Early life

Bessette was born in White Plains, Westchester County, New York, the youngest daughter of Dr. William J. Bessette and Ann Messina, an administrator in the New York public school system. She grew up in affluent Greenwich, Connecticut, and attended St. Mary's High School, where she was voted an "All-Around Beautiful Person". After graduating from Boston University in 1988, she went to work at a Calvin Klein store in Boston.

Marriage to John F. Kennedy, Jr.

With her height and cool blonde looks, Bessette occasionally worked as a model. She was a saleswoman for the Boston Calvin Klein store before being transferred to New York, where, ostensibly as a publicist (but actually a saleswoman for celebrities and other high-profile customers purchasing the high-end Calvin Klein clothing), she met John F. Kennedy, Jr.. The attractive couple became a popular paparazzi target, with gossip columns detailing where they ate, shopped and even the arguments they had. Photographers waited outside their Tribeca apartment to snap photographs. Bessette was reportedly very uncomfortable with the media frenzy and the repeated comparisons to Jacqueline Kennedy. She married Kennedy on September 21, 1996 on Cumberland Island, Georgia in a historic Baptist church. The wedding was small and secret in an effort to elude the media.

Death and aftermath

On July 16, 1999, Bessette-Kennedy left Essex County Airport in Fairfield Township, New Jersey in a small plane piloted by her husband to attend a family wedding in Hyannis, Massachusetts. Her sister Lauren (who was survived by a twin, Lisa Ann) was to be dropped off at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts before the couple continued on to their destination. The plane never arrived at its destination, and was discovered 4 days later. Although the actual cause of the crash cannot be known, it is the official determination of the NTSB that a confluence of circumstances, including poor visibility at nightfall, along with Kennedy's relative flying inexperience in these conditions and his recently-healed broken leg caused him to lose his bearings. The plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, approximately seven miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. All three people onboard were killed.

In 2005, close friend Carole Radziwill, widow of John F. Kennedy, Jr's cousin and best man, Anthony Radziwill, published her memoirs, containing fond memories of Carolyn Bessette and John, including her memories of the plane crash that took place just weeks before her husband's death from cancer.

Bessette's blonde hair coloring was the model for that of the "Bergdorf Blondes" in the 2004 novel by Plum Sykes.^{[citation needed]}

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