I’ve seen some posts here about Alicia Machado’s comments regarding JFK Jr. and how she claimed she knew him and was friendly with him. The exact TVyNovelas Venezuela quote was the following:

Her exact words were: “We met at a dinner in New York; I had the pleasure of spending time with him on several occasions. He was a gorgeous man—very charming—and he enjoyed having me tell him stories in Spanish. I imagine that was because he didn’t understand what I was saying in English. I can’t characterize my friendship with him as a romantic relationship. He did court me, but we only saw each other a few times. I believed he really was smitten with me because we laughed so much together,” said Machado.

Interestingly enough, I was in one of her lives today, and I straight out asked her if she had met JFK Jr. Her answer was yes, and then she asked me how I knew that, lol.

I then continued by asking her to tell us a little more, and I decided to add whether she had met his wife, Carolyn. Her answer was the following: “I met him way before he met her. He was a gentleman, and he was a gorgeous man. We coincided at several events, but I was very young and innocent. I didn’t speak the language. He was gorgeous and extremely respectful.”

Umm… 🤔 when exactly could she have met him before he was with Carolyn? He married Carolyn in 1996, and Alicia became Miss Universe and moved to New York in 1996. By then, it was already known worldwide that he was living with Carolyn and that they were either engaged or married.

This is exactly how gossip starts and how theories eventually become accepted as reality.

This girl was with Luis Miguel that same year, which she claims began after Donald Trump bullied her. Then years later, she also said she was involved with a very famous married Spanish singer. So when exactly did she have time for all of this?

Conclusion: she said herself that they were never romantically involved and that she only met him a few times at events. The fact that she claimed she met him “way before Carolyn” during the live only confirmed the obvious.

Photo shared by Rachel DiCarlo on IG, captioned:

“Reunited with the infamous and legendary Susan Sokol — my very first boss and President of Calvin Klein Collection when I began my career in fashion sales (wholesale), all thanks to Susan hiring me in 1989! Susan ran a very tight ship and could be incredibly intimidating and stern, but maintaining the Calvin brand image in the ’90s was no small task — brand image was everything! Clean desks, a minimal and meticulous showroom… I can still vividly picture it all today. The minimal way we dressed — mainly in suits! Those years made such a lasting impression on me before I eventually moved into public relations. And also… funny story — back in the early ’90s, we used to take team photos on ‘show day.’ We called them our ‘class photos.’ The photo was the very first one I was ever part of… I was 22 years old! The OG girl power team. Such an incredible group of women — supportive, inspiring, so kind, and so much fun both in and out of work.”

In a 1996 The New York Times article, it mentioned that Carolyn was recommended to Susan Sokol by a traveling sales coordinator who had visited the Boston store. ''Carolyn fit the bill perfectly,'' said Sokol, who was then a president at Calvin Klein. ''She was absolutely charming, she was completely refreshing, she was completely outgoing. Here was a young woman, who wouldn't feel intimidated working with these kinds of people.''

I also wanted to share this memory from Barbara De Vries, who was hired by Calvin Klein in 1990 as director of design for the CK collections at Calvin Klein, from her Substack 'Stupid Model':

"I’m a few minutes late for my meeting with Carolyn. In my memory, she’s in a slightly elevated position, which can’t be right because the showroom is as flat as any room, and I am a few inches taller than her. She stands next to one of the large black display tables and smiles as if I’m a dear friend whom she hasn’t seen in ages. Her hug feels as warm and uplifting now as it did three decades ago. (It also feels melancholy, since the same memory came to me at the news of her death, only a few years later.)

Our meeting is a moment of happiness during an otherwise dreary, stressful winter day, as we’ll be spending time together choosing my Calvin Klein wardrobe for the following summer. Carolyn is wearing a forest green cashmere sweater over a long flowing CK Collection dress in a similar hue, and black leather boots. I wear a brown woolen CK Collection suit draped to fit as loose and easy as her dress. Her long hair is a tousled mix of light and dark shades of blond, the top layers more bleached than the hair below, which is the same color as mine. I have a boyish Linda cut.

We sit down at the wooden table on the infamous black floor that, for years, defined Calvin’s perfectionism. A cautionary tale for his designers, since the painters never got the color right. He wanted the darkest brown, verging on black, à la Christian Liaigre (the French architect who introduced the iconic blackened floor of the early nineties). To Calvin’s discerning eye, each new layer of the showroom floor was somehow too brown or too black, and eventually the wood was stripped and sanded so many times that it became too thin, and a whole new floor had to be installed. I tell Carolyn its history, the same way Zack had told me, like a rite of passage. We laugh, roll our eyes, and allow Calvin’s extravagance to set the tone for the spending spree that follows.

As Senior VP of CK Design, I have a large clothing allowance and twice a year, I review samples and line-sheets and pick my wardrobe for the next season. It’s the first time I do so with Carolyn’s guidance, who was just placed in charge of private orders. Together we review the Spring ‘93 collections and choose silk slip dresses, linen suits, cotton tops, jackets, pants, jeans, summer tees, linen sweaters and a long silk duster coat.

“Shall I throw in some underwear for your boyfriend?” she asks, as we finish the order. “Does he wear them? Do you like them?”

“Yes, he wears them. But no, I don’t really love it.” I say.

She frowns. “Why?”

“I just don’t like seeing the name of my boss in our bed. In my face. It kind of ruins foreplay.”

Carolyn laughs. Everyone always does. It’s my go-to joke when people ask if Alastair gets free Calvin Klein underwear."

Another memory shared by Elizabeth Hart who worked in the CK Sales Promotion & branding :

"I was there only from ’89–’91. I reported to Barry and Calvin but worked with Marty Staff, heading Sales Promotion and branding with licensees. A few of us were in temporary offices across from Barry while our offices were being built on another floor. When Carolyn was hired, she’d visit us to get away and chat, often sharing flowers from admirers. She reminded me of Elaine Irwin. She was stunning, smart, and effervescent. I loved her, and we’d walk to the train together because she was still living in CT.

I introduced her to my colorist in Greenwich, who gave her a “money piece.” I moved on and then out of state, and when I read that she was dating JFK Jr., it totally tracked. I hated that the press portrayed her as scared and shy—she was such a dynamic personality. The recent love-story craze has just made me sad. Since I worked in advertising with models over the years, people often ask me what it was like working with beautiful people. I’ve always said the most beautiful woman I ever met was Carolyn. Kelly was beautiful too—I didn’t really know her, though. I sat in a few design meetings with her, but that was about it."

I was on a business trip in California, hosted by Patrick Kennedy, when I heard the news, after Patrick left suddenly due to a “family matter.”

There’s so much more to say about my dozen years in the industry in the ’80s and ’90s. People romanticize how glamorous it must have been. It was a tough industry, but I’m grateful for the training I received, first from Ralph and then from Calvin. I used black paper clips before the memo. White flowers on ebony-washed oak. Clean necklines. Futura Light font..."

On this day 32 years ago, the world lost former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who died in New York at the age of 64 after a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. John addressed the crowd outside his mother's apartment on May 20, 1994: “Last night at around 10:15, my mother passed on. She was surrounded by her friends and her family and her books... the people and the things that she loved, and she did it in her own way, and in her own terms.... We all feel lucky for that, and now she's in God's hands.”

Following her death, John told his friends “You don't really grow up until both of your parents are gone."

Memory of Jackie’s final days shared by her friend Joe Armstrong:

Carly Simon and I had lunch with Jackie the day before she went to the hospital for the last time. That day was hard because she had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, and an ill-fitting wig, but she wanted to be upbeat. We had to act like it was a regular lunch, but my heart was just breaking inside because it was just, "Oh my gosh, she's so different." She said to me, "Four more weeks and I get my life back." And four more weeks and she was gone. She collapsed the next day, and she was taken to the hospital, and I never saw or heard from her again.

John and I were scheduled to have lunch the day she died. That morning he called and said, "Joe, I'm not gonna be able to have lunch today." I said, "How's Jackie doing?" He said, "Well, it's like a car speeding down the highway and parts are falling off." Carly Simon came over to my house because we'd spent time together with Jackie and we were praying, and I got a call from Marta [Sgubin], who was sort of the house guru, and she just said, "You might want to come over." Carly and I went over there, and Marta said, "I don't know if Jackie would want a man to see her like this." I said, "I’ll just wait here in the living room."

I talked to John and he walked us to the door. He just said, "Mummy really loved you two." He had tears about to start rolling down his cheeks. I'd never seen him be emotional. He took it really hard. And now he had to go be composed and be the spokesman.

Robert Littell also shared: “During one of many stress-relieving racquetball games we played that spring, John told me he was grateful that if his mother had to die from cancer, at least it wouldn't be a long battle. He said that she was comfortable with her own fate and that her comfort made him feel better. John stayed by her side as much as she wanted, making his peace with things in her presence.”

as Ted Kennedy said in her Eulogy, “She was always there for our family in her special way. She was a blessing to us and to the nation -- and a lesson to the world on how to do things right, how to be a mother, how to appreciate history, how to be courageous. No one else looked like her, spoke like her, wrote like her, or was so original in the way she did things. No one we knew ever had a better sense of self.”

Or Spanish or something related?

Photo taken by Sasha Chermayeff.

Anecdote shared by R. Couri Hay, publicist and gossip columnist:

“I had the good fortune to see John naked all the time because he was a major exhibitionist.... I want to just preface it by saying I loved him. I respected him. And then I was a major gossip columnist-at one point I had 28 million readers a week at the National Enquirer. It was a professional acquaintanceship. I knew Jackie, I knew Lee Radziwill. So he couldn't avoid me. But John never failed, ever, to smile and say, "Hello, Couri," and it drove everybody crazy when he would do that, because it was like the Camelot seal of approval.

The truth was, he had a love-hate relationship with celebrity, and I think it was more love than hate. He knew he was beautiful. He spent hours and hours at the gym. I never saw him take a shower with the curtain closed. I would see him at the New York Sports Club and then when he was in Aspen at the Aspen Sports Club.

He knew exactly who I was. I'm in the shower across, and John's taking a shower and lathering all up and totally naked and totally comfortable. He could have been a nudist. But the stories-like at a party in Hyannis Port is one of my famous stories I got from a source. Before a big party there, he went skinny-dipping in front of all the gay waitstaff. John was very proud of his body, and I can close my eyes and see every inch of him. The guy was stacked, he had all the right muscles. And there was no shyness about him. He knew I was there. He saw me. He smiled at me.

So in the Aspen Club, he would work out, strip down, no towel, go to the shower. I will tell you that the showers in those days were small. It wasn't pleasant to close yourself in this little shower with a cheap plastic curtain, so it may have been partly convenience. But it was a deliberate move not to close the curtain and one I much appreciated. He was very flirtatious, definitely metrosexual, in touch with all sides of himself. He knew that he was adored and fantasized over.

He used to love to embarrass me. We're in Aspen, at Bonnie's restaurant. He's with all the Kennedys. I go downstairs to go to the bathroom. John Kennedy Jr. walks up to the urinal next to me, whips out his appar-atus, and proceeds to do what men do. I looked at him, he looked at me. I mean, I was so startled. And John looked at me, seeing my embarrassment and everything, and what did he do? He laughed. I think I peed on myself, it was so startling. So he laughed at me, went back upstairs, and then he said, "Let's take a run." And so we went up in the gondola. John had no idea that I could ski. So he picked the most dangerous, the most insane thing. And you know what? I was right behind him. I think he gave me a measure of respect that day. We just had that one run. He went off, I went off, and that was it.”

Russell Simmons talks with John F. Kennedy, Jr for One World, the lifestyle and entertainment magazine launched by Simmons in 1994:

On a recent drive with John F. Kennedy Jr. and his cousin Bobby Shriver to an event sponsored by GEORGE magazine, I decided to bring up a question I've had on my mind for quite some time. The question, of course, was what was it like for him to be married after his single life? To which he responded, "It is the difference between being in a horror house and a roller coaster."

Bobby and I, being bachelors responded by asking, "Which is which?"

All jokes aside, his answer stuck in my mind and I knew that the next 411 would have to be with him.

RS: Are you a big music fan?

JFK, Jr: Yeah, I listen to music. I try to keep up with what is current. I'm interested in what people in college listen to so I don't feel so old.

RS: Do you listen to Rap?

JFK, Jr: I listened to Dre's and Snoop's records when they first came out. But basically, I'm a rock and roll fan. My musical tastes haven't changed much since college. I think people like certain music because it reminds them of how they felt when they first heard the song. Now that I'm an old married guy I want to be reminded of how I felt in my carefree days way back when.

RS: What is the one thing that stands out on your publishing venture?

JFK, Jr: The irony-in that I got involved with GEORGE, despite the fact that I'm someone who's pursued by the press, and now I'm in the press business.

RS: What made you decide to get into publishing?

JFK, Jr: I think for people who were my parent's age, politics was the venue in which people felt they could influence public opinion-now it is the media. This has a lot to do with why I am putting out a magazine.

RS: To turn people on to politics?

JFK, Jr: I want GEORGE to turn a whole different group of people on to politics, people who thought that it was dull or dry.

RS: By making it popular?

JFK, Jr: Yes. I find it interesting to play by the same rules as people who use glossy or glamorous images to promote music or movies or sports. We want to entertain people like any other magazine. And once they are entertained maybe they'll get involved and go out and vote or join a cause. Ultimately, we hope people will be less cynical about politics.

RS: What things do you consider when choosing a cover? Your covers are quite interesting and different.

JFK, Jr: Since most of our sales are generated from the newsstand, I understand the importance of putting familiar faces on our cover such as Cindy Crawford or Charles Barkley or Tyra Banks. If Strom Thurman sold issues, I would put him on the cover. But, since our goal is to sell issues, we use provocative images by using people like Cindy or Charles.

RS: After an almost notorious single life, how are you finding married life?

JFK, Jr: This would be a good thought for you to ponder Russell. A partnership makes you stronger, and in addition to feeling very lucky to find the person that I did, it is a true revelation how much stronger you are when you unite with someone else.

RS: (Laughs) When I meet that person you'll be one of the first to know.

The photos were taken at Madison Square Garden on June 12, 1994.

Their relationship dynamis according to John’s friends:

Robert Littell: “Daryl had a theory, one that she told us one weekend at the Vineyard, that in every successful relationship there is a flower and a gardener: one person who needs to be tended and one who loves to nurture and support. Or maybe it was a joke, because we all laughed as we dissected our relationships into flowers and gardeners. The problem was that Daryl and John were both clearly and admittedly flowers. The joke eventually hardened into reality. They broke up in a huff following a fight at the airport in 1994.

John moved out of her apartment and into the New York Athletic Club for a while until he found a place on Hudson Street. Somehow, they just never spoke again. I was upset at John for their awkward parting. I thought he owed her a call. But really, I never figured them as marriage material anyway. We went to the Vineyard for a couple years, and I can only tell about those experiences. Over dinners John and Daryl had a good time, but there was never really a spark. You never saw them look each other in the eye, you know, lovingly. Ultimately, they didn't see eye to eye on much.”

Brian Steel: “Daryl was a sweetheart. John loved her, but I think she was needy, and he wasn't great with that.”

John Perry Barlow: “Daryl had the intense, unpredictable manner that John found fascinating. She was a woman of bewildering juxtapositions, one minute needy and insecure, the next demanding or twisting an emotional knife into John's heart. On one occasion, he had planned to go off on a major trip with Daryl; when she called the day before and said she couldn't make it, he was on the verge of tears. On other occasions, he could be cavalier in a way that was brutally hurtful to a sensitive woman. Whatever their problems, she would show up a few weeks later in New York, or he would dramatically fly out to Los Angeles, and everything would be fine. The reason it wasn't working was not that she was a movie star and he was the son of a president, but that they had a bad dynamic in the relationship from the beginning. I said from early on that they weren't good for each other. They could never inhabit the same emotional space. They could never find a relationship of parity. They were always thinking that the other one was the pursuer.

I loved them both, but by the end, their relationship had become very aggressive. In fact, I advised them both to end it. Because they were both so passionate, I just felt they were going to make each other suffer. It wasn't anybody's fault. They were both wonderful people in their own way. But the chemistry had broken down. That's not to say that there wasn't some lingering bitterness. John might have been willing to continue the friendship without the romance. Daryl didn't want it. She was angry. She felt she'd been inappropriately hoodwinked-she’d been manipulated. Right or wrong, that's how she saw it. John knew that I continued to see a fair amount of Daryl, so from time to time, he'd ask me wistful questions about how Daryl was doing. He'd always be very solicitous. He'd ask me to convey his fond regards.”

Sasha Chermayeff: “I think there was something really difficult about Daryl and John's dynamic even when it was going right. She told him that she had never been so abused by anyone. It was so hard for me to believe that John was being verbally or emotionally abusive—I just didn't believe it.”

Charlie King: “It was the thirtieth anniversary of his father's assassination, and we were eating lunch and just talking, and he was not really engaged. He was saying, "I'm having a fight with my girlfriend," which was Daryl Hannah. He goes, "Because she's not getting along with my mother, and so I'm living in the basement of one of my friend's places now. And I can't watch television because everything that's on TV has to do with the anniversary of my father's death." And he goes, "So it's like I'm in the middle of hell right now." I began to sort of give him advice about his relationship with Daryl Hannah, which I just thought was ironic because here's supposedly the Sexiest Man Alive, and I'm giving him advice about his romantic life.”

1991/1992
Gustavo Paredes:
“Carolyn turned him down a few times in the beginning. Given who he was, she didn’t think he was serious. He was flummoxed—challenged. He couldn’t believe she turned him down. He kept figuring out ways to come back to Calvin Klein for business meetings and additional fittings.”

Carole Radziwill in Steve Gillon’s American reluctant prince:
John once told Carole Radziwill that on one of their first dates he scored tickets to a play, but Carolyn got stuck at work and never showed up. (This happened before cell phones and instant messaging.) ‘John was shocked that she stood him up,’ Carole recalled.”

RoseMarie Terenzio:
“The story I heard was that John and Carolyn first met at Calvin Klein. It was around 1991. He had gone to pick out some suits and she helped him—she was the handler for a lot of the VIPs. He asked for her number and they went out on a few dates. Carolyn was dating around and so was John—Daryl was still in the picture, but they seemed to be on and off. Carolyn wasn’t sitting by the phone waiting for his call—it was the opposite. For the first time, he was getting a taste of his own medicine. And that intrigued him.”

MJ Bettenhausen in Once upon a time by Elizabeth Beller:
“In spring 1992, Calvin Klein was just getting back into menswear. None other than John F. Kennedy Jr. had an appointment for a fitting in the VIP room...

John came out of the meeting smitten, with a few men’s suits and Carolyn’s phone number. He called within days.

‘John invited her to join his group at a gala dinner; he was a board member and had purchased an entire table,’ recalled Bettenhausen. ‘Sitting next to him was another woman that Carolyn either mistook as his date, or actually was his date.’ It was unclear, and Carolyn wasn’t pleased. When John invited her to the after-party at a local club, she coldly said, ‘I can’t. I’m meeting people,’ and abruptly left.”

They met again on May 18 at the Don’t Bungle the Jungle II fundraiser, on Pier 25, just off North Moore Street in Tribeca.“

Paul Eckstein in JFK JR an intimate oral biography:
“I remember John at one of our Naked Angels parties coming up and being like, ‘Yo, man, you gotta hook me up. Who is that girl? Introduce me.’ I was like, ‘John, I’m not going to introduce you to anybody. You’re fucking John Kennedy. Go introduce yourself.’ We were doing a 1940s speakeasy theme for this party, and we were both dressed in cheesy 1940s outfits. I had a crush on Carolyn’s sister Lauren. He was trying to get me to help introduce him to Carolyn and I wouldn’t do it. Of course, he met her anyway.”

MJ Bettenhausen in Once upon a time by Elizabeth Beller:
The breakup was messy, especially considering the brevity of the relationship. The week after their summer idyll at Sea Song, Carolyn met John for dinner at El Teddy’s.

Carolyn and John sat in a banquette, where, before they ordered a thing, John presented Carolyn with a letter. The author who sent it to him, a friend of his, came from the milieu of boarding schools, Ivy League universities, and “old money” families of New York, though he didn’t divulge these facts until much later. The letter claimed Carolyn was a user, a partier, that she was out for fame and fortune. And in a grand flourish of the “slut versus the stud” double standard, the epistolatory spy added that Carolyn “dated guys around town.” John casually tossed the piece of paper at her, stood, and walked out the door.

1993/ 1994

Sasha Chermayeff
John had taken me to this event. We were going to dinner, but he’s like, “I’ve got to swing by this place first.” I saw Carolyn from across the room and she was leaning on this post. And I said to myself, That’s the kind of woman that John is so attracted to…. That’s so John’s type right there. We meandered around the party and we’re working our way to the focal point of this party—that woman—and I realize we are not here for any other reason. I remember the way she looked at him and the way he looked at her and I was just like, Okay, this is why I’m here.

He was very casual. We’re just coming to say hi. I didn’t say anything. He was still with Daryl. It was private and I wasn’t going to be like, Oh my God, do you have the hots for her… and what about your relationship? John never said anything to me, but he was overlapping with Carolyn while he was with Daryl—I’m convinced that there was quite a bit of overlap. I think he was obsessed with Carolyn from the minute he met her.

Brian Steel JFK jr an intimate oral Biography:
We were running around Central Park West and we started walking, which was unusual because the guy just wanted to run forever. He said he was completely enchanted by this woman, Carolyn Bessette. And I was like, “What about Daryl?” because they were still together, and he is like, “I think we’re going to break up…. I met her at Calvin Klein.”

He went out on a date or two with Carolyn and he’s like, “I want you to find out as much as you can about Carolyn—I know you know people, like, you know, nightclub people, restaurateurs…. I know you know people that went to college with her.” And so I found out as much as I could about her and not all of it was good. I told him all of it. She was a club girl, and she dated a lot of people.

And then at his birthday party—he used to throw a birthday party at El Teddy’s, the Mexican restaurant in Tribeca—and that year there were about fifteen to twenty friends, and I was sitting directly across from Carolyn, and she had this way of making you feel like you were the only person in the room. She would touch your hands and the hair on the back of my head would go up. She was electric, dynamic. Much more than any photograph could ever capture. Midway through dinner, John pulled me aside and asked what I thought. He was so enthralled, like a kid in a candy shop. I said, “She’s stunning. Enchanting.” And he was like, “That is awesome. I knew you would love her.” Then he said, “I told her everything you told me.” And I said, “You are a moron. Why would you do that?” He was like, “No, no, she loves you.” We did come to love each other.

Rosemarie Terenzio:
She and John had been hanging out on and off—they were both dating other people, but they reconnected in 1994 and it was more serious. They had dinner at Provence downtown, and John gave her the impression he was no longer in a relationship with Daryl and he wanted to date her exclusively. Not long after, there was a picture in the Daily News of John and Daryl holding hands at a movie premiere. Carolyn saw it and cut off contact. Her mom sent her the clipping with a note that said, “Dear Carolyn, please get on with your life. Love, Mom,” with a sad face.

John sent flowers to Carolyn’s office at Calvin and told her it was just this once, that Daryl hadn’t wanted to go to this event by herself, it was something they had planned to go to together, and he felt bad for her. He called several times and left messages, which Carolyn didn’t return—she took her voice off of her answering machine, so there was no message, just a beep.

Once upon a time by Elizabeth Beller:
Less enjoyable was the incessant ring of Carolyn’s phones, both at home and at the office. “John called all the time, but Carolyn was resolute. What we came up with,” says Carolyn’s friend, “was an outgoing message on her answering machine for an imaginary boyfriend.” Anyone who called would get a recording of Carolyn saying, “Hey, hon, I’ll be back by seven o’clock, can’t wait to see you!” The idea was that John would hear it and assume she’d moved on. John did hear it—and he called even more. “Eventually,” says the friend, “Carolyn changed her number.”

Yet some of her friends thought it was an audacious move—a numerical “hard to get”—and that Carolyn still carried hope that she and John would somehow work out in the end.

Rosemarie Terenzio JFK jr an intimate oral biography:
Then the morning after Jackie died, Carolyn saw the news and she called him back. Soon after his mom died, John officially ended the relationship with Daryl, and he and Carolyn got together for good. As they got more serious, I think he was disappointed that Carolyn never got to meet his mom.

Once upon a time by Elizabeth Beller
Despite Carolyn’s steadfastness after John’s mother’s death, their relationship was still touch and go. He was officially with Daryl when Jackie’s life was coming to a close, but his commitment seemed fragile. With the stress and sadness over the loss of his mother, he was at loose ends.

“John was mixing and matching all these women at the same time,” Billy Way said. “I suspect it had something to do with the anxiety he felt over his mother’s suffering.”

Rob Little the men we became
“They began to date secretly at first, I think because they both enjoyed the mystery. Carolyn, a blue-eyed public-school graduate from Greenwich, Connecticut, was working for Calvin Klein…

John first saw her while shopping for suits. He asked someone who she was, got her phone number, and went out on a first date deep in Tribeca…

I met Carolyn for the first time at John’s apartment when they had just begun to get serious. John and I had gone kayaking and I’d stopped in to have a beer before heading home. John didn’t want me to go yet, though. He kept telling me that I should stay another minute because he had a surprise. The minute turned into an hour, but finally the buzzer rang. John became uncharacteristically jumpy.”

Jack Merrill
We had dinner at the Odeon. John had been telling me about Carolyn—This is my new girlfriend and I really like her and she’s gonna come by—and then the chair is empty. He was embarrassed and annoyed. I thought it was hysterical—I loved it from the minute the chair was empty. I just loved the fact that she was an hour late…. Most girls did not do that to John. She showed up and she sat next to me and we laughed from the minute I first looked at her.

Rob Littell, JFK jr an intimate oral biography
She intrigued him more than anyone he’d met. I remember Christina Haag, when she’d broken up with some guy, he goes, “I’m going to marry her.” But Carolyn I think was the most exotic thing he’d ever dealt with in terms of her own capacity, her own passions. She was pretty penigmatic in the sense of who is this wild person—a force of nature.

He said he wanted to marry her. He was adamant. But John and Carolyn—they were just children emotionally on a certain level. They hadn’t had an opportunity to mature. She had her crazy family, too.

Richard Blow, in his book American son

“But we hoped that Carolyn wasn’t stringing John along, because he was ecstatic in her company. When she visited, he could not work. He would gaze upon her as if he couldn’t completely believe what his eyes were taking in. He could not stop touching her, running his fingers through her hair, stroking her arms. Carolyn accepted his attentions but rarely reciprocated. At least in public, John was the more openly affectionate of the two.”

Do you think Carolyn was playing hard to get, or was it just her personality to be late, take her time to respond, etc.? Even when they were already together, many mention he was the most affectionate.

What do you think about the letter? Many versions talk about it, so it must have some truth to it. But Brian Steel, who investigated Carolyn, said he saw her soon after telling John everything, and he was surprised they hadn’t broken up. Carole also confirmed this story recently on the Deuxmoi podcast.

From Christina Haag’s book Come to the Edge:

During the summer of 1999, the country was gripped by a massive heat wave. It had been years since I'd seen him—not from ill will, but our lives had gone in different directions. Still, when I learned he had gotten married, I was devastated. It was early on a Sunday morning almost three years before, and I was wandering through Penn Station waiting to board a train when I saw the headline. We had broken up at the end of 1990, but for a year or so after that, we would meet and there was the sense of possibility in the air. By the time I stood at the kiosk at Penn Station, I no longer felt this. Yet he remained in my heart, and seeing the photograph was like a small death, a vivid punctuation of an end that had already taken place.

For the last two years, I'd been living and working in Los Angeles. I’d also fallen in love with someone, an actor, and was visiting him that July at a theater in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I hadn't thought about John in a long time, but two days before his death, I did. The actor's family would be arriving the next day, and I would meet them for the first time. But in a sunlit aisle in a supermarket in Lee, I stopped the cart, looked up, and for a moment almost violent in its clarity, it was as though he were with me.

On Saturday, July 17, a friend called early and woke me. She'd heard about the missing plane on the radio, and didn't want me to find out that way. As she reported what she knew, I crumpled to the kitchen floor, my back pressed on cabinet knobs. I held the phone against my chest, and when I stopped crying, she spoke. "But it is John. He's come out of things like this before."

I remember little of that day, only the heat. The actor's family shielded me from news reports, steered me from televisions, and tried to keep me busy, their helplessness etched on their kind, embarrassed faces. I keep searching for a word I once knew, or perhaps imagined. It's to hold two opposing beliefs at once, fully and without judgment; to know that both are true. Like ambivalence, but without its reticence.

That day, when I received my friend's call, I knew in my heart that he was gone. There would be no rescue. And I also knew that this was not possible. In my mind, I kept seeing the purple shadows of the small, uninhabited islands off Martha's Vineyard, ones I had been to with him years before. Surely, they would be found there. Surely, they would be rescued. And like everyone else, I waited.

The next morning when the light was still gray, I got up and drove for hours alone on the back roads of Otis, New Marlborough, and Tyringham. I drove fast, careless with myself. As in a dream, lush white fog covered the hills and wrapped itself around the young birch trees. I blinked to see the road. Things forgotten, tucked away and put to bed, tumbled by across the glass as if they were present. A glance, a touch. The way he said my name and woke me in the morning. Spaghetti he made with soy sauce and butter. Leaping on the benches outside the Museum of Natural History. Candles flickering at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which he insisted I see for the first time at night, his hand guiding mine over names of cold stone. Another night—skating over black ice. My back against his chest, his arms holding me up; cold on our faces and the sound of the blades. Black trees, black below, black sky. The brush of blue satin against his tuxedoed leg. And the adventures-dangers that fate had tipped in our favor. Once safe, they became the stories we told. But now, pulled over by the side of a country road, I remembered the terror I had felt.

He was stunning, no denying that, but why would he carry all his bags and fly commercial? I’m assuming he really wanted to fit in with normal people, but he was anything but normal.