There really is a lowkey industry with nostalgia for JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. This summer will be the 25th anniversary of their deaths, and Elizabeth Beller has written a new book about them, Once Upon A Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. There are already tons of books about them, plus Instagram accounts devoted to Carolyn’s fashion and tons of articles about what this glamorous couple was “really” like. I think their marriage always captured people’s imaginations because Carolyn really was just a normal person – she wasn’t an Oscar-winning actress or a heart surgeon or an heiress. She just had a job in fashion and she lived and loved in New York, and “America’s prince” married her. Well, People continues to publish quotes from Beller and excerpts from her book. I already covered some of this last week, but here are some new pieces:
Carolyn was upset that John never introduced her to Jackie Kennedy: Bessette-Kennedy and John began dating, on and off, in the early ’90s. For some of that time, John was still seen publicly with girlfriend Daryl Hannah, with whom he broke up in 1994. Bessette-Kennedy wasn’t pleased about the overlap, nor about the fact that she was not able to meet the former First Lady. “Carolyn became increasingly irked that he wouldn’t introduce her to his mother,” writes author Elizabeth Beller. “‘I took him to meet my mom,’ Carolyn told a friend.”
At the time, John was focused on launching his magazine George: “I think it was hard for him to take anything other than his work too seriously at that moment,” Beller says. “If Carolyn met Jackie, I think he knew that that would sort of become a life of its own. And maybe he wasn’t quite ready for that. I know that he did regret it. That’s one of the things that he said to several friends, one of his main regrets was not introducing the two of them.”
Carolyn dumped John a few times because he wouldn’t introduce her to Jackie: “The on, off-ness of their relationship between ’92 and ’94, partially, was sometimes off because [Bessette-Kennedy] would break up with him over the fact that he wasn’t introducing her to Jackie,” Beller says. “[She was] thinking, ‘This can’t be serious if he’s not really introducing me to his mother.’ Carolyn wasn’t going to put up with anything like that. One has to protect oneself.”
Carolyn wasn’t much of a cook: “She had one recipe… and it was how to make a roast chicken, and otherwise they would order out,” Beller tells PEOPLE. “It was often Kentucky Fried Chicken when they would order out.” Carolyn’s small culinary repertoire was not for a lack of trying, Beller explains. She reveals in the book that the fashion icon once wanted to reach out to Martha Stewart for cooking tips. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1996 that she did in fact call on Stewart for culinary and decorating advice.
The fact that Carolyn wasn’t much of a cook isn’t surprising – she was a fashion girl in New York in the ‘90s. Some people would say that her diet probably consisted of alcohol, cigarettes and cocaine. What I don’t believe is that she was a regular at KFC! Please, with all of the restaurants and delis in New York? No.
As for the thing about Carolyn never meeting Jackie… I remember people made a big deal about that at the time, especially when John proposed to Carolyn soon after Jackie’s death. Like… he did that on purpose. Probably because he thought they wouldn’t have gotten along. And he was probably right?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.