Carolyn Bessette Kennedy fever has taken its grip on the United States once again after Ryan Murphy’s Love Story premiered in February. But in the late ‘90s, paparazzi magnet John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife experienced some of the same issues as Princess Diana, who died in a 1997 car crash after being chased by photographers.
In a resurfaced cover story from 2017, JFK Jr.’s former assistant, RoseMarie Terenzio, told People that Diana’s death deeply impacted Carolyn. Bessette Kennedy struggled with the incessant press attention surrounding her relationship, and Terenzio said that watching the narrative around Diana’s car chase left Carolyn “rattled.”
Astonishingly, John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s son didn’t want a security team for himself or his wife, and as People reported, “The couple’s apartment didn’t even have a doorman.” After Diana’s death, Terenzio noted that “Carolyn was rattled by the fact that she and John were just as vulnerable.”
“John wasn't sensitive to the fact that this had been his life since he was born, but it was not Carolyn's,” Terenzio added.
Kathy McKeon, who was Jackie Kennedy’s assistant and a nanny to John, recalled that on the day of Princess Diana’s funeral, John tried to instruct Carolyn on how to deal with the press.
“John said, ‘Tell Carolyn how my mom handled photographers,’” McKeon shared. “I said, ‘She was nice to them—she smiled and gave them one good picture.’”
According to McKeon, the George magazine founder turned to his wife and said, “Carolyn, did you get that? You're treating them all wrong.” But Bessette Kennedy, who worried about raising children in their unsecured Manhattan apartment, replied, “I hate those bastards.”
In the documentary American Prince, Bessette Kennedy’s friend Carole Radziwill noted the "profound" similarities between Diana and Carolyn.
“I mean, Princess Diana, she was our age, pretty much,” Radziwill said. “The underlying way in which she died, which was being literally hounded to death by paparazzi. That lesson was definitely not lost on Carolyn.”
Like Diana, the young couple also died tragically, with their plane—piloted by John—crashing on the way to a 1999 wedding.
