America’s Fascination With JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy Continues

The Kennedys have endured public fascination for more than 65 years and in the last few years, John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy have once again come back into the limelight with numerous books, countless fashion articles and social media accounts dedicated to the couple.

Now, a three-part CNN documentary series, “American Prince: JFK Jr.,” that premiered on Sunday is recollecting all the stories about America’s golden couple: the good, the bad, the forgotten and the political.

The series features interviews from close family, friends and acquaintances: Carole Radziwill, Steven M. Gillon, Gary Ginsberg, Robert De Niro and Cindy Crawford — touching on the subjects of celebrity, privacy and legacy.

“The reason why I participated in the documentary was because I don’t want John to be remembered as the ‘Hunk Flunk’ or the sexiest man alive. He was a man of substance and I hope that the documentary’s portrayal of him captures the substance, as well as the flair,” said Gillon, a friend of Kennedy Jr. and author of “America’s Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr.,” in an interview.

The documentary paints him as a man in search of purpose, in his professional and personal life, something he came close to finding after his mother’s death in 1994.

The first episode, “The Boy Who Would Be King,” traces the public’s zeal for Kennedy Jr. from the day he was born and the events that followed, from his father’s assassination to his time at Brown University, his 1983 trip to India after graduating, failing his bar exam numerous times, the pressures of his mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the launch of his political magazine George.

His magazine was met with hype with Cindy Crawford posing as George Washington photographed by Herb Ritts for the first issue. In hindsight, it was a precursor to the media world’s focus on the now common collision politics, celebrityhood and pop culture. It started out strong with 97 percent of the 550,000 newsstand copies of the first issue having reportedly been sold.

The first person Kennedy Jr. interviewed for the magazine was George Wallace, the famous segregationist who his father clashed with in the ‘60s. He went on to interview numerous political figures.

“His point was that these are really human beings who are complicated. His other goal was to find common ground and to try to overcome the growing partisanship in American politics with a magazine that marries culture with politics,” said Gillon.

Running a magazine was not what it was cut out to be for Kennedy Jr., who faced constant pushback from his publisher Hachette. He had no real experience working on a publication and the magazine demanded more of his personal time and his publisher urged him to share more of his personal life in its pages.

“He came of age during the emergence of celebrity culture in America. Being the son of a martyr president with a political background, his family name and being the sexiest man alive just contributed to this public fascination with him and I’m not surprised it’s continued all these years,” said Gillon.

He adds that in many ways Kennedy Jr. was America’s answer to royalty. His family has continued to work in public service and maintained a public allure.

Carter, editor of Air Mail and author of “When the Going Was Good: An editor’s adventures during the last golden age of magazines,” told WWD, “Visuals count a lot in American popular culture. And John and Carolyn were far and away the best-looking, non-movie-star couple in existence. Each of them had off-the-charts charm. And they had it in equal measure.”

Recalling seeing the couple after one of the White House Correspondence dinners, Carter said, “They were sitting outside at the Vanity Fair after party. There was a chill in the air, and she was sitting on his lap to warm up and they seemed like the center of that world without even trying.”

“There’s a nostalgia for the ’90s, and no couple captures that era quite like John and Carolyn. They were pre-internet, pre-influencer, famous but still private, stylish without trying, iconic without knowing it. In a world now obsessed with overexposure, their mystery is what keeps people fascinated,” said Radziwill, a family friend of the couple and the wife of Anthony Radziwill, Kennedy Jr.’s cousin.

“Their love story, and the tragedy that cut it short, has become something of a fascination for people born long after it happened. They represent a pre-9/11 America — before we had to remove our shoes and started measuring liquids at airport security. The ’90s had a kind of freedom that feels almost mythical now,” she added.

But like any fairy tale, the cracks of their relationship started to appear in 1996 after they got married.

The press started to ask for the same openness of Bessette Kennedy as they did from Kennedy Jr.

“He grew up with paparazzi. It was second nature to him, whereas Carolyn struggled mightily with the amount of attention and the focus on celebrity — it was a source of real tension within their marriage,” said Gillon.

“Carolyn just added to the traction that John had and widened his public appeal, but there was a downside to that — there was a split in the family,” he added.

Kennedy’s former assistant at George magazine, RoseMarie Terenzio, said in an interview, “The fascination with them continues and I am happy about that. I don’t want them to be forgotten.”

While some of that interest can be chalked up to social media accounts (like @carolyn_iconic, @allforcarolyn, and @allforjohnjr among others), Terenzio said the revitalized interest is “not just about this glamorous couple.” She said, “There’s always been this emotional connection to John in this country from the time when he was born. And a younger generation picked up on her, her style and her fashion sense.”

The fact that Bessette Kennedy never spoke to the media or gave interviews made her this mysterious figure to a lot of people, Terenzio said. “But part of their appeal is a nostalgia for a period, where there was no social media and there were no cellphones. There are certainly a finite number of images of them from the paparazzi and certain events.”

Kennedy never had a cell phone and Bessette Kennedy had a little StarTAC [flip] phone or something, according to Terenzio. “Back then, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s paparazzo around. Now everyone is paparazzi. Everyone has a cell phone and an Instagram account,” she said. “It was a more uninhibited time. There was certainly more freedom and connection. When you sat down to dinner, everybody wasn’t taking a picture or looking around. They were just talking and not recording every moment. There’s some nostalgia for that.”

According to the documentary, Kennedy Jr.’s aunt Lee Radziwill told tabloids in 1997 that the family was said to have not approved of Bessette Kennedy. However, Radziwill did not disapprove of Bessette Kennedy at all, according to friend of Radziwill’s. “I was in East Hampton with her, when the accident happened and she was quite devastated about her nephew and Carolyn,” the friend said Friday.

The former Calvin Klein publicist is compared to the likes of Princess Diana and Meghan Markle, who faced the scrutiny of entering a public family that’s inspected under a magnifying glass by the press and public. With her own sense of originality, Bessette Kennedy routinely shopped at What Goes Around Comes Around in SoHo for vintage Levi’s, pretty dresses and other finds. “Very aware of trends,” she was “really one of the early forerunners to take vintage shopping into a bigger picture fashion moment,” said co-owner Seth Weisser. “Her body size was perfect for a vintage cut.”

Pressure reached new heights by 1999 for the couple.

Bessette Kennedy had more involvement with George Magazine that caused a further rift in their deteriorating marriage. Kennedy Jr. was trying to gain momentum again for the publication against the backdrop of his cousin, Anthony Radziwill, dying of cancer.

The documentary outlines that the hardships made the couple reassess their lives with the hope of moving out of New York City to lead a more private life and to potentially start a family.

In July of 199, a single-engine plane that the 38-year-old Kennedy Jr. was piloting crashed into the sea, killing him, his 33-year-old wife and her 34-year-old sister Lauren.

“John was like his father, who will always be remembered for what might have been: How would things work out? Would they have worked out the issues in their marriage? Was John going to get into politics?” said Gillon.

He remembers Kennedy Jr. telling him that he didn’t understand the American public’s fascination with his father’s death.

“We could say the same thing about John now — people are fascinated by his death and that adds another level of intrigue and dimension to the way we think about John today,” Gillon added.

Even 26 years since the death of Kennedy Jr. and Bessette Kennedy, their tale still proves to have magnetism.

The fashion designer Nicole Miller unknowingly provided an alias for anything related to their wedding on Cumberland Island in North Carolina. Her friend Gogo Ferguson, a friend of Kennedy’s, orchestrated the festivities at the First African Baptist Church and at the Greyfield Inn that she operates. To keep everything under wraps with caterers and others involved with the top-secret nuptials, Ferguson referred to it as “Nicole Miller’s wedding.” Never mind that Miller had been married for a few years.

Miller recalled how the president’s son attended a party at her store that she hosted for Ferguson, who is also a jewelry designer, and he sported one of her bone jewelry pieces. As for the ongoing zeal, the designer said, “They were just a golden couple. They were both absolutely gorgeous. It still seems like something that shouldn’t have happened. Everybody loved John Kennedy over time.”

Ferguson told WWD, “There is this elegance that comes with the Kennedy name and the rise of the obsession with the New England style that Carolyn and John so eloquently modeled with their ‘quiet luxury.’ Carolyn’s timeless style has become incredibly relevant in today’s fashion, with her blending of quality basics, high-end pieces and more affordable brands appealing to younger generations.”

Describing JFK Jr. as “a very dear friend,” Ferguson said, “John was an authentic man, but so many people romanticize the relationship they had.” 

The next retelling of the couple’s history will come from Ryan Murphy’s FX series “American Love Story,” which is due out next year. And fans and critics are already weighing in on that one.