Note: This story contains details from episode eight of FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.
In episode eight of FX’s Love Story, John and Carolyn are at home, on the verge of an argument about the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, when Carolyn’s sister calls. “What happened? Lauren, slow down, you’re scaring me,” Carolyn says, something clearly very wrong. “What channel?”
John flips on the TV, and they learn the news: Princess Diana has been in a car accident. “The accident happened as Diana’s car was being pursued by a group of paparazzi on motorcycles as they entered a tunnel along the River Seine,” the newscaster says.
“I just saw her,” Carolyn says, stunned and horrified. “At Gianni’s funeral, I sat right behind her.”
As she hears confirmation of Princess Diana’s death, she is distraught. The parallels between Carolyn’s experiences of being relentlessly hounded by paparazzi and how Princess Diana died are all too clear. “They killed her. She did everything right, posed for every photo, gave them everything they wanted, and they still killed her,” Carolyn says.
Many have compared Bessette-Kennedy and Princess Diana over the years since. In the CNN docuseries American Prince, Carole Radziwill said that Diana’s death shook Bessette-Kennedy in a “profound” way. “I mean, Princess Diana, she was our age, pretty much. The underlying way in which she died, which was being literally hounded to death by paparazzi. That lesson was definitely not lost on Carolyn,” Radziwill said. So Carolyn’s shock and grief in the show seems to be close to how she felt in real life.
As for whether Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy really saw Princess Diana just before Diana’s death? It turns out she did. The two women both attended the funeral of Gianni Versace on July 22, 1997, in Milan, Italy. Photos show Bessette-Kennedy sitting in the pew directly behind Princess Diana at the Milan Cathedral, though it’s unclear whether the two were introduced.
What is known, though, is that JFK Jr. met Princess Diana in 1995, in a secret meeting in New York City.
According to People, JFK Jr. wanted Diana, then separated from Prince Charles, to pose for the cover of his political magazine George. She agreed to hear him out—but in order to do that, they had to talk first. Easier said than done when both parties leave a swarm of paparazzi in their wakes.
After a lot of clandestine diary finagling, they agreed to meet one summer day in a suite at the Upper East Side’s posh Carlyle Hotel. But although the when and why was decided, the bigger question remained: How?
JFK Jr.’s executive assistant RoseMarie Terenzio recalled that even her boss thought there was no way it could ever work. “I remember him saying, ‘There’s no way someone is not going to leak it. There’s going to be paparazzi everywhere,’” she said.
Like a quintessential spy movie montage, Kennedy’s inner circle started hatching a plan on how to hide the president’s son and a princess. “Someone suggested he go in disguise and I said, ‘That’s ridiculous. You’re not doing that!’” Terenzio remembers.
The end plan was simple: They decided JFK Jr. and Diana should walk in the front door.
Their logic was this: If the press found out about the meeting, which was inevitable, they’d assume the two celebrities would use the less-visible side entrance. Because surely they wouldn’t think they would be so brash as to use the front entrance, right?
But, as the saying goes, fortune favors the bold: When they pulled up, they were right—all the press was at the side door. And the two waltzed right in.
They met for an hour and a half, but Princess Diana didn’t end up posing for George magazine. However, his staff can recollects some tidbits about the fateful encounter: “I do remember him saying, ‘She’s really tall!’ He also said she was very shy. He was surprised how demure she was,” says Terenzio. “I think they had both met Mother Teresa, so they spoke about that. And he said how lovely she was.”
