Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy became one of the most famous women in the world. She hated it.

Publicist Carolyn Bessette became one of America’s most high-profile people through her marriage to John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1996. Yet from the moment she was linked to 'America’s Prince' to their tragic deaths just six years later, Carolyn didn’t give a single interview to the press. 

As an intensely private person, she didn’t want to. And as a member of the closest thing the United States has to a royal family, she didn’t need to.

Magazines filled column inches regardless, speculating about the state of her marriage or salivating over her chic designer wardrobe. The sense of mystery seemed only to fuel her appeal — one that persists today.

With the resurgence of 1990s trends in recent years, Carolyn’s name is once again appearing in fashion publications. Entire Instagram accounts have also sprung up dedicated to her effortless sense of style, some of which boast tens of thousands of followers.

Image: Getty.

"A new generation has discovered her," friend and John’s former colleague, RoseMarie Terenzio, told People. "Her style is not just about fashion but also the way she carried herself and her quiet confidence and her relatability ... and I think that comes through. As private as she was, I think she would be amused and delighted and proud that her influence lives on."

The making of America's princess.

Those who knew Carolyn Bessette in her youth have said there was 'something' about her, even then.

She was the youngest of three girls, raised in an affluent Connecticut neighbourhood by her school administrator mother and orthopaedic surgeon stepfather.

A fellow student at the Catholic high school she attended told The New York Times in 1996 that young Carolyn was well and truly in "the in-crowd" at school — "She attended all the right parties." And according to Newsweek, her classmates voted her The Ultimate Beautiful Person.

After graduation, Carolyn studied education at Boston University and flirted with modelling. But she ultimately established her career at the iconic American fashion label Calvin Klein. 

She started as a retail worker at Boston’s Chestnut Hill Mall and was soon headhunted to the brand’s flagship store in Manhattan. There, she was tasked with catering to its V.I.P. clients, including actor Annette Bening and legendary news anchor Diane Sawyer.

The company’s then-president, Susan Sokol, told The New York Times that Carolyn "fit the bill perfectly". ''She was absolutely charming, she was completely refreshing, she was completely outgoing.'' Here was a young woman, Sokol said, ''who wouldn't feel intimidated working with these kinds of people.''

She was later appointed as the director of publicity and then charged with the production of its runway shows.

Some reports claim that it was in the service of that role that she met John F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the beloved US president.

Carolyn was a regular at exclusive New York nightclubs throughout her 20s, and reportedly then used them as a place to scout for fresh faces for Calvin Klein runways. Kennedy was known to attend, too, so rumour had it that’s where they met in 1994.

Others claim they had a Hollywood-style 'meet cute' while Kennedy was jogging in Central Park. Chance meeting, love at first sight — the whole rom-com script.

Nonsense, say others, who insist they were introduced by Calvin Klein’s wife at a charity function.

However it happened, it wasn’t long before the media found out. And so, as the new partner of America’s most famous bachelor (who counted Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker and Daryl Hannah among his exes), Carolyn became one of the most talked-about women on the planet.

While the outside world was just learning her name, John’s friends had already pegged her as something special. Something like her mother-in-law, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

"It's the first thing I thought when I was introduced to her," the couple’s friend, John Perry Barlow, told The Guardian. "They were of a type: people gravitated towards them without knowing why."

Carole Radziwill, who was married to John’s cousin and best friend, Anthony Radziwill, said she knew Carolyn was "it" the moment John introduced her to them. 

"He was really besotted with her," she told Vanity Fair. "He was so enthralled with her, and she with him, but she was kind of fierce. She was very confident. He liked that. She was very much her own person. She was this great combination of [a] kind of seriousness and wild child."

Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. Image: Getty.

The couple married in secret on September 21, 1996.

The wedding was held in a tiny Baptist church on an island off the coast of Georgia. There were just 40 guests, each of whom was sent a special coin to carry with them throughout the week as proof of their invitation. All staff signed non-disclosure agreements. RoseMarie Terenzio also mocked up fake travel itineraries that suggested the couple were in Ireland at the time of the event.

The secrecy and subterfuge worked.

No paparazzi were there. Even some of the couple’s wider circle were caught by surprise when, two days later, John and Carolyn issued a press release announcing the marriage. With it, they provided a single photograph featuring John kissing his wife’s hand as they walked out of the chapel. 

From that shot alone, Carolyn’s wedding look — minimal makeup, and a simple silk slip dress designed by Cerruti’s Narciso Rodriguez — became one of the most iconic of the era.

The newlyweds reportedly hoped the tabloids would lose interest once they married. But John and Carolyn’s moment of privacy evaporated as soon as they returned to New York. 

Just two weeks later, the groom pleaded with the wall of photographers stationed around their Tribeca doorstep: "I just ask [for] any privacy or room you could give [Carolyn] as she makes that adjustment. It would be greatly appreciated." He disappeared back inside the building and emerged a short time later holding Carolyn’s hand. She looked daunted as she faced the clicking cameras and the reality of her new life as a Kennedy.

Even when the novelty and excitement of the wedding wore off, Carolyn never lost her appeal for the tabloid press. They delighted as much in praising a new hairstyle or outfit choice as they did in peddling rumours that she was a manipulative, controlling wife. Each argument captured by the paparazzi came with claims their young marriage was collapsing.

But that’s not what friends saw. 

Carole Radizwill acknowledged that John and Carolyn were certainly challenged in their final years. In her memoir, What Remains, she pointed to John’s flailing publishing venture, George magazine, and her husband’s diagnosis of terminal cancer as major stresses for the couple. But said they were still very much in love.

"[Carolyn] had a natural empathy," she told Vanity Fair. "She not only helped guide me through a series of hundreds of doctors visits and hospital visits, but also helped John reconcile the fact that Anthony wasn’t going to make it. She was doing her best to try to get him to a place where he would accept it, and we would enjoy the summer... I like to think we would’ve come out of it fine. But God had other plans."

John, Carolyn and Carolyn’s sister, Lauren, died on July 16, 1999, when the plane John was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on route to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. An investigation determined that John had become disoriented while descending over the water in the dark and had lost control of the plane. All three are believed to have died on impact.

Speaking at John’s memorial, his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, offered the world a glimpse into their private life; one of a loving couple, at the beginning of their lives together.

"For a thousand days, [John] was a husband who adored the wife who became his perfect soul mate. 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, as we sailed Nantucket Sound. Then we would come home. And before dinner, on the lawn where his father had played, John would lead a spirited game of touch football. And his beautiful young wife — the new pride of the Kennedys — would cheer for John's team and delight her nieces and nephews with her somersaults.

"We loved Carolyn. She and her sister, Lauren, were young, extraordinary women of high accomplishment and their own limitless possibilities."

Feature Image: Getty/Mamamia.

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