Carole Radziwill Opens Up About Devastating Losses and Hollywood Portrayal
Carole Radziwill was only 36 years old when she endured an unimaginable triple tragedy, losing her closest companions within a mere three-week span. Her husband Anthony Radziwill, alongside her best friends John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette, all passed away in the summer of 1999, leaving Carole to navigate profound grief. Now 62, the Emmy-winning journalist and former Real Housewives of New York City star has shared poignant reflections on these relationships and her surprising exclusion from the recent television adaptation, Love Story.
A Bond Forged in Friendship and Family
Carole's connection to the Kennedy circle was deeply personal. She married Anthony Radziwill, a cousin of JFK Jr. and nephew of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, after meeting him at ABC where both worked in production. The couple dated for two years before integrating into the family, eventually renting a summer home in the Hamptons with John and Carolyn in 1992. This proximity fostered an intimate friendship, with the men serving as best men at each other's weddings and the women forming a supportive sisterhood.
In a new interview with The New York Times, Carole highlighted Carolyn's unwavering support during Anthony's prolonged battle with cancer. "She would just be my rock," Carole recalled. "She was there for me all the time." Anthony had been diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1989, entered remission, but faced a recurrence of fibrosarcoma—a fatal bone cancer—shortly before their 1994 wedding. For five years, Carole acted as his primary caregiver, with John and Carolyn providing constant emotional bolstering.
The Catastrophic Summer of 1999
The sequence of losses began on July 16, 1999, when a small plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard. Onboard were Carolyn and her sister Lauren Bessette, all perishing instantly. Carole described receiving a late-night call from a friend awaiting the couple's arrival and subsequently contacting air traffic control and the Coast Guard to report them missing. "Once I said that out loud to the Coast Guard and made the missing persons report, I knew that this was a real thing. That was a heartbreaking moment," she told People in 2017.
Just three weeks later, Anthony succumbed to cancer in Carole's arms at a New York hospital. In her memoir, What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love, she wrote of listening to his fading heartbeat until it disappeared. Reflecting on the cumulative impact, Carole stated, "We were all unbelievably close. Their deaths brought me to my knees," characterizing the events as "soul-crushing."
Omission from Love Story and Defending Legacies
The release of Ryan Murphy's nine-part FX and Hulu series Love Story, which dramatizes the romance between JFK Jr. (played by Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon), has reignited public fascination with Carole's relationship to the Kennedys. Despite her centrality to their lives, Carole is entirely absent from the adaptation. Producers justified this by stating she was "adjacent, not central" to the plot, with one adding, "You can’t include everyone who attended the dinners. Audiences want the love story. That’s the engine."
Carole expressed frustration over this narrative erasure, noting that she has spent years rebutting misconceptions about JFK Jr., Carolyn, and Anthony. "Defending Carolyn and talking about my husband was a hill I was going to die on," she asserted. "But honestly, I didn’t think that 25 years later, it would become a mountain." A Hollywood insider remarked to Y! Entertainment, "For someone who values that Kennedy proximity, being left out of the definitive retelling? That’s a hard pill."
Adding to the surreal experience, Carole discovered that an ex-boyfriend—who remains unnamed—auditioned to portray Anthony in the series. She recalled pulling over her car to collect herself upon hearing the news, describing it as an "eyebrow-raising moment."
Life Beyond Tragedy: Career and Reality TV
Following Anthony's death, Carole channeled her experiences into a bestselling memoir in 2005, which spent 12 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. She later authored a column for Glamour Magazine and joined the cast of The Real Housewives of New York City in 2011, remaining until 2018. Her tenure was marked by dramatic friendships, notably a fallout with Bethenny Frankel, and a relationship with chef Adam Kenworthy, who was over two decades her junior.
Carole exited the show after a public dispute with producer Andy Cohen, citing a desire to return to journalism. However, in a surprising turn, she is set to reappear as a "friend" in the upcoming 16th season. Throughout her varied career, Carole has maintained that the bonds she shared with John, Carolyn, and Anthony were foundational, writing after their deaths, "I lost everything that night." She reminisced about their planned dinners and trips, emphasizing Carolyn's role as "the glue who kept people together" during challenging times.
