Because of the success of Love Story: John F. Kennedy & Carolyn Bessette, there is such renewed interest in all things Carolyn, from her work to her fashion to how she was vilified and smeared. Well, many of Carolyn’s old friends believe that there are parallels between her life and the Duchess of Sussex. Both were fashionable, independent American women who married into controlling and judgmental dynasties, and both were (and are) vilified and smeared to this day. When Meghan and Harry were first engaged, you could tell that Meghan was very inspired by Carolyn’s style too. But there are even more parallels. From Town & Country:
The parallels between Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Meghan Markle go beyond their shared penchant for minimalist fashion, and the Duchess of Sussex admiring Bessette-Kennedy’s wedding dress, describing it as “Everything goals.” In a new book, The Kennedys and the Windsors: The Story of Two Dynasties, One Born, One Made, author Caroline Hallemann reveals that Bessette-Kennedy’s friends saw striking similarities between the two women in the aftermath of the Sussexes stepping down as senior working royals in 2020.
“Certainly, there are people today who would balk at a comparison between Meghan Markle and Carolyn Bessette,” writes Hallemann in The Kennedys & the Windsors, out today. But, she notes, in the aftermath of Oprah’s bombshell interview with the Sussexes, Carole Radziwill—Anthony Radziwill widow and a close friend of the Kennedys—tweeted, “I love how people say Meghan knew what she was getting into…people said the same thing about Carolyn Bessette when she married into the Kennedy family. You could never know. Meghan said it right the perception is nothing like the reality.”
John’s friend and former executive assistant RoseMarie Terenzio agreed with Radziwill, Hallemann writes, and saw the similarities between their situations. “As humans, we sit there and say, ‘We think we know what to expect.’ But when you get there, there are surprises,” RoseMarie says. “It was something that she was not prepared for, not because she didn’t know who John was. It doesn’t matter what’s in your head, when you’re experiencing it, your emotions and your entire being has the experience. So, you could sit there and say that about anything. I could read a book about skiing, but if I’ve never skied, I really don’t know what it’s like.”
Hallemann writes, “Just as America felt a protectiveness for, and an ownership of, John’s life, and the right to an opinion on his choice in a partner, the UK—and more broadly the world—felt similarly about Harry—and, for that matter, Prince William. An emotional attachment exists, and for some, a parasocial relationship. The sad twelve-year-old forced to walk behind his mother’s coffin had grown up and found happiness, and the public was invested in that love story, but they also felt they were owed a certain amount of access to what they imagined to be his fairy-tale life.”
“The comparison was obvious, because I saw how hard it was for Carolyn. It was just so hard for her,” John’s close friend Sasha Chermayeff told Hallemann. “Immediately, I picked up on the fact that the way that Meghan was being judged, and had to be, and was under that immediate pressure, that the most important thing was to satisfy this image for this family, which is representing something larger.”
Watching Love Story, I picked up on the parallels between the tragedies in John and Harry’s childhoods and how those tragedies affected their relationships and marriages. It made me appreciate the fact that Meghan has always had a real maturity about what Harry has gone through. Even when they had their big fight early in their relationship, Meghan didn’t storm out or dump him – she told him that his words were unacceptable and that (basically) the only way she would stick around is if he got therapy. That probably saved his life. As everyone is saying in this piece, the parallels go much further. But… the Kennedys never really set out to destroy John and Carolyn, which the Windsors have tried to do to H&M.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
