with his grief and to find solace. I know now that in the midst of the hurt, he was searching for God. Every single one of us, if we are awake to the brokenness of the world and of our lives, wonders at some point, 'How could you allow this, O God? God plays no favorites; that we all suffer; that we all die; that, at one time or another, we all shake our fists at God; and that, if we are lucky, we all come home to God in the end.”

May John, Carolyn, and Lauren rest in heavenly peace.🕊️🤍

Twenty-seven years ago today, John spent his last night alive in Room 1511 at the Stanhope Hotel without Carolyn. There has been considerable speculation about why he stayed there, and to this day, no definitive explanation has emerged for what prompted him to move out. Based on the explanations offered by some of John's friends, it appears they may not have known what was really going on. It's also possible they didn't even know he had been staying at the Stanhope Hotel until that information became public after the crash.

Rosemarie Terenzio's explanation: "They were not separated. They spent a night apart because Carolyn was at the hospital with Anthony. She spent the night there, and John was at a Yankees game and left his keys at the office."

I personally find that hard to believe because Carole and Anthony were on Martha's Vineyard at Red Gate Farm, not in NYC. They had moved into the property the weekend before the crash and were there at the time of the accident. If that's accurate, is Rosemarie suggesting that Carolyn spent Wednesday and Thursday nights on Martha's Vineyard with the Radziwills? That explanation seems inconsistent with reports placing Carolyn in NYC during the final week of her life.

Also, assuming Carolyn was in NYC during the two nights John stayed at the hotel, why couldn't she have buzzed him into the building if he had left his keys at the office? That explanation doesn't seem to make much sense. And how does someone forget their keys at the office two days in a row?

Carole Radziwill’s explanation: “John had actually started writing Anthony's eulogy that week. He would call me every day that week and say—you know—tell me stories and get ideas. That Monday, he flew to Canada to meet with an investor, and upon returning to New York, he booked a hotel room near my house because he needed some privacy to write. We spoke a couple of times; I remember speaking to him the night before the accident. He was very sad; he needed to be alone. It might sound boring, but it's the truth.”

That explanation does not make sense to me. Was there really not enough privacy in his own home for John to write the eulogy? I find the claim that he moved out in order to work on Anthony's eulogy hard to believe. Carole's statement that John "needed to be alone" also conflicts with what John told his ex-girlfriend during those two nights she spent with him in the hotel. According to the account she gave to Steve Gillon, who interviewed her, John spoke openly to her about his fear of being alone. So which was it—did John want to be alone, or was he afraid of being alone? If Carole's explanation is accurate and John had chosen to be alone, why did he ask his ex- girlfriend to spend time with him in his hotel room?

Robert Littell's explanation: "Yes, as widely reported, John stayed at the Stanhope several nights over their years of marriage, including during that fateful week in July 1999. The thing that's most poignant to me is John's choice of the Stanhope, located quite near the apartment he grew up in. It's as if he tried to go "home" in his darker moments."

Robert's mention that John had stayed at that particular hotel on multiple occasions before the two nights leading up to his death is interesting. I think he may have chosen that hotel because it would have attracted less attention from both the press and hotel staff. George Magazine had an arrangement or room block at the Stanhope for its staff, such as photographers and the editorial team, and John would also reserve conference rooms at the hotel so he could work away from David Pecker at Hachette. That would have made his presence at the Stanhope in his final days seem routine rather than unusual.

What I take from this is that neither Carole nor Rosemarie appears to have known that John had spent nights away from the apartment, and that they only became aware of the Stanhope Hotel stay after his death. They then came up with those two explanations as a form of damage control because it sounds like they had no clue what was going on between John and Carolyn and needed something to tell the press.

What we do know is that the only two people who likely had direct, firsthand knowledge of John's stay at the Stanhope were his ex-girlfriend, who was physically with him there, and Gary Ginsberg, who spent time with John the night before his death and dropped him off at the Stanhope after the Yankees game. Makes me wonder whether Carolyn knew where her husband was that night. It's a heartbreaking ending for them, but I think it's important to be honest. From everything that's been reported, it seems that many people were in the dark about what was really going on and found out about everything after the crash.

Monday (July 12, 1999):

John departed early on a business trip to Canada. He flew from Martha's Vineyard to Buffalo, New York, and then continued to Toronto with a flight instructor to meet with potential investors.

Carole Radziwill wrote that, "Carolyn stayed behind to help her and Anthony settle into Red Gate Farm, moving a bed to the first floor for Anthony so that he could avoid climbing stairs." From her book, "The following morning Carolyn is getting ready to leave. She'd rather stay, but there are things she needs to do in New York. She and Holly and I are in the bathroom upstairs, and she is blow-drying her hair. I am sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking up at her, and she turns the blow-dryer off suddenly."

Carolyn returned to New York on a commercial flight with Efigenio Pinheiro and called Hamilton South shortly after arriving. South had originally planned to spend the weekend on Martha's Vineyard as well but decided to stay behind after meeting someone. According to the NTSB report, John arrived at Buffalo, New York, from Toronto at approximately 7:40 p.m. that evening.

Tuesday (July 13, 1999):

According to Elizabeth Beller's book, John and Carolyn had a heated argument over whether she would attend Rory's wedding. Later that evening, Carolyn was spotted by a neighborhood friend sitting alone at the bar on Broadway and Worth street, three blocks from their apartment. “All I remember is that she just looked so very sad,” the friend said. That same evening, John attended a party hosted by Dazed & Confused magazine in Tribeca on his own. Reports mentioned he only stayed for forty minutes.

Wednesday (July 14,1999):

John and Carolyn held a breakfast reception at George for the executive board of the Robin Hood foundation. Following the breakfast, Carolyn went shopping at Bergdorf Goodman, then picked up her sister Lauren at the midtown Manhattan office of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. That same afternoon, Carolyn and Lauren were dropped off at the Stanhope Hotel. John joined his wife and sister-in-law for lunch at Café M in the Stanhope, where he had rented a conference room in an attempt to create some space between himself and David Pecker, who was always hovering at Hachette. 

Bethann Hardison, a friend of Carolyn's, had her modeling agency office on North Moore Street, and shared “three days before the accident, I saw Carolyn up the street on N. Moore, she was low. She said John was having a tough time due to his cousin Anthony (Radziwill) being sick and dying who he was very close with. We spoke for about 15 minutes; they would be leaving in a few days to Martha Vineyard to a family wedding. She told me when they would be back, and I told her I would already be at my home in Mexico. We shared a long embrace and promised to see each other when I returned.”

Carolyn also ran into her old friend Lynn Tesoro. Tesoro recalled, "I saw her the Wednesday before [she died], and I thought she never looked better or sounded more in love."

Richard Blow recalled John having a heated phone conversation with Carolyn at George: “On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 14, I was working at my desk when I heard John's raised voice. In startling, staccato bursts of rage, John was yelling. His yells would be followed by silences, then John's fury would resume. At first I could not make out the words. Then, after a particularly long pause, I heard John shout, "Well, goddammit, Carolyn, you're the reason I was up at three o'clock last night!"

Carolyn also spent time on Wednesday with her friends at 255 W 11th St where she lived temporarily before moving in with John.  Erin Lippman who lived in that brownstone recalled that day “I was very lucky to have seen her at my house and spent time with her just days before she passed while I had my friend Kelly visiting with me from Chicago. Last time I saw her she was full of life and very happy. That is always how I will remember her.” Carolyn arrived with an armload of clothes and gave them to Erin and her friend.

Thursday (July 15,1999):

Carolyn accompanied John to his doctor's appointment that morning, where he had his CAM walker removed and was given a walking cane and crutches.  Steve Gillon wrote " I spoke with the doctor who removed John’s cast earlier that day. He told me that Carolyn had accompanied John to the appointment and that the two were very affectionate, kissing passionately while seated in a small reception area. The doctor told me that he put John and Carolyn in a room together, and when he walked in on them, they were having sex on the table. He described them as being incredibly affectionate and touchy.”

This is unverified, but I came across a comment that said: “I saw John and Carolyn together the day before they died, on Thursday, July 15th, at around noon or 1 p.m. I worked at Hachette Filipacchi for the same four years that John did, so I saw them often. That day, I rode the elevator with them during lunchtime. I am 1000% certain that I stood right next to Carolyn at the front of the elevator car. She was wearing open-toed shoes. John was most definitely with his wife at lunchtime that Thursday. They were both dressed up, more so than usual. John was wearing a suit, and he had just gotten his cast off. I always assumed he had a lunch meeting, perhaps pitching George to another publisher or something similar. They definitely had an air about them—they seemed to be going somewhere important. Incidentally, when the elevator doors opened and they stepped in, I was joking with a friend. John and Carolyn both laughed. I don't know why, but looking back on that moment today, it makes me profoundly sad.”

John had lunch with Conde Nast CEO Steven Florio to discuss the future of George. They lunched at San Domenico on Central Park South. It is not clear whether Carolyn joined them. Restaurant co-owner Marisa May said he was in a great mood and thanked her for always protecting his privacy. “Remember, I brought Carolyn here before anyone knew,” he said. “I hope to bring the whole family soon.”

Carolyn also spent time with Gordon Henderson that day. Gordon shared that the last time he saw Carolyn was the day before her death.

Friday (July 16, 1999):

Carolyn still wasn't sure she was going to attend the wedding that morning. Rosemarie Terenzio spoke with her several times. According to Terenzio, Carolyn was crying, very upset, and said she didn't feel like putting on a brave face. “I just want some normal married time,” she said. “I’m exhausted.” After Carolyn and John talked, she finally agreed to go. Terenzio was able to convince Carolyn to go and told Carolyn to shop for a dress.

Carolyn went to Saks Fifth Avenue with a friend. While the two spent two and a half hours in the third-floor designer department, Carolyn told a salesperson that she was “not looking forward” to the evening flight with her husband and sister.

Carolyn also got a pedicure. According to Manhattan hair colorist Colin Lively, who was seated next to her during the appointment, Carolyn left the salon no later than 5:00 p.m.

8:15 p.m.: According to the NTSB report, Carolyn arrived at the airport in a Lincoln Town Car.

8:15–8:25 p.m.: Kyle Bailey recalled that John and Carolyn were conversing with each other in a casual manner.

8:25 p.m.: Carolyn called Carole Radziwill and said, “We’re getting a late start. I’ll call you in the morning.”

9:40 p.m.: John's aircraft entered a rapid descent that eventually exceeded 4,700 feet per minute. The last radar return was recorded at 9:40 p.m., showing the aircraft at an altitude of approximately 1,100 feet.

More is known about John's final week than Carolyn's. This is what I was able to find and compile about Carolyn's last week. For more posts about their final months, see:

May 1999 Timeline

June 1999 Timeline

July 1999 Timeline

Their last weekend alive.

Extremely detailed timeline of John and Carolyn's last week alive (July 9-July 16, 1999)

JFK Jr’s last night alive.

The day before the crash: John’s last Thursday.

I went to work at John’s magazine, George, in the summer of 1996. He could bring on what I’ll call ‘speech regret’ – when you say something for no reason, which you don’t really mean and which has no point. Early on I was walking up Eighth Avenue with John and other colleagues. We were going out to lunch. The offices of the magazine were on Broadway and West 50th Street and I said something inane about how the shops round there seemed to change all the time. ‘You sound just like a tourist,’ John said – I thought I sounded stupid.

In Love Story, this year’s Disney+ series about John and Carolyn Bessette, the George offices are in a building so close to the neighboring skyscrapers that people can look right into John’s office. As it was, the views from the 41st floor were epic and uninterrupted. From my south-facing window, the panorama was of Midtown and the Hudson, the World Trade Center, the harbor beyond and then the American continent. My desk was in a booth by a low wall that separated me from John’s secretary, the formidable RoseMarie Terenzio. John depended on no one more than RoseMarie. ‘Here’s the deal,’ I’d hear her say, before the door to John’s office slammed shut.

At the office one morning at the end of August, I was approached by Richard Johnson, the editor of the New York Post’s gossip column, Page Six. Every day, a photocopied packet of the gossip columns from the national and local papers was prepared by the interns at George. This was one way to keep up with public versions of John. By the elevator doors, Johnson asked me why John and Carolyn hadn’t been seen together for some time, and were the rumors accurate – had they broken up? I told him I had no idea – which was true. As we later learned, the false impression they had separated was part of their plan to preserve the secrecy of their wedding. A fortnight later, John and Carolyn married in Georgia.

Shortly afterwards, New York Magazine ran a profile of Carolyn and John by Rebecca Mead. It was called ‘Instant Princess’

'Do you know Rebecca Mead?’ John asked me. ‘Take her out to lunch. See if she’d write for George.’ I asked what had impressed him about the piece. He said Mead had asked a lot of deliberately wrong questions that provoked people into giving her right answers. John had spent years reading about himself in the tabloids – part of an effort to control and preserve his public and private selves. Mead seemed closer to the mark.

The White House​ Correspondents’ Dinner is held every spring in the subterranean ballroom of the Washington Hilton. The blue lights make you think for a moment you are several fathoms under an ocean. In 1997 there were 260 tables, each set for ten people, and a dais where the presidential party would sit. Ten thousand plates were sent out from the kitchens over the course of the evening. Some of us set out for the Hilton early for the pre-dinner action. Many small rooms, many people, only there was no traction, or none that I could find, and no place to settle. I headed to the ballroom to check the menu – steak and salmon – and to look through the pamphlet that listed all the guests, a Who’s Who of American political journalism.

‘Hello Inigo.’ I turned. It was Carolyn. I got up, but we were at once surrounded by a wall of photographers. It’s easy to look stunned when paparazzi swarm en masse: you are stunned, you are blinded. Ushers arrived to sweep the photographers away. John and the rest of George took our places. The evening proceeded, the steak and salmon came and went, though you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish the two. A comedian (Jon Stewart) made polite jokes about Bill Clinton; Clinton made his jokes in return.

On the way out, John and Carolyn became the object of extraordinary attention, as journalists and editors closed in. I thought of how being touched by a monarch was once believed to be a cure for scrofula. The last place I expected to see a feral version of the royal touch was in the ballroom of the Hilton in Washington. But that’s what it looked like, as if there were a form of magical absolution involved in approaching this couple.

Working at George was never dull, despite the contradictions emanating from the editor-in-chief – and often because of them. For many of the staff, it became a life. Towards the end, though, the sense of impending trouble was strong and unmistakable.

On July 16, 1999, there was a staff meeting. John said there would be changes: not everyone would make it to the magazine’s next phase. But nothing would happen right away. The meeting ended, it was a Friday and the office mostly emptied out. A little later, John came back in with his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette. She wore a light, white summer dress; he was in shorts and a T-shirt. They wanted books for the weekend and because I was the books editor they stopped by my desk. Lauren took a proof copy of John McCain’s memoir, Faith of My Fathers; John plucked out Stephen Fry’s book Moab Is My Washpot. The two were then off down a corridor to the elevators. I knew nothing about where they were going.

Photo: John, Herb and Inigo standing in front of the Hawker Sea Fury at the Bay of Pigs (October 1997).

Link to full article: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n10/inigo-thomas/diary

On July 3, 1999, Carole and Anthony Radziwill moved to Red Gate Farm because John wanted to spend more time with Anthony. John and Carolyn spent their last Fourth of July weekend with the Radziwills, Sasha Chermayeff and her family, Robert Littell and his family, and Santina Goodman, John's friend from Brown University, on Martha’s Vineyard.

Excerpt from What Remains by Carole Radziwill: “On the third of July we move from Mike and Diane's house to John and Carolyn's. John wants to spend more time with Anthony. I make no more excuses. He has put a bed in a downstairs room off the patio so Anthony won't have to climb the stairs. He has arranged to have Effie stay on to cook and manage the house. Anthony seems happy about the move. He finds a trainer from the gym in Vineyard Haven who will come to the house.”

Robert Littell: “I last saw Anthony over the Fourth of July weekend in 1999, when Carole brought him over to the house on the Vineyard for a visit. He was in a wheelchair and John was distraught.

That summer we spent both Memorial Day and the Fourth of July on the Vineyard with John and Carolyn, flying up in John's shiny new red Piper Saratoga. There was a flight instructor on board both times, but John was at the controls the whole time. His landings were barely noticeable, something he took pride in. None of us felt nervous about flying with John—he was the opposite of reckless, with the attitude of a cautious and serious pilot.

Although he mentioned that his new plane was more aerodynamically sensitive than his previous Cessna— "squirrelly" was his word—our four flights that summer were perfect. The Fourth of July visit was an unexpected one, a last-minute invitation that came about because Carolyn told John she'd had so much fun on Memorial Day that she wanted to do it again.

I am forever grateful to Carolyn for that last visit. It was a gorgeous and fun-filled weekend, everyone relaxed and happy to be together. When it was over, on Monday night, we said good-bye to Carolyn, who was staying to help Anthony move to Red Gate for the rest of the month. John flew us back to the airport in Caldwell, New Jersey. That's where we last saw each other. He had to stay to fill out some paperwork and clean and put the plane away, so we said our good-byes standing behind the right wing on the tarmac. Filled with memories of the wonderful weekend we'd just had, we leaned into each other and shared a hug and a handshake.

I said, stating the obvious, "That worked out nicely."
John responded, "As good as it gets."

Sasha Chermayeff: “Things were very rocky. He still had the cast on during the Fourth of July weekend on the Vineyard, and Santina and me and Robbie, we all felt it: the reason we are all here is because they can't be by themselves. He said, "I'm proud that I'm facing my demons. I'm seeing who I am." He was talking about the dark sides of being human, the shadow sides—anger, jealousy, resentment, feelings you're not comfortable with. Processing the darker things. He wanted to know himself in a deeper way, face his own contradictions. John used to say, "I want to be with my family— not my family." We were his family, but our being there also was a way to not confront what he and Carolyn needed to confront.”

….it’s interesting how differently Sasha and Robert remembered the same weekend they spent with John and Carolyn. Robert recalled it as a fun, memorable and enjoyable time, while Sasha's version painted a picture of tension and unease, with John seemingly caught up in emotional turmoil and wrestling with his inner struggles. Robert described Carolyn as genuinely excited to have them over, saying she had such a great time during Memorial Day weekend that she wanted to get together again. Sasha, suggested a very different interpretation—that John and Carolyn invited them because they couldn't stand being alone together and needed guests to act as a buffer.

Examples of what I see as Steve Gillon's whitewashing:

Gillon wrote, "It's impossible to know the intimate details of John and Carolyn's private lives, but from all the available evidence, it appears highly unlikely that John was having an affair." Yet he then goes on to speculate about their sex life, reiterate claims from Michael Bergin's book, and add his own personal interpretation, all after acknowledging that it's impossible to know the intimate details of their relationship. It reads less like a cautious assessment and more like a way to dismiss the possibility that John may have been unfaithful without seriously exploring it. Gillon also never explains what this supposed "available evidence" actually is. He simply asserts that it exists without citing or discussing it. It ends up reading like, "Trust me, bro."

Gillon also wrote, "John confessed to friends, 'I wish I could cheat on her.' But he did not want to humiliate Carolyn the way his father had done to his mother."

Again, this reads as Gillon's interpretation rather than a well-supported conclusion. When did John supposedly say, "I wish I could cheat on her"? Which friends did he say it to? Under what circumstances? Gillon doesn't provide any context or sourcing for the quote. Instead, he presents his own interpretation as fact and builds a conclusion on top of it.

Regarding John’s inappropriate relationship with Julie Baker post marriage, Gillon writes—after interviewing Baker—that, "Their friendship was completely transparent, and Carolyn even invited Julie to one of John's birthday celebrations at their apartment." What Gillon doesn't mention is what happened at that birthday party. Elizabeth Beller provides additional context, writing: "John had many female friends, which was usually fine. Until it wasn't. John had lunch with Julie Baker once a month, and Carolyn did not object. Yet, she drew the line after Julie Baker climbed into his lap during a birthday party at the loft. Understandably, Baker was then banned."

Gillon's characterization of the friendship between John and Julie as "completely transparent” is inaccurate. By omitting that incident, he presents a much different picture of the relationship than one that includes it. Gillon also mentioned: “their close friendship was no secret to Carolyn, who was completely comfortable with the arrangement." If that were true, why was Julie banned from their apartment after the birthday party?

Why didn't Gillon receive the same level of criticism for whitewashing aspects of John's life that Beller received for her book about Carolyn? Is it because people are more comfortable reading a glorified hagiography of John and tend to be less critical of him in general? The book largely glosses over John's flaws, shortcomings, and his role in the deterioration of the marriage. Instead, the blame is placed almost entirely on Carolyn. That's not surprising, considering Gillon was John's friend and seems to view him through rose-colored glasses.

Memory shared by Jim Dunham:

"I will share the brief acquaintance that I had with Carolyn during our sophomore year at Boston University. I will never forget the first time I saw her. She was sitting in an auditorium chair, leaning over the fold-over wooden writing surface, taking a test. Her long, blonde hair reached toward the floor, and then she flipped it back. She was wearing jeans that were tight at the ankles. I remember thinking, Wow.

She and I were eventually assigned to the same study group, where we worked together on an end-of-the-semester project. As a result, we spent many long hours with a few other people writing the group project. She and I ended up writing most of it because the other members of our group were less than industrious.

She was dating the captain of the hockey team. She had a very approachable personality, and she often made me laugh or smile, even when she didn't mean to. I found her way of expressing herself unique and funny in an understated way.

I remember her saying that she wanted to go into teaching, as her mother had. I also remember her talking about how her mother would zoom into parking lots and park her red sports car while Carolyn would shrink down in embarrassment. My impression was that she was neither materialistic nor superficial and did not like to draw attention to herself unnecessarily.

I never saw her lose her temper, but when I once spoke very snidely to her because I was in a bad mood, she said, "Whoa, OK, Tiger!" She was not going to allow herself to be mistreated, and I respected that.

One guy in our group named Peter once asked Carolyn to accompany him to retrieve his belongings from his ex-girlfriend's apartment. Carolyn was so offended by how his ex-girlfriend treated Peter when they went to collect his belongings that she threw her arms around him, planted a big kiss on him, and said, "C'mon, honey. We have to get going." That was her way of defending him by pretending to be his new girlfriend.

That was Carolyn to me. She was beautiful, independent, humble, approachable, a defender of others, not attention-seeking, and not materialistic. The last time I saw her was the following year, when she spotted me in the Student Union. She called my name and came over to say hi and introduce me to her boyfriend. I said hello, but I don't recall why the conversation was so brief.

I had not followed current events closely in the years leading up to her wedding, but I often wondered what had happened to her. Then I suddenly heard that JFK Jr. was engaged to a girl from Greenwich, Connecticut, named Carolyn Bessette. I don't know what happened in the years after college, but the girl I knew was someone special whom I would never forget, even if she had never become a Kennedy."