How Did John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Meet? All About the Beginning of Their Love Story
Everyone is about to be in their Love Story era. John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s romance will be brought to the small screen in the FX limited series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. The show will explore the start of the famous couple’s relationship and their tragic end.
While JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s romance was constantly in the public eye, there’s still an air of mystery around the pair. Since Love Story chronicles JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s relationship, Swooon has all the key details, including when they met and how the show portrays their very first encounter.
Did Calvin Klein introduce JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette?
In a teaser for Love Story, which was released ahead of the February 12 premiere, fashion designer Calvin Klein (Alessandro Nivola) is the one who introduces Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon) to John (Paul Anthony Kelly) at an event. John asks for Carolyn’s number, and she replies, “I don’t give my number out to strangers.”
FX
Calvin did have a hand in bringing John and Carolyn together (more on that below), but it didn’t go down exactly like the way it’s portrayed in the show. As with most series that are based on real-life events, some moments will be altered for storyline purposes.
How did JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette meet?
John and Carolyn first met in the spring of 1992. At the time, Carolyn was working in PR at Calvin Klein in New York City. Even though she had moved on from sales, when John made a VIP appointment for a new suit, it was Calvin who requested Carolyn show John the selections, according to Elizabeth Beller’s Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
The former first son came out of the appointment with Carolyn’s phone number and “called within days.” John then invited Carolyn to a gala dinner, where she mistakenly thought the woman sitting next to him was his date. He invited Carolyn to the after-party, but she rejected his offer. When John didn’t call right away, Carolyn wrote him a thank-you note as a means of reaching out.
They crossed paths again in May 1992 at the Don’t Bungle the Jungle II fundraiser. Kelly Klein, Calvin’s then-wife and Carolyn’s friend, noticed John and Carolyn at the bar together having a deep conversation. Sasha Chermayeff, one of John’s close friends, noted, “Eventually, I spotted Carolyn. Just by looking at her I realized he has brought me here to see her, to tacitly approve…”
When did JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette start dating?
The pair started seeing each other in the summer of 1992. They broke up that year, with their relationship being fractured over a letter JFK Jr. received that claimed Carolyn was a “user, a partier, that she was out for fame and fortune.” John and Carolyn eventually rekindled their romance, but they were still on-and-off for nearly two years. The fact that John never introduced Carolyn to his mother, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, before her 1994 death was a source of tension for the couple.
During a Fourth of July trip to Martha’s Vineyard in 1995, John proposed to Carolyn. Her response at first? “I’ll think about it.” She eventually accepted, of course, and they married in a private Cumberland Island wedding on September 21, 1996. After less than three years of marriage, John and Carolyn were killed in a plane crash, along with Carolyn’s sister, Lauren, on July 16, 1999. They were headed to Rory Kennedy’s wedding on the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. John was piloting the plane when it crashed off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, Series Premiere, February 12, FX and Hulu
