The recent premiere of FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette on Disney+ has reignited public interest in one of the 1990s’ most highly publicized couples. John Kennedy Jr., son of the 35th U.S. President and often referred to as “America’s Prince” following his father’s 1963 assassination, was considered among the most handsome men in the country. The Kennedy dynasty, the closest approximation to royalty in the United States, consistently dominated headlines. Carolyn Bessette’s 1996 marriage to Kennedy, positioned her to become the nation’s new princess.
However, Bessette, a publicist who worked at Calvin Klein, reportedly did not desire that role and felt uncomfortable with the intense media scrutiny. The limited series is largely based on Elizabeth Beller’s 2024 book, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, which Beller intended as a corrective to the narrative surrounding Bessette. According to Beller, Bessette abandoned a promising career in fashion due to her relationship with Kennedy, only to be portrayed in the press as cold, distant, controlling, temperamental, and unstable.
Beller’s operate is not the only recent tribute. Bessette also inspired L’autre madame Kennedy (The Other Mrs. Kennedy), a fictionalized biography by French journalist Camille Perrier, published in 2025. “Some of her friends wrote about her in the early 2000s. It was very captivating to see how they presented Carolyn – a world away from the portrayal the sensationalist press had made of her,” Perrier told El País.
Unlike Princess Diana or the Kennedys themselves, who were accustomed to interacting with the press, Bessette largely avoided it, particularly after a secret wedding in September 1996. “That clandestine celebration was perceived as a betrayal by the press. They never forgave her for staying out of the spotlight, and after that, attention towards them skyrocketed: she was harassed. In the book, I evoke scenes inspired by reality in which she trips, falls to the ground, and photographers continue to shoot, insulting her, because that’s what sold,” Perrier explained.
Bessette never spoke publicly, granting no interviews, publishing no memoirs, and having no platform to defend herself against rumors that depicted her as a problematic figure, an outsider within the Kennedy clan. Her silence allowed others to construct her image. Kennedy was cast as the prince charming, while she was often portrayed as a villain, largely for refusing to play the paparazzi’s game. Jackie Kennedy’s personal assistant, Kathy McKeon, described in her memoirs the fear Bessette had of photographers. McKeon advised Bessette to follow Jackie’s example – offering a smile and a good photo upon leaving home to be left alone. “But Carolyn wasn’t comfortable being photographed. She couldn’t stand it. John had been raised that way, Carolyn hadn’t,” McKeon wrote.
Despite her aversion to publicity, thousands of photographs taken by paparazzi of Bessette and Kennedy on the streets of New York have become an archive that has established her as a fashion icon and informed the new FX series. Stylist and communicator Erea Louro, author of Iconos de estilo: De Cleopatra a Zendaya (Icons of Style: From Cleopatra to Zendaya), notes the paradox. “Her iconography is constructed in the street, in the everyday, in unconsented images that convey an authenticity that many current productions strive to recreate.”
Photographs of Bessette have become a constant source of inspiration for designers like Phoebe Philo and the Olsen sisters, founders of The Row, embodying what has come to be known as “quiet luxury” – a polished style prioritizing quality fabrics and impeccable tailoring. In 2022, the French brand Rouje launched a fashion campaign inspired by Kennedy and Bessette, and British brand With Nothing Underneath has featured her in its collections, even naming a sweater after her. “We admire the aesthetic result, but we shouldn’t forget the context in which it occurred,” Louro cautioned.
Louro’s book details how Bessette’s seemingly effortless elegance was often a deliberate attempt to avoid attention. “She tried to create strategies to distract them, such as leaving home at seven in the morning, dressing in black, or repeating outfits to arouse less interest, but none of that worked; she had unintentionally become the icon of the American woman.”
Bessette was born in 1966 in White Plains, New York, and grew up in Connecticut in a comfortable but conventional environment, far removed from any political or social elite. She studied at Boston University intending to become a teacher, but ultimately worked at a Calvin Klein store before moving to the public relations team in New York, where she networked within the city’s cultural scene. She met Kennedy in 1994. Perrier explained that Bessette excelled as a salesperson, impressing Calvin Klein himself, who promoted her to public relations. “She represented the brand as a kind of living advertisement. They say even her style inspired the designer. There was a kind of virtuous circle between the two.”
Bessette reportedly championed British model Kate Moss as the face of the brand in a 1992 campaign that launched Moss’s career. She possessed a keen eye and a charismatic personality, with an impeccable taste that fascinated the industry. Despite her passion for fashion, she reportedly considered working in documentaries to give voice to others in the months leading up to her death.
The media pressure she faced – portrayed as a reckless partygoer with addiction problems, a depiction disputed by those who knew her – discouraged her from continuing her fashion career and led her to withdraw into the Tribeca apartment she shared with Kennedy Jr. The 1997 death of Princess Diana in a car crash while fleeing paparazzi deeply affected her. “We’re next,” she told friends. Just two years later, on July 16, 1999, John Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette, and her sister, Lauren, died in a plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Some even blamed Bessette for the crash, alleging she delayed their departure due to a manicure appointment.
Kennedy, who had begun flying to gain privacy, was piloting the plane that day without a co-pilot and while recovering from a broken ankle sustained in a paragliding accident. Historian Steven Gillon, author of America’s Reluctant Prince, reconstructed the hours leading up to the crash in his biography: “There’s no require to overthink it. John is responsible for his recklessness and John alone.”
The enduring fascination with Bessette may stem from the sense of an unfinished story left by her premature death. She was 33 years old. “Her story was suspended. She didn’t have time to reinvent herself, to make public mistakes, to dilute herself in excessive exposure. That turned her into a kind of intact aesthetic capsule, something that is almost impossible in today’s digital culture. It’s almost like a legend,” Louro stated.
It is unknown what the private Bessette would have thought of the continued interest in her life and style, but her image is being rehabilitated more than 25 years after her death, alongside other women who suffered from the misogyny of the time. “Our time is trying to revise the media narrative of the past, question prejudices, and injustices. Especially with regard to women,” Perrier concluded.
