On the 25th anniversary of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s tragic death, a new oral biography offers untold memories, never-before-seen photos, and revelations about John's life from the people who knew him best.
Below, an excerpt from RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil's JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography, in which John's closest friends tell the true story of how he started dating Carolyn Bessette.
Paul Eckstein
I remember John at one of our Naked Angels parties coming up and being like, “Yo, man, you gotta hook me up. Who is that girl? Introduce me.” I was like, “John, I’m not going to introduce you to anybody. You’re fucking John Kennedy. Go introduce yourself.” We were doing a 1940s speakeasy theme for this party, and we were both dressed in cheesy 1940s outfits. I had a crush on Carolyn’s sister Lauren. He was trying to get me to help introduce him to Carolyn and I wouldn’t do it. Of course, he met her anyway.
RoseMarie Terenzio
The story I heard was that John and Carolyn first met at Calvin Klein. It was around 1991. He had gone to pick out some suits and she helped him—she was the handler for a lot of the VIPs. He asked for her number and they went out on a few dates. Carolyn was dating around and so was John—Daryl was still in the picture, but they seemed to be on and off. Carolyn wasn’t sitting by the phone waiting for his call—it was the opposite. For the first time, he was getting a taste of his own medicine. And that intrigued him.
Sasha Chermayeff
John had taken me to this event. We were going to dinner, but he’s like, “I’ve got to swing by this place first.” I saw Carolyn from across the room and she was leaning on this post. And I said to myself, That’s the kind of woman that John is so attracted to.... That’s so John’s type right there. We meandered around the party and we’re working our way to the focal point of this party— that woman—and I realize we are not here for any other reason. I remember the way she looked at him and the way he looked at her and I was just like, Okay, this is why I’m here.
He was very casual. We’re just coming to say hi. I didn’t say anything. He was still with Daryl. It was private and I wasn’t going to be like, Oh my God, do you have the hots for her ... and what about your relationship? John never said anything to me, but he was overlapping with Carolyn while he was with Daryl—I’m convinced that there was quite a bit of overlap. I think he was obsessed with Carolyn from the minute he met her.
Then by the summer of ’94 when he came up to visit me in Catskill, there was a feeling that there was something he had to get back to Manhattan for—something was pulling him back. I was saying, “What’s the rush?” I thought, Hmmmm.
Brian Steel
We were running around Central Park West and we started walking, which was unusual because the guy just wanted to run forever. He said he was completely enchanted by this woman, Carolyn Bessette. And I was like, “What about Daryl?” because they were still together, and he is like, “I think we’re going to break up.... I met her at Calvin Klein.”
He went out on a date or two with Carolyn and he’s like, “I want you to find out as much as you can about Carolyn—I know you know people, like, you know, nightclub people, restaurateurs.... I know you know people that went to college with her.” And so I found out as much as I could about her and not all of it was good. I told him all of it. She was a club girl, and she dated a lot of people.
And then at his birthday party—he used to throw a birthday party at El Teddy’s, the Mexican restaurant in Tribeca—and that year there were about fifteen to twenty friends, and I was sitting directly across from Carolyn, and she had this way of making you feel like you were the only person in the room. She would touch your hands and the hair on the back of my head would go up. She was electric, dynamic. Much more than any photograph could ever capture. Midway through dinner, John pulled me aside and asked what I thought. He was so enthralled, like a kid in a candy shop. I said, “She’s stunning. Enchanting.” And he was like, “That is awesome. I knew you would love her.” Then he said, “I told her everything you told me.” And I said, “You are a moron. Why would you do that?” He was like, “No, no, she loves you.” We did come to love each other.
RoseMarie Terenzio
I met Carolyn in Michael Berman’s office. This was probably in the fall of ’94—I’d been working for John since the beginning of that year. Carolyn and I had already been chatting on the phone before we met. I remember she was wearing this pencil skirt with a white button-down shirt. Very clean. It was kind of intimidating. But then as soon as you got a sense of her personality, she was really warm. I think it was Fashion Week. Her nails were robin’s-egg blue, right when that trend started, and she’s like, Isn’t this weird? She was standing next to my desk waiting for him, laughing at how much the phone was ringing. She was like, Oh my God, this is crazy....
She and John had been hanging out on and off—they were both dating other people, but they reconnected in 1994 and it was more serious. They had dinner at Provence downtown, and John gave her the impression he was no longer in a relationship with Daryl and he wanted to date her exclusively. Not long after, there was a picture in the Daily News of John and Daryl holding hands at a movie premiere. Carolyn saw it and cut off contact. Her mom sent her the clipping with a note that said, “Dear Carolyn, please get on with your life. Love, Mom,” with a sad face.
John sent flowers to Carolyn’s office at Calvin and told her it was just this once, that Daryl hadn’t wanted to go to this event by herself, it was something they had planned to go to together, and he felt bad for her. He called several times and left messages, which Carolyn didn’t return—she took her voice off of her answering machine, so there was no message, just a beep.
Then the morning after Jackie died, Carolyn saw the news and she called him back. Soon after his mom died, John officially ended the relationship with Daryl, and he and Carolyn got together for good. As they got more serious, I think he was disappointed that Carolyn never got to meet his mom.
Sometime after he and Daryl broke up, before the press knew about Carolyn, there was a People cover, “Is he a man with a plan or a dreamboat adrift?” I remember going to the office that day and I took the cover off and put it on his door. When he walked in that morning, he said, “Hey, Rosie.” I said, “Hey, dreamboat,” and he was like, “Shut up.” Then he took it off his door and he put it on mine.
From JFK JR.: An Intimate Oral Biography by RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil. Copyright © 2024 by RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
