Carolyn Bessette Kennedy

Carolyn Jeanne Bessette was born on January 7, 1966, in White Plains, New York, the youngest child of William Joseph Bessette (born 1942), an architectural engineer turned cabinet-maker, She had two older sisters, twins Lauren and Lisa. Her paternal family was originally French Canadian and descended directly from Jean Besset, who arrived in Quebec during the 17th century. She was also of Italian descent through her mother. Bessette's parents divorced in 1974 when she was 8. Her mother later married Richard Freeman, an orthopedic surgeon, and moved to Old Greenwich, Connecticut, while Bessette's father stayed in White Plains. Raised in a Roman Catholic household, Bessette later attended St. Mary's High School. In high school, Bessette was described as being part of the "in crowd" and having attended "all the right parties". She had initially started high school at Greenwich High School, but her parents transferred her to St. Mary's because they felt she was not taking her studies seriously. == Career ==

Bessette briefly attempted a modeling career, and hired a professional photographer to take pictures for her portfolio. Sokol, impressed with Bessette's grace and style, later named her to a position dealing with Klein's high-profile clients, such as actress Annette Bening and newscaster Diane Sawyer. ==Personal life==

Bessette first met attorney and publisher John F. Kennedy Jr., son of the 35th United States president John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in 1992, while he was dating actress Daryl Hannah. Bessette was introduced to John's uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, in the late summer of 1994. Following the marriage, the senator told the press: "You could tell right away that there was something special between the two of them." Bessette moved into Kennedy's Tribeca loft in the summer of 1995, and the couple became engaged later that year. Wedding Kennedy and Bessette wed on September 21, 1996. Their wedding was unknown to the press, avoiding media onlookers. The ceremony took place by candlelight on the remote Georgia island of Cumberland, in a tiny wooden chapel, the First African Baptist Church. The bride selected the then-little-known designer Narciso Rodriguez of Cerruti for her wedding dress of pearl-white silk crêpe. The groom's older sister, Caroline Kennedy, was matron of honor, and his cousin, Polish Prince Anthony Radziwill, the son of his aunt Lee Radziwill-Ross, served as Kennedy's best man. Caroline Kennedy's two daughters, Rose Kennedy Schlossberg and Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg, were flower girls, and her son Jack Kennedy Schlossberg was the ring bearer. The couple honeymooned in Turkey. Marriage After the wedding, the media attention surrounding the couple intensified, and she often found it difficult to deal with the harassment. When the couple returned from their honeymoon, a mass of reporters were waiting on their doorstep. John said, "Getting married is a big adjustment for us, and for a private citizen like Carolyn even more so. I ask you to give her all the privacy and room you can." Bessette and Kennedy were badly disoriented by the constant attention from the paparazzi. The couple were permanently on show, both at fashionable Manhattan events and on their travels to visit celebrities such as Mariuccia Mandelli and Gianni Versace. She told her friend, Carole Radziwill, that the only way to avoid the paparazzi was to leave her apartment at 7 in the morning. She also complained to her friend, journalist Jonathan Soroff, that she could not get a job without being accused of exploiting her fame. Her minimalist "throwaway chic" fashion sense was chronicled by various fashion publications and drew repeated comparisons to her mother-in-law, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. and she acted as the hostess at parties for her husband's political magazine George. In the book, ''The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years'', author Edward Klein claimed that the couple's problems reportedly stemmed from Bessette Kennedy's difficulty dealing with the media attention surrounding her and the marriage, accusations of infidelity, disagreements about having children, and her alleged cocaine use. Friends of the couple, including John Perry Barlow and Christiane Amanpour, said that the Kennedys fought on occasion and that Bessette Kennedy had trouble adjusting to the intense media coverage, but denied that she used drugs or that the couple was planning to divorce. Robert Littell, who spent a weekend with the couple a week before the accident, also rejected an allegation that they were living apart at the time of their deaths. == Death ==

Bessette Kennedy died on July 16, 1999, along with her husband and older sister Lauren Bessette, when the light plane John Jr. was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the western coast of Martha's Vineyard. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of the crash was "[t]he pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night." After a five-day search, the wreckage was discovered in the late afternoon of July 21. The bodies were recovered from the ocean floor by Navy divers and taken by motorcade to the county medical examiner's office, where autopsies revealed that the crash victims had died upon impact. At the same time, the Kennedy and Bessette families announced their plans for memorial services. Toxicology testing was conducted on the pilot and passengers. All tested negative for alcohol and drugs. In the late hours of July 21, the three bodies were taken from Hyannis to Duxbury, where they were cremated in the Mayflower Cemetery crematorium. On the morning of July 22, their ashes were scattered from the Navy ship off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. ==In popular culture==

Before marrying Kennedy, Bessette was in a relationship with Calvin Klein model Michael Bergin, who wrote a memoir titled The Other Man: John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette, and Me, which was published in 2004. In 2004, Kennedy's fellow Brown University alumnus and ex-roommate, Robert T. Littell, published The Men We Became: My Friendship With John F. Kennedy Jr. In 2005, Bessette Kennedy's close friend Carole Radziwill, wife of John's cousin Polish Prince Anthony Radziwill, published a memoir titled What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love, that includes her memories of the plane crash that took place just weeks before her own husband's death from cancer. Rosamund Pike was encouraged by Gone Girl director David Fincher to base her character, Amy Dunne, on Bessette Kennedy. Fincher said of Bessette Kennedy: "She crafted herself, she re-invented herself, and invented that persona. That's where I began." Pike searched unsuccessfully for audio of her, though she would concede her character should be created from the "outside in". In 2015, Wes Gordon, known for disliking discussion about the influences of his collections, admitted Bessette Kennedy's impact on the clothing for women in that year's collection. Gordon had long been interested in her style before production. On July 13, 2019, footage of their secret wedding was released in ''JFK Jr. and Carolyn's Wedding: The Lost Tapes'', a two-hour special on TLC, along with interviews with family and guests. In 2026, she was portrayed by Sarah Pidgeon in the nine episode television mini-series titled Love Story. ==See also==