Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy: The true story behind the mysterious and tragic US icon

Alongside husband JFK Jr, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy was one half of America's great 1990s golden couple, before their untimely deaths. Now a new drama is set to explore her struggles in the spotlight – which had parallels with those of Princess Diana.

She never gave an official interview, there are only two recordings of her voice, amounting to less than half a minute of audio, and she died in 1999 at the age of just 33, having been in the public eye for no more than five years. Yet Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy – one half of one of America's most famous golden couples – is possibly even more celebrated now than she was during her tragically short life. 

As the photogenic girlfriend and then wife of John F Kennedy Jr, she set fashions, her image was all over magazines and newspapers and she was compared to the UK's Princess Diana, yet she remained unknowable to the general public. Critics said she was haughty and distant. Friends said she was just unused to fame.

The Calvin Klein executive embodied the trend known as "quiet luxury" or "stealth wealth": neutral tones, no flashy logos or visible labels, understated elegance, minimalist glamour. TikTok videos offer advice on how to get her look. Instagram accounts with legions of followers worship her.

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She is also the subject of a new nine-part drama from Ryan Murphy, creator of American Horror Story and American Crime Story. The first season of his latest franchise Love Story is about the courtship and marriage of Carolyn and John F Kennedy Jr, the son of the former president and his wife Jackie. The show has already caused controversy. Jack Schlossberg, nephew of the late JFK Jr, criticised Murphy for "profiting off" his uncle's story.

Meticulous simplicity

Fans of Bessette were up in arms online over some test shots of actress Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn, and what they insisted were the wrong hair colour (Carolyn wore her hair in what her colourist called a "buttery blonde" colour), wrong accessories, wrong footwear, wrong everything. Author of 2023 book CBK: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy: A Life in Fashion, Sunita Kumar Nair writes of her style: "Her mastery lay in the simplicity of her clothes: a clutch of carefully considered separates, meticulously fitted to a strict cluster of tonal hues." Crisp white shirts, loafers, acetate sunglasses, tortoiseshell headbands, bootcut Levi's 517s and long black coats were among her sartorial staples. She was also associated with high-end labels such as Yohji Yamamoto, Ralph Lauren, Prada and, of course, Calvin Klein.

Journalist Liz McNeil, co-author of 2024 book JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography, tells the BBC: "Even now, almost 27 years later, Carolyn makes it look like everyone else is trying too hard. There was something about her which seemed like she wasn't trying to be anything other than herself. She had an amazing eye for lines and small touches that were hers alone, ie the gold mesh evening bag with the white button down and long black fishtail skirt. Cool beyond belief. She had an aesthetic all her own."

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However, her style evolved over the years. One of the images from the show that caused so much outrage was of Pidgeon as Carolyn wearing Converse. Instagrammers insisted she would never have worn the popular high-top sneakers but, in fact, she did. She dressed more casually before she was in the public eye. She sometimes favoured track pants. A natural brunette, she would let her hair air dry on the subway, giving it a tousled look. A friend described her as "more like a tomboy". 

'Ultimate Beautiful Person'

Carolyn – or CBK as she was later known – was born in 1966 in White Plains, New York, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1983, she was voted "Ultimate Beautiful Person" in her high-school yearbook. At Boston University, she was the star of the college's calendar in 1988. After graduation, she got a job as a sales assistant in Calvin Klein in Boston, eventually moving to New York City, where she became the brand's chief publicist and a friend of the designer himself.

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According to friends quoted in McNeil's JFK Jr biography, she was funny and quirky. And she did not lack male attention. It's public knowledge, attested to by various sources, that she dated future ice hockey star John Cullen, Alessandro Benetton, of the Italian fashion company, and Calvin Klein underwear model Michael Bergin, who would go on to star in Baywatch.

It's not known for certain how she met John in early 1994. Did they jog into each other in Central Park? Were they introduced by their mutual friend Kelly Klein, Calvin's wife? Or did they, as another version has it, meet by chance in the Calvin Klein VIP showroom, while John was still living with actress Daryl Hannah? However they met, a relationship flourished, and in the spring of 1995 Carolyn moved into his loft apartment in Manhattan; on July 4 of that year, they got engaged.

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And as soon as the romance became public, she was in the media spotlight and the crosshairs of the paparazzi. John had been in the public eye since childhood. His father's short-lived presidency subsequently became known in mythological terms as "Camelot", and John himself was dubbed the "Prince of America". Everyone remembered the adorable little boy on his third birthday, which happened to be the same day as the president's funeral, saluting his father's casket. As an adult, the tabloids followed his every move.

When he failed the New York State bar exam for the second time, the New York Daily News story was headlined: "The Hunk Flunks… Again". It was tough but he was used to dealing with the attention. Carolyn was not. JFK Jr would sometimes let them take a couple of shots in order to get them to leave him alone but Carolyn didn't want to play ball. The more she shied away from the paparazzi, the more determined they were to get those shots. 

'Personal distress'

Was she deliberately cultivating a "mystique"? Critics said she was an aloof ice queen. Her defenders insisted she was simply a shy introvert who struggled with fame. Kumar Nair, who was also consultant for the new drama series, says neither is true. "I think these labels were the kind she faced while she was alive – and caused personal distress for her when she encountered them in the papers," she tells the BBC. "As a PR she knew the machine of fame intimately, but to be the subject of this very machine, was probably an extraordinary, disorientating life shift for her."

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Liz McNeil says: "The friends we interviewed for our book, including RoseMarie Terenzio, my co-author, all talked about how warm she was. How generous. RoseMarie has fantastic stories about visiting Carolyn's apartment anytime she had a date and Carolyn would lay out some outfits for her and often give her something from her closet. I love what Rose said: 'She had a way of making you feel like Cinderella.' And she was fiercely protective of the people she loved."

"In terms of fame, I'm not sure anything could have prepared her for that level of scrutiny. John was used to it. He'd grown up with reporters, photographers and later paparazzi. Friends now say that was a shortcoming on his part. That he didn' t give her the emotional support she needed and/or didn't know how to help her."

A tempestuous relationship

No doubt the pressure that comes with being in the public eye contributed to the tempestuous nature of her relationship with John. In February 1996 they were filmed arguing in Washington Square Park and John seemingly pulled the engagement ring off Carolyn's finger. According to Bergin himself and contributors to the book JFK Jr, she was still occasionally seeing Michael Bergin. And according to the book, John might also have had liaisons with other people. 

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Nevertheless, they got married on Saturday 12 September 1996, at the First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island, Georgia. Carolyn wore a bias-cut silk Narciso Rodriguez slip dress. They had managed, for once, to give the media the slip. The couple had a two-week honeymoon in Turkey but photographers found them there. On their first Sunday morning back in New York, John asked the crowd of photographers outside his apartment building to take it easy on his new wife. His request had little effect. They were the It Couple and picture editors couldn't get enough of them.

"It looked from the outside that once she married John, Carolyn's life disappeared," John's friend Sasha Chermayeff is quoted as saying in McNeil's book. "She's this fabulous girl… but her identity completely changed. She went from being the coolest girl in her circle but not famous to being completely famous and subject to the whims and insults slung by the tabloid media."

Comparisons between Carolyn and Princess Diana were inevitable. "Both women married men who were very accustomed to life in the spotlight, and neither could foresee or empathise with the sheer magnitude of their partner's public status," says Kumar Nair. "Diana was a public figure and expected to perform as one. The relentless pursuit of her image was invasive particularly in her off-duty moments. The same dynamic was happening to Carolyn. Photographers behaved when John was present, but would goad Carolyn into a reaction, by any means possible when she was on her own." And, of course, they had something else in common. Both died tragically young.

'Curse of the Kennedys'

On 16 July 1999, John, Carolyn and Carolyn's older sister Lauren died when the plane that John – a keen pilot – was flying crashed off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The fabled "curse of the Kennedys" had struck again. Tragedy seemed to haunt the family and those who got mixed up with them. John F Kennedy and his youngest brother Robert F Kennedy were assassinated. The middle brother Ted Kennedy drunkenly drove a car into a pond and saved himself – but his young passenger, Mary-Jo Kophechne, drowned.

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Arguably, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy's fame has now eclipsed that of her husband. Why does it endure? Liz McNeil offers some theories. "She never gave an interview," she says. "So maybe the images took on more power over time. Instagram discovered her years ago and there seem to be countless accounts so there's an entirely new audience of people who may not have been alive when she was. She remains elegant, mysterious and alluring. 

Also, the world is a different place now. Newspapers and magazines have less influence. "Mystique" may be a devalued currency. "And the circumstances around who John was – and who Carolyn was – will never come again. The 90s, pre-cell phone, pre social media and iPhone, all before Sept 11..." says McNeil. 

"And there always remains the question of 'What if?' with both of them."

The first three episodes of Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette are streaming now on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK, with further episodes released weekly.

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