Ep. - 1549 - ELIZABETH BELLER: THE CAPTIVATING LIFE OF CAROLYN BESSETTE-KENNEDY

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Welcome back for another episode of Reality Life with KKC.

A quarter of a century later, it still feels impossible.

The image of that small plane disappearing into the night sky off the coast of Martha's

Vineyard, and with it, John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessett Kennedy, and her sister Lauren.

July 16, 1999 is one of those dates many of us remember exactly where we were and when

we heard the news.

The magnitude of that loss hasn't dulled with time, and if anything, I think it's deepened.

Today I'm re-airing my conversation with author Elizabeth Beller about her New York

Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today best-selling biography once upon a time the captivating

life of Carolyn Bessett Kennedy.

The book that inspired the FX series Love Story, John F. Kennedy Jr., in Carolyn Bessett.

And as we revisit that story, it feels especially timely, because Carolyn remains even now

and inigma.

She never gave an interview.

It's almost impossible to find audio of her voice.

There are no late-night appearances, no podcast clips, no Instagram lives, archives somewhere

in the cloud.

Even before social media, before celebrity branding, before the 24-hour content machine,

she was one of the most photograph women in the entire world, and yet she managed to

remain unknowable.

Why are we still so captivated by this couple?

Part of it, of course, is the fairy tale mythology.

He was American royalty, the son of a president, and an icon.

And she was the cool, whip smart, Calvin Klein executive with an effortless, minimalist

style that still influences fashion.

And yours truly, 25 years later.

Together they were beauty, glamour, youth, and legacy wrapped into one golden couple.

But it was more than that.

They lived in that strange space between complete exposure and fierce privacy.

They were chased relentlessly by paparazzi.

Carolyn in particular was besieged with the level of misogyny and cruelty that feels

painfully familiar in today's cultural reckoning about how the media treats women.

Her reserve was interpreted as arrogance.

Her discomfort became a storyline and she was labeled icy, vapid, difficult, drug addicted,

even blamed unbelievably for the plane crash with rumors that she delayed takeoff for something

as trivial as a pedicure.

And yet, they guarded what they could.

They married on a secluded island to protect the peace of their wedding day.

They fought to carve out a private life in a world that felt entitled to every glance,

every argument, and every misstep.

Even their most vulnerable moments were speculated about sensationalized and sold.

And maybe that's part of the fascination, the wondering, what would have happened if

that plane had landed safely?

Would John have run for president?

Would their marriage have endured?

Would they have grown older, softer, steadier together?

We will never know.

Their story is permanently suspended in youth, frozen in glamour and tragedy.

Elizabeth Beller's biography works to pull Carolyn out of the shadow of myth and into the light

as a fully realized woman, ambitious, fiercely independent, devoted to adopted city, rising

through the ranks of Calvin Klein on talent and drive, long before she became half of a

headline.

Based on extensive research and interviews with family, friends, teachers, roommates, and

colleagues, and featuring never-before-seen family photographs, the book reveals someone

far more complex than the caricature history tried to reduce her to.

It's also worth noting that while the ethics series Love Story brings their romance to

the screen in compelling fashion, it is a dramatization.

It blends historical facts with fictionalized dialogue and imagined private moments.

It captures the intensity of the paparazzi era and the public scrutiny, but like all

dramatizations, it takes creative license, particularly in its portrayal of certain figures.

For example, I don't believe it offers an accurate representation of Darryl Hanna.

The book, however, grounds us in documented research and firsthand accounts.

Ultimately, this story isn't about Camelot or celebrity.

I think it's about how we build women up and tear them down.

It's about the cost of fame before fame was algorithmically engineered, and it's about

a woman who never got the chance to tell her own story, but it was President's style

and spirit still echo decades later.

So today, I'm going to revisit Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, not just as a myth, not as a tabloid

villain, not as a princess and a tragedy, but as a woman, fierce, fabulous, formidable.

Here is my conversation with Elizabeth Beller.

Elizabeth, this book could not put it down.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kate.

Thank you so much for having me on him, real to be here.

Now, you know, I'm obsessed with all things Kennedy.

I have Jack, my son named after Jack Kennedy.

I've got a little Caroline.

I was excited for this book, because to your point, I do think that Carolyn is really

sort of an unknown figure in history.

Impressive in the year 2024 to think of someone who has that much recognition throughout

the world, and she was able to keep her life so private.

It's pretty astounding now that we look at it through the lens of 2024.

It's astounding, and when we look at it through the lens of 2024, it's kind of easier

to see that what she went through at the time that she was able to keep private, but

being chased all the time, it made life a living hell.

She really hated it.

And I think it feels like she was sort of like the first internet, you know, the recipient

of the internet heard mentality to, you know, the toxicity that we have so much of now,

she was one of the first.

And what's interesting is from what I researched, from what people told me, she was the opposite

of the way they were trying to paint hers.

She's warm, empathetic, fun, joyful person, but got terrified and became reclusive.

I know that you have said that you thought a lot in writing this book about the media coverage.

I would say I started writing probably in 2022, because the research was so heavily intense,

but yes, 2019, the accident, the anniversary of the accident, I got in all this information

in my inbox, whereas in 1999, I wasn't picking up tabloids off the newsstand and reading

it.

So I just knew pictures, but in 2019, you get it all in your inbox and I went into a reading

vortex and noticed a huge discrepancy between the way people wrote about her, who knew her,

at light carol, and the way the tabloids portrayed her.

And I think the power that she had in the moment in history, too, is that when someone,

when you're not talking, it somehow, it disallows you from giving people access to your story,

so they just sort of make it up as they go.

And what you do in the book is showcase that in absence of her doing any sort of interviews

or posting pictures as one would in the current ecosystem that we live in within, it gave freedom,

it gave license for media outlets to tell the kind of story they thought was happening behind

the scenes.

Right.

It gave them the impetus, right?

And license, like, yeah, I mean, I guess they do have license and I wish that the media

would sort of step up their game a little bit so that people didn't implode if they're

leaving a public life because we see so many people implode when they're faced with the media

making up a narrative around them.

And so her reluctance, you know, her restraint was very attractive, first of all, right?

Because she wasn't interested in John Furze fame.

It was about him.

And I think she saw fame as sort of like the thief of joy, but by standing back, that's

part of why she's so alluring now in this age where we're saturated with images.

But it did, unfortunately, allow them.

It's almost like, you know, a bad fairy tale.

The paparazzi is, you know, sort of want to, you know, the Maleficent of the story.

They didn't get to come to the wedding.

So then they were going to be angry and get back at her for that.

And they really did.

And if she was walking down the street alone, it was a very different situation than if John

was alone or with her.

If John is there, usually they're like, hi, John, what's up?

You know, he's a kind, gracious man by all accounts, lovely.

And you know, he'd say, hi, but he learned how to do that by watching Jackie, right?

By osmosis, by the best.

There wasn't a guidebook he could hand to Carolyn.

And she came to it with a different set of tools and a different set of feelings about

being followed as a woman, you know, it's more physically frightening.

But when she was alone, they would say things they would never say around John.

They would call, or you bitch, just to get her to make a face.

And then they put her around it was despicable.

It's interesting too because there are so many parallels to so many women who are married

in our current time to someone who was born into a family of privilege or fame.

And it's almost as if no one is acceptable within that family, but also certainly the public.

Yeah.

Because the public sort of gets this proprietary mother-in-law mentality as who, you know,

who are you, this interloper?

And who are you?

And no one is good enough.

They have a moment where they're like, oh, this beautiful princess, and they immediately

start to tear them down.

And that's partly because the public has seen these men since they were young boys.

So they feel some sort of sense of ownership, but it's also just misogynistic.

It's, you know, the women don't fare well when they marry into royal families or dynasties.

I love to quote Hillary Mantell, and I'm going to mangle it right now, but more or

less is, you know, we don't treat women who marry into any kind of dynasty very well.

We treat them like animals in a cage, and they're lucky if they survive.

Give us the snapshot of life for Carolyn as a young woman and the family that she was born

into.

Yeah, so she was born in white planes in 1966.

Her mother's parents were Italian immigrants, or at least her mother's father was, lived

in her mother was born in Brooklyn, hard working, incredible work ethic, very bright.

In fact, the grandparents worked for, believe it or not, the Vera Newman, they made scarves

in awesomening.

And the grandmother was sort of like a crafts person.

She would make the designs onto the actual silk.

Her father was from a self-described, hard-scrabble Connecticut family, background French Canadian,

but the mother and father, William and Ann Bessette, they split kind of early on.

They were divorced by 1974.

And that, you know, Carolyn was only five years old at that point, and Ann remarried

in 1977, and she moved the girls to Connecticut, I'm sorry, yes, that's Connecticut, where her

new husband and orthopedic surgeon named Richard Freeman lived.

And simply because, you know, it was the 70s, and if there's a divorce, it's kind of different

than it is now.

It's in the 70s, it felt like it was just kind of assumed that the women would kind of

have the kids, and that played out in this family partially because William Bessette also

was traveled extensively for work.

He was a civil engineer, he was a building airports and Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

He was away for months at a time.

So what happened was, is, you know, I believe things were friendly, but just the kids' lives

got busier, and when he was in town, there just wasn't that built-in time set.

So for Carolyn, I think it felt for a very long time, like, she just wasn't interested

in being in her life.

And I think that hurt her very much.

She learned later on, very later on with encouragement from John, to re-approach her father

and try that relationship again, that it was more, just like it was hard to get in time,

you know, with teenagers living their own life, and that he had wanted to be around more.

But I think it was very hurtful for her, and I think it informed a lot of things.

I think she was very sensitive when she was young.

And you can see that in the book where, you know, helping one friend in third grade from,

you know, protecting them from bullies, or a young boy in fifth grade whose mother had

passed away and kids being kids, not, you know, not sensitive to it and saying, oh, you

don't have a mom, and Carolyn was the one who took him aside, put her arm around him.

No, no, don't listen to them.

It's okay.

Both this caretaking quality, extreme empathy, and really being interested in people,

talking to them, asking them questions, how do you feel?

What is your life like?

What's your background?

She really wanted to know about them, and she just was a complete mother hen and took care of them.

She also had a sense of joy.

She was very joyful, and you can see that in her earlier pictures.

She, her energy was boundless.

That felt like it got stolen away a little bit at the end, but her joy was rather remarkable,

and people commented on that.

That was part of her energy, and it was something that she carried with her for a very long time,

into adulthood. You know, what great fun thing is going to happen today, which is remarkable

to carry into your adult life.

But was her relationship separate from friends with men? Was she a luke with men?

You know, most of them men that I spoke with, one of them,

friends, boyfriends, they all have lovely things to say about her, that one of them was like,

she's just the best person I knew on the planet.

She really cared about other people's happiness.

So I don't think she was a luke so much, or I'm sure she could be at times,

because I would imagine if you're Carol and Beside, and you're walking around a college campus,

you're getting a lot of attention, that maybe you have to try to shut down a little bit,

because it can be overwhelming.

But when she got to know someone, I don't think she was a luke at all.

I think she was the opposite.

She made local luke and pictures, and I think that was her trying to create distance in those pictures.

But once she got to know someone, I think she was the opposite of a luke.

I think it took her a long time to figure out what she wanted in a man, though.

I think she was very excited about life, and kind of knew that she wanted to do interesting

things. She wanted to do something important with her life, and she studied education.

She initially wanted to be a teacher.

She was thinking about coming back to that in 1998, 1999, or making documentaries to represent,

you know, the underrepresented.

And so I think that she would have come back to that,

then get the chance.

So she goes to Boston University, and she ends up working in the fashion industry.

How did she finesse that change from college student into adulthood in a professional setting?

According to the Calvin Klein colleagues I spoke with, she was getting out of a taxi at the

Chestnut Hill Mall in Boston, Gameridge, and a representative from the Calvin Klein store.

They had a, I believe they had a boutique in the Bloomingdale story, remember that correctly.

And this regional representative saw her and said, oh, she should be working in our store.

She looks just like Elaine Irwin, have her in. So they pulled her in, offered her this job.

She took the job, and then another representative saw her and said, oh, you need, you need to be in

New York. And eventually she came to New York and was hired in New York, initially in sales,

and that's how she met John. Talk to me a little bit about that meeting with John.

Yeah, I think Calvin Klein and Kelly, and also Calvin's assistant at the time,

and Jay Bettenhausen, who was a longtime friend of Carolins, or it became a longtime friend of

Carolins, and lived in Tribeca too. So she knew Carolin throughout this whole trajectory.

But anyway, they all decided that it should be Carolin who showed John the men's line,

even though she normally only showed the women's line, because not only was she the most effervescent

person in sales, but she was also the least likely to be affected or overwhelmed by celebrity.

That's pretty interesting.

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There is an element to her too, also like, she would never want someone to dump her,

like she's got to be the one that does the dumping. That, yes, that friends have been quoted

saying that. And I tried to look at that in the context of, you know, sort of the feeling of being

maybe, like, whether or not it was the case of the feeling of being left behind by her father.

Oh, without question. Yeah. So I think there was, you know, she walked into things protecting

herself from that often. But, you know, she grew. I mean, and if you are coming at relationships with,

sorry, my dog is down here. Okay. You're all right, buddy. Okay. If you're walking into

relationships with that slight, you know, she seems so confident, but we've all got her insecurities.

And that, it must have been pretty frightening for her to walk into a relationship with

John F. Kennedy, Jr. Because it's out there everywhere. And, you know, women are flinging themselves

at him. They, she would walk down the street with him. Women would still approach him. But she did,

you know, she would have, she, she definitely wanted to protect herself for sure. And she would

often back away if she felt that she wasn't emotionally safe. Do you think that there was an

element of, when it came to relationships with men, like, this needs to be on my terms. Like,

you don't have total control over whether or not we stay together or not. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

I think, you know, we, we all have our, our, our things, right? We all have the tool set we're

bringing in. And I think that was hers. And, you know, given her intelligence and charisma and the

way she looked, she could have quite a bit of control over that. It would take a lot for her to

completely trust someone and, and give herself over to that kind of commitment. So there's a dip

in their relationship where they kind of, you know, they're not seeing one another and her,

her life sort of goes on. And then it kind of circles back. But by that time, his mom has already

passed, correct? By that time, well, I kind of think they circled back while his mother was sick.

So, and that, you know, in itself is interesting, given her empathetic nature and, and the, you know,

mother lion, you know, let me care, you know, she just understood people. She explained to friends

that she could kind of feel what someone was feeling at just an empath. And I think

that was something that also drew them further together, especially when John was going through

something like that. He was, you know, figuring out his career and his mother is sick and she is

dying. And I think, I think they came together closer earlier than that. But I, on John,

understandably did not want, while his mother is going through chemotherapy to say, hey,

mom, I have a new girl to introduce you to you. I think he just wanted to spend time at this mother.

Both stop. I'm also looking in terms of like, they meet when she's maybe what 26 years old.

Yeah. So he's five years older than her. So 26 years old, she meets and they date for a little bit.

Then there's the dip in the relationship. She gets married at 30. He's 35.

And so if people are thinking about this story, I want them to take themselves back to 26 to 30

and the way you date and the way that you make decisions about the person that you want to be

with, which is difficult because you're trying to figure out who you are while also balancing

somebody else's set of circumstances and their family members and where they come from and

their origin story. It's such a difficult period of time. And it's also on the world stage.

On the world stage, right? I mean, you think about it now in 2024, people who are 26, we don't

expect them to have it together the way you know, like they're, you know, maybe dipping their

tail in one career and going into another. They might not be sure of exactly what kind of relationship

they fit in best or exactly what they're looking for. But when she started dating John, all these

things she was expected to be, you know, an absolute, you know, absolutely sure about everything.

The model Kennedy wife, right? And model Kennedy wives shouldn't show anger. That was a 1990s

construct as well. It still is now. But in the 90s, it was a particular feminist backlash.

And she was just growing in her career. I think she was beginning to realize and she did that

fashion was not exactly where she wanted to end up. She knew she wanted to do something more

important. When she got together with John, you know, she knew very much that it would be,

that he would be running up for office one day. And I think that the opportunity to make change

in people's lives and help the underserved. I think that was very attractive to her. But the

expectations that were thrown on to her at the age of 26, it was extraordinary. And the vitriol

leveled at her for not being, you know, there were articles about, you know, the working as a

flack for Calvin Klein was not a distinguished enough profession to be marrying a Kennedy. Or,

you know, nearly anything. And of course, that fight in the park, you know, set an amber,

practically this idea of her that she was a harpy or a wild banshee. But, you know, meanwhile,

John had been pictured fighting with Carol other times to Darrell, because as far as I'm concerned,

if couples don't fight once in a while, they're not living together. They're not normal. They're not

normal. They're not normal. Well, also, you think about like even Kate Middleton when she wasn't working,

and she's working with, I mean, essentially with her family's business. Yeah. Yeah. The vitriol

she experienced like weighty Katie, like, you know, yeah. And I have admittedly probably read

every single book on the Kennedys and something that I know in particular with for the women,

especially if you go back and read the book about Eunice Shriver is that they were expected to be

just as professional and charitable. Eunice would say to her kids all the time, like, what did you

do today? So there's this like pressure each day when you wake up in that sort of family,

what have you accomplished? What have you accomplished? And she's at that very precious period of time

where you're sort of letting go of the first job that you've had, moving to the next chapter,

and she was expected to be changing the world from one career to the next while also being

perfect-looking, having the best attitude when she's being called a whore by a photographer

literally chasing her. Yes. They really just didn't give her a chance. She, you know,

the part of the reason, now if you think about it, she quit six months before the wedding. She

quit Calvin Klein. So she had a wedding to plan. They hadn't even been married three years when

they died. So she was trying to figure out the next step, but it had to be locked down tight,

and she knew that because she knew if there was one mistake, they were going to tear her to shreds.

So she wanted to have it sealed, eyes dotted, teased crossed. But it also having to be this perfect

person on camera, you know, and behaving a certain way, and being, you know, it really took up

so much of her mental energy to be followed that much. I think it was hard for her to figure out

what exactly she wanted to do next, and figure that, you know, she also had to, she helped John

quite a bit with George. She had to be on call to travel with him. She often went with him when they

were either, you know, getting back or selling, advertising, what have you. And, you know,

think about how many different sort of career steps and how many different women that we have

had the chance to be at, you know, at the age we are now. I know. I think about that too. Yeah.

Like I've had a lifetime of experiences past 33, then also coupling that with, I really think that

men are not happy until they feel like they've, they're settled in their jobs and with their

finances, like truly fully happy and ready to move on to having children. And I think about her

being married at age 30, and he has this massive stress of running this magazine, and how you really

can't be happy in a marriage when one person has this massive stress, and you're caretaking them,

and you're disallowed to sort of build your own life. Right. So many expectations to have

her own career or to help John with his and to navigate this maelstrom of media, media attention.

And, you know, George is a very prescient idea, look at politics and culture now. I mean,

they're in mesh. But, you know, magazines are hard to get off the ground, and he was quite stressed,

and he really had to put all his energies into that, and it was difficult. And, you know,

and John was, I said this already, by all accounts, lovely and kind and gracious, and he really did

want to help Carolyn with the media attention. He didn't know how to help her. He didn't know how to

make them go away, but he also, you know, he thought this is just the price we pay for this great

life we get to live. But that's not to say that the media attention was not awful for him too.

Think about the hunk flunks when he took, oh, I feel such empathy for him. He was also taking it

in the Javits Center with Glass Wall. So the pop arts, he's like Glass Wall taking pictures of him.

And then, you know, they, you know, you know, make him a laughing stock. And they were just so ready

by when he was starting George, and once George got going, they were so ready for him to fail.

And the enormous pressure of trying to keep that magazine going, you know, the burden of his last name

was also enormous. Like you said, you know, all the Kennedys had that, what are you doing today?

What, you know, how have you changed the world? How have you changed the world today?

And so he had that on his shoulders as well. And then he also had living up to what his

father was who, you know, had written profiles and courage at the age of, gosh, I can't remember

exactly how old he was. 28 or something. Something, yeah, maybe, maybe 30, early 30s, but

and so while he thought, well, this, this interest in our lives, we just have to deal with that,

it was a problem for him too. Do you know what I mean? Like it did not make his life easier.

It made it much harder. And I really feel, I feel bad for them both to have been going through

all of that under such a fish islands. Another aspect that I wanted to ask you about was the

issue of classism because she's from this working class family. But yeah, she does move to

Greenwich and her stepfather did do well. So before she leaves home, what was that like for her

the transition of like, my mom has to work a couple of jobs were really struggling to then living

in Greenwich. No, albeit it's different than it is now. I mean, Greenwich now is filled with

hedge fund money and it was a much different place in the seventies. But nonetheless, there was

like a shift in her life. So what was that like for her? And then post college, dating someone

who is operating in a completely different level of class. Yeah. So I would imagine moving

into Greenwich was fun. You're a young teen. You're, you know, you're carol and beset. So you're

giddy. You know, you're having a lot of fun. Dr. Freeman and I had three daughters with his

late wife, his wife died. I believe her first wife died in 1975. I believe those girls were older

and were, you know, off to college. So now here's the thing is the people that I spoke to about

that time were her teenage friends. So I asked questions like did she feel at all like an interloper,

like, you know, all these girls had had this and, you know, her step sisters had had this

life there and they were born there and some way belong there and these girls come in later.

This wasn't something that teenage girls would either probably be talking about or notice

in a friend. So I don't really know, but I would imagine that she must have felt that a little bit,

although by all accounts, Dr. Freeman is a very loving, kind, wonderful stepfather. So I think she

had an enormous ballast and support there and I think it was very nice for her to watch this

loving marriage and she was happy for her mom. But I think she was aware, you know, this isn't where

I was born. When she came into New York from Boston, I think she was very focused on being authentic

and I think maybe that comes from, you know, she, her Italian-American background, you know,

her background with her father, you know, don't pretend to be something you're not. And I think

that meant a lot to her to be authentic, to sort of have values that value, you know, family,

friends, kindness, not leaving anyone behind. And you know, it makes it all the sadder that when

Carolyn first started dating John, they'd been dating a couple weeks and then one of his friends

from this Ivy League background or, you know, blue blood background, which by the way,

John's family only had recently come into. They were Irish Catholics and they were discriminated

against when they first came to the country. So anyway, you know, one of John's friends from one

of these Ivy League schools, you know, wrote him a letter saying, hey, I knew Carolyn from before.

Now there's a little discrepancy whether or not John asked this person to sort of get the

lowdown on Carolyn or whether this person took it upon themselves. But it was like, oh, she goes

to clubs and she dates around, you know, she dates guys. It's like, what is she supposed to date?

You know, what's her dating? It's great. Everybody loves that John is dating around. Why can't

Carolyn date around? And he took this as a sign that she was partying too much and he tossed the

letter down and walked out and she was sort of shocked by that. And I think that put her guard up

a little bit with some of the sycophants who surrounded him. He did have a lot of them. Yeah.

Some of them had his best interest at heart and some of them did not. And, you know, I think it hurt

her that someone, and I think there were probably implications in that letter that, you know, she's not

from where we're from. It's not the same. And which is a it's classist, it's it's also misogynist,

but it's also just unwise, unindeligent, not what John actually was really interested in. He was

so, but I think having that happened was made her on her guard around that kind of situation sometimes.

Well, then you think about their wedding and how they were able to have this most romantic

very private wedding, but the lengths that they had to go to to protect that that

the purity of a wedding like that and how that just kind of sets the tone for the rest of their life.

They have to be very protective of the people that are in their life while he's also operating this

magazine with politicians and investors and people sort of coming in and out, but having to preserve

this little pocket of the world where your secrets are kept. And I think that says so much about

who they were then and now because so many of the people that you reached out to were

not quick to talk about their friends and their personal lives. Like they've sort of tried to

maintain that level of secrecy and privacy for this couple that died 25 years ago.

Yes, which, you know, you think about it is beautiful because these are their friends who were

trusted and were they still living? They would never say a word. I think what ends up

happening is you end up thinking about legacy and especially in Carolyn's case because she was

so denigrated. She was blamed for the accident. You know, she was called crazy. She was called

temperamental. And I think for her friends, I think it felt like, well, we've got, you know,

the the real Carolyn should come through. They, you know, while Carolyn had an incredible

eye for fashion, they all felt like that was not the most incredible thing about her.

And not often do you have someone who is so in the public eye that is quite so misunderstood,

quite so different than the way the press makes it out to be. They're calling her a gold digger,

a heartbeat. This and that. And meanwhile, you've got this person on the other side who practiced

rack and random acts of kindness on the daily, right? She, she took you in. She was, you know,

went out of her way. She would see a salesperson being treated unkindly by some,

some woman in a store. She would send that person flowers later and say, you know, don't listen to

that. Don't let that make you feel bad. She, and to think that the press did what they did to her

when her actual personality was so different and that they managed to, you know, get this portrayal

out there. There's that people believed. And they still believed was half the time when I approached

people, they would say, oh, yeah, no, that, you know, that co-cat. And it's her fault. The playing,

you know, she was late to the to the airport. No, they were all there's a story about the nail

polish. Like, it wasn't the right purple shade. And she caused it to delay. Yeah. But and that story

has stuck. Yeah. Not true. And the guy who had been, you know, who had seen her in the nail place

and said, no, no, no, no, she wasn't, this wasn't doing that. And she wasn't there until, you

know, six, thirty, she left by three. And but that didn't matter. The story had been out there. And

it just went wild. And it's what has stuck. And that was part of why I wanted to read, to

read the book. There's a slip for you. Write the book because it just, you know, it, the

dynamic and the idea of her needed to change before it was cemented in history.

I mean, for all we know, maybe she was like, it always has to be on his terms. Like, he's got

this like, bum foot. But we've got to go to his family's wedding. It has to be on his time.

Who knows? Well, there could have been a whole other set of circumstances.

Well, I think that partly was the case. I think, you know, she had to put everything on hold. And

so they figured out what was going on with George. He had so many obligations with his business

and with his family name that things did have to kind of revolve around his life. You know,

when it's not that different, you know, you read the Eunice Kennedy Shriver book, they were supposed

to what, what did you do today to change the world? But they weren't supposed to actually work.

They were supposed to support their brothers. They were supposed to have tea parties, sort of,

you know, to campaign for their brothers. So they're supposed to be this thing. But at the same

time, their hands are tied. It's really difficult. And I think she was tired. And I think she wanted

to figure out what she wanted to do. And I, from all accounts, I believe she loved Rory Kennedy.

I know, John loved Rory Kennedy. She was just tired. You know,

going to so many events, tired of it all being circling around that. And really not having

alone time in a marriage. And, you know, and you need that, especially in the first couple of years.

Talked me a little bit about her mother's feelings about the marriage.

You know, I never was able to get the exact words from her speech that she gave at the wedding.

And I think it was at the rehearsal dinner. But apparently, I think she just voiced some concern

of that, that if this, if John was the right person for her daughter. And I'll take that back to

an earlier time when Carolyn first introduced John to her mother, a friend of Carolyn's from

Calvin Klein explained to me that her mother, Matt Hamm and thought he was lovely and kind. And,

you know, of course, handsome. But she said to Carolyn, you know, this is going to be a lot of drama.

I'm not sure that that will make for the happiest life to have this much drama in your life.

It's just not him. It surrounds him, though. So I think she had concerns with that. But, you know,

I the Anna Freeman is a powerhouse was a powerhouse. A teacher, she raised three daughters without,

you know, her ex-husband around much because of his work. They were and raised three intelligent

daughters who were also all powerhouses in their fields. And I spoke to a woman who had,

and as a teacher, and just said that she was the only one who made me feel comfortable making

mistakes, not that she was too easy on anyone, but that she made me feel comfortable making mistakes

because it was so important to earn your subject that you have to make a mistake to get it right.

And called her the warm demander, which, you know, I find very admirable.

So now when I look back, this story and certainly reading your book and just having your heart broken

for the Freeman family. Absolutely. So you have these three sisters and two die in this plane crash.

Unthinkable. How in your best way, you know, through conversations with people that are attached to

this family, their lives after this cataclysmic event, their surviving sister is an extremely private

person. Yes. I really don't know. I don't think you get over something like that. I think it's

devastating and will always ski. I did speak with members of the father side of the family and

their heart broken. And yeah, I don't know how you get past it. My heart bleeds for them. I

when I first started the project, I wrote both William Bassett and Anne the Freeman handwritten

letters, letting them know that I was going to be writing the book. Why I was going to be writing

the book, sort of like I wanted to correct what was obviously this sort of narrative that was made

up. I didn't expect them to participate, but I said, I do want you to know that I'm doing it. And if

you have any questions about me or the book, please feel free to reach out. And I never heard from

them. If I had heard from them saying, please don't write it. I think I think I would have stopped.

I eventually heard from the father's family. I was in touch with the father's brother,

so Carolyn's paternal uncle and his son, so Carolyn's cousin. I don't think you recover from that.

It's horrible. And you know, Lauren was just as bright a shining star. She was

incredibly just brilliant. She worked at Morgan Stanley. She had made Vice President

by the age of 30, I believe. She was in Hong Kong for the handover. She actually came back to New

York to help her sister. So that's like the other thing that Anne taught them. And you can see that

in Carolyn's life. Don't leave anybody behind. And so Lauren came back to New York to sort of

be with her sister. Not in that. I'll sit beside you and hold your hand every second way,

but to be there and experience this with her. And she had an incredible future in front of her.

She was fluent and Mandarin. One colleague of hers said that she would sometimes walk into a

meeting with another company or outside clients. And they would say who brought their assistant

to the meeting. And then Lauren would take over the meeting and they would just be,

she wasn't an assistant. She was an executive and they were all blown away. So

and I like to because Lauren is often not highlighted. And understandably, she was not a

public person. So there's when people were not as forthcoming wanting to speak about her,

which I understand. But but just as just as brilliant. And yeah, I really feel for the family

huge, huge, huge loss. Do we know if the the fam john's family, there was some sort of communication

post that with the with the best sets and the Freemans? You know, you you hear different versions

of that. My thoughts on that are everybody's in deep grief. It's really hard to get it together

and make a plan. I think initially the Kennedy thought that he should be buried in Arlington.

And then maybe that was changed to the family plot in Brookline, Massachusetts. But then

understandably, the Freemans thought, well, you know, the girls don't have a connection to

Massachusetts. So but I think, you know, deep grief. I don't know how you make any decisions

without being, you know, having all your faculties in that moment. I know I wouldn't.

Yeah. So now that this book is out there for the rest of the world to read,

what is the one thing that's going to stay with you about the experience of writing this story?

That's interesting. There are so many things. So many things.

You know, so many lessons to be learned about marriages, about what to keep your eye on

and your and your values on even while the world is swirling around you. It's really easy to

get caught up in what's happening out there. Do you got to keep your eye on the ball as far

and it's hard to do? And also, you know, just be kind to people because you never know what they're

going through. I mean, by all accounts, John and Carolyn had a very privileged life, especially

compared to late, there's so many people out there now. And then, you know, you can't even compare

who are going through a million times worse, much more hardship. But everybody has their battle.

Everybody's having something that's tearing them up. So be nicer. And also, part of what I wanted

to take away from the book, you know, we're at an interesting inflection point with media

and the internet and how we treat people in the public eye and this idea, everybody has to be

on a platform promoting themselves. And well, of course, if someone's hurting someone else,

yes, they should be called out on it. I do wish there was a little less shaming. I think I hope

that we harness this power, especially now that we've got AI coming into it and the internet

to just honestly raise the level a little bit, right? You know, and the press will, used to be

a push pull relationship with the press and kind of now it's been push push push. But if we raise

the level of what we read and what we click on and what we think about, hopefully that will follow

through, I hope at this inflection point because it's a crucial moment and human evolution, right?

We need to try to do a little better and looking at a story like Carolyn's and seeing how much that

sort of eviscerated her life force to have that kind of attention coming at her all the time,

I really hope we're just a little more considerate and understanding that we're all human.

I agree. Well, once upon a time, the captivating life of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, what a great read.

What are you working on next? Thank you so much. Oh, what am I working on next? I'm in the very sort of

tiny seed stage of this. So I can't really say, but I'm hoping to do something

having to do with conservation. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you.

I want to thank my great guest, Elizabeth Beller. And if you go to my substock to the book club tab,

you can get access to the book. If you have not already read it, I highly recommend it. I also

have a ton of other options about Kennedy style interviews, about specific people in the orbit

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I want you to check back tomorrow for an episode about Helene Maxwell in Jeffrey Epstein.