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- [00:00]
Unknown Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
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- [00:35]
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- [01:21]
George Severis
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- [01:30]
Unknown Host
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- [02:40]
Lyra Smith
What's the first thing you think of when I say Carolyn Bessette Kennedy this.
- [02:44]
Glynis McNichol
Is, you know, 12th hand news, but I do remember Reading that their relationship was such that she was in constant communication with him and would call his office because, you know, I guess this was before texting and emails and things. So she would call constantly, little check ins, hey, How Are yous? And even things like sharing what she had for lunch. You know, like the early version of sending 72 texts in a row. I think that she was a normal person who got in over her head. I think about my own relationship, and I have been known to text my husband really dumb things over and over again. And thank God there is not an assistant who's having to intercept this communication.
- [03:44]
George Severis
I'm George Severis. I'm Lyra Smith, and this is United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Each week we go into one aspect of the Kennedy story, and today we're talking about Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. So Carolyn was JFK Jr. S wife of almost three years until they both died tragically in a plane crash in 1999. And JFK Jr. Was, of course, JFK and Jackie's only son. So let's start at the beginning. Lyra, who was Carolyn?
- [04:15]
Lyra Smith
Well, what is so wild about Carolyn is that we really don't know which version of her is the truth. When she started dating JFK Jr. She was not a celebrity. And overnight she became this huge star of the tabloids. And that coverage was, of course, like, pretty nasty usually, and only interested in the most, like, salacious and misogynistic takes.
- [04:41]
George Severis
And JFK Jr. Had already dated, like, Sarah Jessica Parker, Daryl Hannah, Madonna. I mean, she was in this, like, long lineage of women that the tabloids became obsessed with because they were dating JFK Jr. Of course, the difference being all. All those other women were already celebrities and already famous and had, like, maybe a team around them, had some sort of, you know, experience with fame that. That she did not. So there's Carolyn. She's the new girlfriend. And then meanwhile, JFK Jr. Was America's prince and people's sexiest man alive. And he was sort of portrayed as, like, a dumb hunk that Carolyn was taking advantage of. And listen, yes, he did famously fail the bar exam twice, but I don't think this media narrative was exactly substantiated. So on the one hand, Carolyn is portrayed as this villain, as this unhinged party girl in the tabloids, but then on the flip side, everything that was written about her after her death, especially the biographies that were written about her, kind of go too far in the opposite direction. They're, like, overly protective of her image. They try to overcorrect and they paint her as this perfect woman that was caught in circumstances that were outside her, her control. Or they paint her as this like fashion icon and the world's most fashionable angel.
- [05:52]
Lyra Smith
And people to this day are still free to apply their own assumptions on to her because Carolyn never gave a single interview. She was very private. And there are only two clips of her voice that exist online, which is wild. Here's the first one.
- [06:10]
Unknown Host
At the glamorous Fire and Ice ball.
- [06:12]
In Hollywood, she went with cousins in law Maria and Bobby Shriver and told ET she enjoyed herself.
- [06:17]
It was very exciting, wonderful evening. Yeah.
- [06:20]
George Severis
What was your highlight?
- [06:21]
Unknown Host
For me the entire evening was spectacular. There's no highlight.
- [06:24]
Lyra Smith
Here's the second one.
- [06:25]
Unknown Host
I think it's sort of fabulous. I hope they're all sitting with me.
- [06:28]
George Severis
So that's it. That's all we have of Carolyn. And her actual words are almost beside the point here because there are so many enduring images of her that defined who she was to the American public. I honestly think no matter how much she spoke, she would not be able to escape the images that are burned into Americans heads. So we have Carolyn fighting with JFK Jr. In Washington Square park, which is rough.
- [06:52]
Lyra Smith
Have you looked at it recently?
- [06:55]
George Severis
I had not looked at it until we started doing research for this episode. And it is, I mean there is something very kind of vintage tabloid video about it. I mean, sure, it's hard to be shocked by something nowadays, but you know, you think people had a lower tolerance for drama back then, but you'd be wrong.
- [07:14]
Lyra Smith
Well, it's just like, yeah, it's like tabloid but it's also like almost like cinematic. Like he rips the ring off of her finger and then the way she's like pushing on him is like so inappropriate. Like when it first starts you're kind of like, oh yeah, that's so embarrassing. Like I've definitely been in a fight with a significant other and it's been like an embarrassing place. And you know, you're hoping nobody notices, but then it just keeps going.
- [07:44]
George Severis
It does almost seem staged. It seems like, you know, if you saw a video like that now you would be saying those celebrities are just trying to get attention.
- [07:52]
Lyra Smith
That's true. It's very Heidi and Spencer looking.
- [07:55]
George Severis
So let's sort of situate ourselves in space and time. We are talking like mid to late 90s New York City. JFK Jr. Is like we said, the most eligible bachelor in New York. He's this hot, well dressed guy. He's dating all these celebrities. He's living in Tribeca. He's founding a magazine. He is like the coolest bachelor out there. And he also is not surrounded by security people. He is constantly biking throughout the city. He's almost like a 90s version of Prince Charming.
- [08:27]
Lyra Smith
And then Carolyn was one of these people that was famous without social media, but she kind of inhabited the space of an influencer anyway, the way that she was on the weekly, you know, grocery store tabloid magazines. And she was kind of a representative of what this, like, gorgeous, chic Manhattan woman looked like in 90s New York.
- [08:53]
George Severis
Which is actually eerily similar to what many wannabe chic New York women have looked like over the last few years, which is why the New York Times actually called her a, quote, ghost influencer because of her outsized impact on fashion and culture. So to help us make sense of Carolyn's life and legacy, today we're talking to journalist and writer Glynis McNichol. Galenis latest memoir is called I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself. And she's written about culture, politics, and fashion for the New York Times, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, and a bunch of other places. But for our purposes, the main reason we wanted to talk to her is because of a Town and country article she wrote in 2016 called who was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy? The woman who married John F. Kennedy Jr. Remains a one woman fashion cult and an enigma. All right, so, Glynis, you are here to talk to us a little bit about JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette. JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette as media figures, as tabloid fixtures, as pop culture figures, as like, you know, sort of ghost influencers, as Vanessa Friedman called Carolyn in the pages of the New York Times.
- [09:55]
Unknown Host
Such a good phrase.
- [09:57]
George Severis
It really is. And so I want, before we get really into it, I want to know, you know, you write about a very wide variety of topics. You've written two memoirs, you have written stuff for the Times, you've written about culture, you've written about fashion. But Carolyn is someone that you sort of have returned to many times in your career. And I wonder what you think that, why you think that is. What do you think? What. What draws you to her?
- [10:23]
Unknown Host
Yeah, so I've written about a lot of topics. And then in 2016, I did a thing about Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, which, as my recollection was, went extremely viral and I think was sort of one of the first pieces to look at her as a standalone figure and, you know, what she represented and also what her life was like when she was alive. And I lived in New York when they were married. You know, I arrived in New York in the late 90s, shortly after they were married. And it's hard to overstate the degree to which she captivated everyone's attention. I mean you, I really think you could walk around New York and figure out everyone who was alive here at the time by like the absence of their eyebrows, because everyone lost their eyebrows within like a year of that wedding. You know, she was just so all consuming. And I think, you know, it's been notable to me like when we talk about her Salah, maybe I'm jumping ahead, but I think it's hard to overstate now how shocking she was, how shocking her appearance was in 1996. I have the clearest memory of, you know, people, people who lived in New York, that this is pre the Internet. You know, New York was a much more sort of secular, sealed place separate from America. So I think there was people in the fashion industry who obviously knew who she was because she was head of public relations for Calvin Klein. And there was people in sort of the downtown set of New York who knew she was, but nationally and globally, no one had any idea who she was. So they secretly get married on the island, you know, off the Georgian coast. And that photo on the COVID of every newspaper the next day of her in the wedding dress and him kissing her hand was like a literal stop the presses moment. No one had seen anything that looked like her. She was so new. Like, I remember watching a Sunday show, the Sunday political shows, which in the 90s was like David Brinkley with like Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson, you know, and George Will. And they stopped the show to announce the wedding is how sort of like electrifying it was. And then, you know, two weeks later she appears on the doorstep in Tribeca of their apartment. Sort of like JFK Jr. Does that very, I think, hopeful introduction of like, here's my wife, please leave her alone. Which of course feels like ludicrous. So I just asked any, you know, privacy and that the room you can.
- [13:00]
George Severis
Give her, she makes that adjustment.
- [13:02]
Unknown Host
So thanks, we really appreciate it. And they step outside and she had on those knee high Prada boots and that tan Prada skirt and that V neck. And now we look at it and it looks like like a chic New York woman who maybe works in, you know, Vogue magazine or whatever. At the time, it looked like she'd arrived from Mars. Like you just. It looked like nothing the world had seen unless you were a person who really paid attention to style and fashion. And in those days when you did, you know, you're still getting the Runway reports, you know, four months later, and maybe you're watching fashion television, you know, shout out to Jeannie Becker forever. But like, you're getting such a delayed version of it. And it's such a niche thing that to have something like that go global was just stunning, you know, and it rearranged the entire wedding industry. I remember arriving in New York and immediately buying knee high boots. Like, it was just sort of like. And I could not look less like Carolyn Bessette. Like, I was just like, you're talking about a tall, thin woman with like straight, white, blonde, you know, buttery chunks. The famous phrase. You can always tell when someone lived in New York at the time too, because they. You say buttery chunks, it's like a password, you know, it's like a code word for how her hair was described. But like, you saw these women who are like trying to embody this image of this woman who they looked nothing, nothing like. And it was just sort of just amazing and amazingly original. And what's so interesting to me about the originality of it is how it, it's now like a timeless style, you know, now it just looks like, like, you know, quiet luxury. Or in those days it was called minimalism. But at the time it just felt like an electric. Like you've been hit by lightning.
- [14:47]
Lyra Smith
Honestly, what were people used to seeing, like, what was like street style before?
- [14:53]
Unknown Host
So I. Interesting. Unless you lived in New York, I mean, what your street saw was like dependent on the neighborhood you lived in because of course you're getting this broadcast like everything is so delayed. You're dependent on magazines. And if you're outside sort of the New York indie magazine scene, you know, you're looking to Vogue was, you know, you. I have entire issues of Vogue committed to memory. You'd run to the magazine store, you'd get it in the mail, and it would be the thing you would have for a month. And I remember when W magazine launched or relaunched sort of in the mid-90s with that bigger format and it looked, it was so interesting because it had sort of a different vibe and it felt edgier. And Kate Moss, of course, was, you know, the edgy model at the time, and a lot of it was coming through music videos. So you're looking at sort of the, you know, the grunge era of the early 90s, which was fun and very, you know, like Winona Ryder and And, you know, Ethan Hawkman and not say anything. What was their famous reality? Reality Bites. But so this comes along and it's like, well, and then of course, she's on the arm of JFK Jr. Who, even if you're not a Kennedy, you know, I'm Canadian. And so I was. This was all coming to me at university in Vancouver, you know, in 1996. And like, you have a vague awareness of what the Kennedys mean. And he had launched George magazine, you know, a year earlier. But you don't really understand the vernacular of all this because we did not have access to information in the same way. So you just are responding to all this much differently. And like parsing little phrases in vogue. Like the early. The opening pages of Vogue were sort of, I guess, an early version of street style. But they were really peopled by like, Upper east side socialites. Like, my knowledge of Upper east side socialites in 1996 is bizarrely comprehensive because they still wielded power in a way that they absolutely do not know. And so that I think because of that, she sort of blasted onto the scene in this very clean image. It's interesting to me that these three women that I think dominated the second half of the 90s were all new York based and all came through Calvin Klein to some degree. Right. You've got Kate Moss who was sort of grungy but was making that shift in the mid-90s. Gwynis came up. And again, Gwyneth's another person who was much more. People were much more aware of within New York because she was a New Yorker who went to Spence. Remember when I lived in Williamsburg in the late 90s, all these spence graduates who were sort of rebelling against their family by moving to Brooklyn all had a lot of opinions about Gwyneth because they rubbed shoulders with her at Spence at some time. So you had like this insular world of New York colliding with sort of a global awareness. But I think Carolyn, more than Gwyneth, had a very like a strict. Almost an armor. She shifted. You know, she left Calvin Klein six months before the wedding, quit her job and never appeared in Calvin again. Right. Like, she shifted and started almost exclusively wearing Yoji and Prada after that, which is a really mature fashion decisions that you weren't seeing. I mean, Gwyneth is, you know, 10 years or how many years younger, was much more in sort of like experimenting. But they all came through this, you know, this Calvin Klein machine to some degree. And it's worth remembering that in the mid-90s, Calvin was the most powerful fashion person, you know, not just in America, in the world. And, you know, those famous white offices, I think they were at 60th and I want to say Madison and, like, rumor had it that he had. There was, like, the beautiful floor at Calvin that everyone had to work on. That floor had to be beautiful. And, like, Carolyn was ruling the roost, and she was his muse. And so there's all, you know, the insider gossip that you would get, you would brush up again, that would have made no sense to anyone else, you know, outside the confines of a rather insular world at the time.
- [18:49]
George Severis
Sure. The Youji stuff is so interesting because you sort of. You think of her as such an icon of, like, a certain kind of preppiness, and then you realize she's wearing Youji. She's wearing these, like, avant garde Japanese things, like on the red carpet of, like, a gala or something, which she.
- [19:06]
Unknown Host
Almost never went to. But to your point, just to stick with the thread, like, when you look at the transition, she sort of went. Even with her hair, like, she sort of went through this sort of carefree, relaxed image when she was dating JFK Jr and almost immediately overnight, the dressing becomes very strict, and it's. I almost. I liken it to, like, an armor. Like, she was. So it's hard to imagine that even with preparation, anyone's prepared for the kind of spotlight that she had thrust on her and the cruelty of it. I mean, that famous Newsweek cover story which literally dissected her bit by bit, and her appearance and what she done, it was very. I mean, really think of the 90s as progressive, and it was in comparison to what preceded it. But it's really. It's so regressive and just, you know, and you. It's easier to imagine that she. That clothes for her became like, almost a literal protective shell because she stops almost showing skin.
- [20:05]
Lyra Smith
Yeah, that's. I mean, and that's like a big part of understanding this place and time now is that we have an idea. Like, we grew up with paparazzi shots being, like, the norm and having, I guess, kind of this, like, assumption that that's part of the deal. You're. You're signing up for this public life, and that means that you have not just less privacy or limited privacy. It means you have absolutely no more privacy. I mean, the way that we live today with paparazzi, like, in trees, using zoom lens to, like, get actresses tanning in their backyard. Like, I don't know, it's just. There's absolutely Nothing. And it reminds me of one of the criticisms or talking points around Harry and Megan is that people would say, didn't you know what you were signing up for? Which I. It's, like, not even necessarily fair in that respect, because it's. Yeah, you don't know what it's like to join the royal family, but this is our royal family, right?
- [21:07]
George Severis
And Carolyn was sort of understanding what she, quote, unquote, signed up for in real time. Like, one of the. In our research, one of the things we were reading about is, like, how Princess Diana's death was so. I mean, it was shocking for everyone, but it was, like, so shocking for her because she sort of saw her own future as she was, like, signing.
- [21:26]
Unknown Host
Up for this completely.
- [21:45]
George Severis
I really want to talk more about the fashion stuff, but I want to take a step back a little bit and just talk about, you know, where Carolyn came from. So, you know, the three it girls you mentioned, Gwyneth is Hollywood royalty. Kate Moss is obviously a supermodel. She's also British, which always carries a sort of glamour for an American audience. Carolyn is neither of those things. Like, where did Carolyn come from and how did she land in New York?
- [22:08]
Unknown Host
An interesting side note to that. You know, Kate Moss and Carolyn Bessette lived in the same apartment building at the same time in Greenwich Village. And when they were. When she was dating Michael Bergen and Kate Moss was dating Johnny Depp, which I always think it's like, right next door to Mario Batali's restaurant, whatever it is, down on just beside Washington Square Park. But Carolyn came from. Her mother divorced her father. I think she was born in White Plains. They moved to Greenwich, Connecticut. Her mom was a schoolteacher. Her stepfather was a doctor. She had two older sisters, one of whom obviously died in the plane crash with them, who were twins. And both her older sisters were incredibly successful in their fields. One is an academic and one was an academic or a business person, and the other is an academic. And Carolyn, by all accounts, was, you know, the popular girl in school who didn't excel necessarily at academics. Didn't fail at it either, by all accounts, but, like, was not. Was not operating at that sort of high level, but excelled at personal skills. Goes to university, Boston University, majors in childcare, which is sort of amusing, like, but also as a grown up. Now you look back and you're like. You see a person who's like, I don't know, sounding, you know, like that sort of like what that thing we might have all experienced and who gets a job upon graduation at A mall in Boston working for Calvin Klein where she is scouted by Paul Wilmot, I think, who was an exec at Calvin Klein at the time and sort of hightails it. They bring her to Manhattan because they clearly recognize somebody who has bigger fish to fry. And she, she's quite young still, right? She was only 33 when she died. So if you backtrack this timeline, she's in her mid-20s, gets brought down to New York, installed as a VIP shopper for high end clients. Which I keep going back to this, but at the time this was reported, I highly doubt anyone outside the confines of a very wealthy strata even understood what that meant. Now, of course, we all have a different language for this, but like she's waiting on, you know, Annette Bening and Diane Sawyer. And in the early articles they would reflect on like, you'd walk in and she was a brunette at this time still, you know, she had like long flowy hair and would wear leggings and a white button down and everybody would try and want to look like her. And she quickly rises up the ranks of Calvin Klein execs from shop girl to head of publicity who's running the shows and setting all this up, like at lightning speed. It's really extraordinary to think that by the time she's sort of 27 years old and within five years she goes from working in a mall in Boston to being the head of publicity for the Most Influential and like hip and like cool. Like Calvin's so cool at this time and so edgy, where she's like running these enormous shows. And that is, you know, I think that speaks to a person who. I think we all know these people who were meant to be in New York, right? Like a person who excels at being a New Yorker and is, you know, by all accounts, you know, quite well known in the downtown scene, is dating Michael Bergen, who was the big supermodel. You know, there's that famous. Candace Bushnell invites Michael Bergen over to her apartment for one of those early Sex and the Cities columns she does for the New York observer. And starting, you know, he's the hottest guy and, you know, insinuates that they. She sleeps with him. If you go back and read that piece, it's quite. I think it's still on the website, but like, so like she's in, she's in the zeitgeist. And there's. I know more has come out recently, but there was all these varying stories of how her and JFK Jr. Met. Like he came in to Go shopping or they met in Central park and he was still dating Daryl Hannah at the time. And then they dated a bit and then they broke up. You know, like there was a sort of, you know, back and forth with it.
- [25:53]
George Severis
And her and Daryl Hannah overlapped quite a bit. Right? It was like in.
- [25:57]
Unknown Host
And yes, because there's the first photo of her and JFK Jr. They're at the like 1992 marathon sitting on a sidewalk. And then cut to, you know, then Jackie, I think, is diagnosed and he goes back to Daryl. Who knows how many people JFK. I mean, he's JFK Jr. I don't think he was a player necessarily, but clearly not lacking for a lot of attention. So he goes back to Daryl Hannah and then I think it gets a little cloudy after that. Like, who's to say what actually happens? But. But clearly he's compelled by her, right? Like, she's not necessarily chasing him in a way that I imagine had to have been very attractive for a person who is used to being chased. And I think too, maybe this is common knowledge, but like JFK Jr. Was very much, very accessible on the streets of New York. He rollerbladed or rode his bike everywhere. They notably, I mean, for all the struggles she had after the marriage with attention. They never left that Tribeca apartment, which didn't have a doorman. You know, like, he had really rejected that Upper east side Upper. And I think I might have written this somewhere, but when I was a waitress in Greenwich Village, the chef who ran the kitchen used to talk about how nice JFK Jr. Was. He would come into the restaurant for like, just stand at the bar and have a beer and talk up the basketball game. He was very much tried to insinuate himself into the day to day of New York. And even after they were married, she would show up to dinner dressed to the nines, stepping out of a cab, and he would show up on his bike with like his bike lock wrapped across his suit. So, you know, he was very. New Yorkers really loved him and how they eventually committed to one another. I think he was under enormous pressure at that. It's funny to think of now because we think of age differently, but he was 30 or when they started dating or 31, it's like, why aren't you married yet? Aren't you a serious person? And you know, that sort of thing. But I think from when they finally got together, it. She moved in pretty quickly and, and, but she. And they were engaged somewhat quickly. I think that timeline is, you know, who knows what the specifics are.
- [27:58]
Lyra Smith
That trajectory is so wild. I feel like if it was in a movie, you wouldn't believe it. Like, it just couldn't be. Like, it would take you out of it. And it is like, also, we. We learned that in her high school superlatives, they invented a new category for her that was the ultimate beautiful person.
- [28:21]
Unknown Host
Right. Which it's interesting to me too. If you look back at those photos, she doesn't necessarily. She looks like a suburban Catholic school girl with long hair. Right. She doesn't stop you dead in your tracks. And so I think when you hear superlatives attached to her, even early on, you recognize so much of what was compelling about her was in person and her personality and how she made people feel in real life that sometimes was not conveyed through the camera. And of course, she never gave an interview. There's only like four seconds of her voice ever on record. So to extrapolate from those responses to her, I think it begins to make more sense why he had such a reaction to her and, like, why that might be so attractive to him to have such an alive person as a person who was used to being the subject of so much attention and who grew up, you know, I mean, he grew up on 1040 Fifth Avenue for the most part. Right. Like, I think that you can really see, like, attaching onto the lifeblood of what she clearly brought. Because you don't succeed at Calvin or Fashion in those days without having, you know, an enormous ability to be personable and deal with, you know, complicated, high profile people, like, really thinking that through. I think. I don't think she ever gets enough credit for the success that she achieved before she became, you know, his wife.
- [29:51]
Lyra Smith
Just think. Yeah. To think about how good she had to be at what she did.
- [29:55]
Unknown Host
And in that New York. Right. In that highly charged New York environment where people wielded so much power and not a lot of. There wasn't a lot of accountability. Right. Like, to really operate in those. In that world.
- [30:07]
George Severis
I also want to talk a little bit about the kind of, like, media portrayal of Carolyn. I mean, one of the passages in your Town and Country article was just that, I mean, it says you say she was, quote, forced into the multitude of unforgiving tropes for public women. The scheming girlfriend, the coked up vixen, the miserable spouse. And it's funny, I was the. I was reading what you wrote now a few years later, and I feel like it was. I don't know if you. If this was conscious or not. But it was during this time, you wrote it during this time when there was a real appetite for reevaluating, like women in the 90s and how they were treated by the press. It was very like, how did we treat Monica Lewinsky? How did we treat Princess Diana? How did we treat, you know, whoever else? And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about, like, the kind of media archetypes that she fit into.
- [30:57]
Unknown Host
Sure, yeah. That time when I wrote it, you know, Hillary, I remember the date of publication, but it was when Hillary was running against Trump. And I think we were having a real cultural, you know, for lack of a better phrase, come to Jesus moment about how so many women had been put through the grinder, Hillary included. On the one hand, Carolyn was introduced to many people because her and JFK Jr. Had a huge fight in Washington Square Park, I believe, where it got like they were pushing each other and he ripped the ring off her finger and like, it looked physical, but physical. Like more physical on her part than on his. And to your earlier point about sort of tabloid press, the mid-90s was the beginnings of that truly invasive tabloid press. And they got caught. You know, I think George Rush said, I don't remember what they got for that video, but it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in the mid-90s, and inside edition ran it. And so to make that, to emerge into a public consciousness in that manner, I think was something she probably struggled to overcome. In addition to that, it's, I think, necessary to recall that the whole world had known, had been introduced to John F. Kennedy Jr. As the little boy salutes his father at the assassination. And that moment was so like, we are having sort of similar reactions to Harry and William in terms of the funeral procession. Right? Like you, you feel a protective nature over them. And so it's like she emerged into a world with like a global mother in law, right? Like, it's like everybody has an opinion. And then in addition to that, I think because she never gave an interview, which you sort of understand as a way to maintain control, she sort of is, you know, Garbo esque in a way that she then becomes a blank slate for culture to put assumptions onto. And where narratives of women are concerned, we have still fairly narrow ones that you can see playing out still, you know, and you can see people embodying. So she is the, you know, the, the catty, angry girlfriend in the video. She then becomes the. Is she good enough to marry JFK Jun junior let's take her apart. Piece by piece. And by the way, she's not ingratiating herself to the world in any way that makes the world sympathetic. She comes out of a Manhattan fashion world that is both appealing and mystifying. But to the so called middle of the country, which I think often gets a bad rap, is like elite and inaccessible. And you combine all of these things with this very carefully curated appearance and you don't have someone who is projecting an image that make people want to be protective or friends with her or have warm feelings towards her. You've both taken the sort of the image of JFK Jr. Of everyone's prince Charming, attached it to a woman who has no interest in making things easier for you. And it's like the comments. It was so interesting to me after the, after the plane crash that these articles suddenly emerged about like these sort of nice articles about Carolyn. They weren't even that nice at the time either, but there was sort of these sympathet articles and I was like, wow, it takes this violent end to her life for anyone to have something nice. And you know, I don't know how many close female friends she had, but everybody around them clammed up immediately. Like, I think it speaks to both of them that no one, the, the degree of silence around them by anyone who knew them personally lasted nearly 25 years, which I think doesn't. It's not out of fear, but I think there was a. In the people in their lives did feel protective about both of them. So. So when you offer people an outline of a woman and say, you know, fill this up with whatever you think applies, you're, you know, we have very familiar tropes that we see play out over reality television constantly. Right? Like she's sort of a reality television in real life and Diana was the same way. And I think Diana lived longer and began to wield a lot of power from her position, using some of those tropes to her advantage. But of course, Carolyn and John were only married for a thousand days. You know, like she barely had time. As much PR experience as she brought to that role, she barely had time to sort of own it or find her way around it before it was over.
- [35:26]
Lyra Smith
You can't win in that position. And it does seem like she knew that.
- [35:31]
Unknown Host
What woman has ever won in that position? Like when we look at all famous women, Jackie was loathed, you know, and she was criticized during the marriage to the President. She was loathed obviously during the Onassis marriage to a degree. You know, I think with everything Controversial. And you can expand this, extrapolate this out to many more figures. Muhammad Ali, you can extrapolate it out to buildings like, we have such nostalgia for the World Trade Center. People hated the world, the Twin Towers, when they were built. Like, it's just the key to getting people's love is just to survive for a long period of time until they can't get rid of you and suddenly decide they like you. And she was so briefly here and clearly was not a personality who was interested in making things easy for the world and good on her. But I mean, I think it made things much more difficult. And, you know, JFK Jr. Seemed like a reasonably nice person, but he was also a person of enormous privilege who'd, you know, lived in this world his whole life. And I don't know how much family support she received around this experience. Cause you're still coming at a time where it was like, fit, you know, march to the drum. I think similar to probably what Diana experienced with the Royal family in a slightly different way, probably, but overwhelmingly so. Yeah.
- [36:45]
George Severis
I mean, you mentioned Jackie as another woman who sort of was both built up and torn down by the press. I mean, she was also, despite all the criticism, was a real international media star. Like, I've talked about this with Lyra a lot, but my family is Greek. And during the Onassis era, like, everyone in my family talks about how big of a deal it was that Jackie O. Was in Greece and that she was like. She, like, at some point, you know, you know, would say positive things about Greece and positive things about the history, and it was such an honor that she was in the country, whatever. But the relationship between Jackie and Carolyn is interesting because. Well, first of all, there was none. They famously never met. But also there was this enduring idea that part of what drew JFK Jr. To Carolyn was her similarities with his mother. Like, her being this, like, strong willed woman and, you know, independent and all this stuff. But at the same time, she. The rumor was that she disapproved of the relationship. So what is your, like, conception of the relationship between the two?
- [37:44]
Unknown Host
Did Jackie have an opinion about Carolyn Macet? I struggle. We know that Jackie was not, you know, over the moon about the Daryl Hannah relationship. Because as much as Jackie, John wanted to be an actor. Jackie was like, you know, absolutely not. This is not the direction this is going. I mean, I do think everyone has agency over their lives. But I do think, like, on the grand scope of how Kennedy children have turned out, John and Caroline Kennedy both turned out pretty well. And that speaks to sort of Jackie's, you know, resolve in their upbringing. I would be highly skeptical if Jackie had any opinion about Carolyn Bissette. I think he was still with Daryl, for all intents purposes, while Jackie was dying. She was diagnosed and died very quickly. I think it was like six months from the diagnosis to her death. So I don't know. I think those are. Jackie herself was such an enormous figure. I think those narratives are easy for people to put on in hindsight or even at the time as just like, easy narratives. But I would be skeptical if there was any relationship. I think probably the fact she wasn't a famous person and had a real job would have been very appealing. And I imagine Carolyn, the set probably suffered for not having Jackie's around as a sort of guide or like an entree and that Lee Radwell or protector. Exactly. Or even just like opening the door to that Upper east side society. And I think, you know, Lee Radswell did do that to some degree or tried to. But I think sometimes, you know, that book that came out about Carolyn Doucet last year, like the Happily Ever after, whatever it's called, I. I always think that we don't do justice to women when we take away, that they might be like, deeply complicated and sometimes not very likable. Right. Like, who's to say to be the person who takes themselves from, you know, the suburbs of Greenwich to the upper echelon of Calvin Klein and marries John F. K Jr. Who's to say the decisions you're making are like the power. You're clearly a person attracted to power who is making powerful decisions. And, you know, manipulative gets such a bad rap as a word attached to women. But like a person who sees who's moving with intention and like, taking that away from her and making her seem like this sort of like, golden figure, I think really diminishes what is so interesting and compelling to her. Maybe her and Jackie would have hated each other. Like, who knows? Who knows? I think her and Caroline Kennedy did not get along well, but who even knows the nature of that, Right? Like, like, it's. It's so like, Carolyn was probably making choices too, and not probably. She definitely was. But it's also notable to me, like, she had this entree into society, so called New York society that she had. She was familiar with because as a VIP shopper and someone with Calvin Klein, she obviously knew all of these people and she made no effort to step into that role whatsoever. Like, not, not, not joining a board not joining a fundraiser, not doing any of the work that you associate with the Upper east side, for lack of a better term. And, like, her refusal to participate in that also speaks volumes. Was it claustrophobia? Was it agoraphobia? Is it, like, I have no interest in this world? Like, what was she doing? She basically disappeared into that apartment for three years. You can count. You don't need two hands to count. The events that she went to, some of which were funerals, like, it's really intense. The degree to which she silenced herself after that wedding. Like, to go from being so successful to just literally disappearing makes me sad for her. And, like, in a way of, like, is there. Are we talking about, like, depression or anxiety in a way that we didn't have a language for at the time or all of these other things that is complicated to attach to a person you've never met? But, like, it was so severe. And then, you know, Candice Bergen had that theory that pops up in one of her novels. Novels, the Four Blondes. There was, like, a Carolyn Bessette figure in that book. And who was complaining that the paparazzi never, or magazines never published a photo of her smiling, which is very true. The first photo of her smiling, like, appears, not including the wedding photo, appears in, like, 1999, two months before they died. Like, in what? Now that we all have access to Getty Images archives, you can see that that's not always the case, that she looked unhappy and, like, angry. But you can see there was choices being made to attach this, you know, emotion to her, that Candice Bergen look. I mean, we don't have to put this in the podcast, but when that Happily Ever after book, or Princess, whatever the book was, that was the bestseller last year came out. And the prologue was like, I lived in New York at the time, but like most people, I wasn't paying attention to Carolyn Bissett. And I was like, I can't read the rest of this book. You have no idea what you're talking about.
- [42:27]
George Severis
Well, honestly, it's funny. We were, like, sort of brainstorming people for this episode, and either you either have the sort of, like, vulturous tabloid people that, you know, get off on gossip and whatever else, or you have on the other side exactly what you're saying. Like, this completely intellectually dishonest, like, a counter, you know, like, over correction, where it's like, she was an angel, and she was, like, the perfect woman, and she was silenced by the media, which is not. Also not true.
- [42:59]
Unknown Host
Not true at all. I Don't think. I mean, I'd be so much more interested to hear. You can find it in Instagram comments sometimes. What's her name? Liz. What's her name does all the sort of nostalgia Instagram posts, and she did that podcast with Arlo Levy. If you go into the comments of her posts, sometimes you can find former co workers at Calvin Klein who are like, yeah, she was a lot to deal with. But of course, nobody wants to be the person I remember talking to, like, someone who went to college with her. It was a mutual. Who was a friend of mine who would never go on the record saying stuff, but she was like. Like, she was like a very compelling person, but also she was a lot to deal with and like that. As a grownup who's lived in New York for a long time, you. You understand what that means, and you understand what. Who the people are who succeed in this city and how they succeed. And all due respect to those people, but those complicated figures, particularly where beautiful women are concerned, do not translate to the world at large in easy ways.
- [44:02]
George Severis
Yeah, it's funny, like, there's this idea of the eternal unknowability of Carolyn Bissett. But honestly, and I'm sure you agree with this, there are so many people we know in New York that are actually pretty similar or are trying to be very similar. It's like it's such a type. I mean, it's like it is a type of person I know and I interact with. And it's like people that, when you first meet them, they're a little rude to you. And you're like, did I do something? But then you sort. But then someone tells you, oh, no, she's just like that.
- [44:26]
Unknown Host
Exactly.
- [44:27]
George Severis
It's like this thing.
- [44:28]
Unknown Host
Exactly. That should be the title of the book. She's just like that. I mean.
- [44:34]
George Severis
Yeah, because it's. And there's actually something.
- [44:36]
Unknown Host
Yes.
- [44:36]
George Severis
It's calculating in a way. And of course, she's attractive. Power, as you're saying. But also, people just have their personalities. And, like, some people are more introverted. Some people are more outspoken. Some people can help themselves and sort of put their foot in their mouth. Like. And there are just some people that are this kind of, you know, like, forlorn glamour.
- [44:55]
Unknown Host
But that's such a great phrase. I also think New York rewards certain personalities. Right. Like, New York is a place that rewards a certain personality type. And also when you look at the physical transformation she underwent, and this is before. I mean, Botox didn't arrive until 2002 or something. Like, this is before we had access to all of these things. She underwent a physical transformation at her own hands that is so extreme within a five year period that you. What it telegraphs to me is a woman who read the room, like, as a woman who is extremely good at reading the room and understanding what it took to move through that room in a successful way. You know, she went from sort of loose, long, unbrushed brown hair and thick eyebrows and moves to New York and in quick succession, like, loses a significant amount of weight. Her eyebrows disappear, her hair goes. I remember seeing her on the street once and I realized it was her just because the shade of her hair was so white blonde that you couldn't not look at it. And then realizing that she thought she was like, I was making her nervous because she was like, I could tell that it was a woman sort of like walking, trying to escape. And I thought, oh, she's trying to escape me. Like, I. Like, she clearly moved through the streets with a lot of, like, anxiety at that point. But, like, she transformed herself so that when you compare a 1990, even when she started dating JFK Jr. You compare a 1995 Carolyn Basset in like, thick 90s heels and whatever she was wearing to like 1997 Carolyn Bassett. And they are two different animals all together. And that fascinates me because in some ways, the tragedy of her, to me, the plane crash is obviously tragic, but the tragedy of her, to me was a woman who could not handle her own success, right? Like, she. She set her sights on the pinnacle of everything, reached it, and then couldn't manage the reality of it and then disappeared herself. You know, like, that's all. All of these decisions were her making them. And in that sense, I think, like, that's the tragedy. Like, you kind of want to go and be like, are you okay? Do you want someone to take you for a walk? You know, that kind of. That kind of thing.
- [47:37]
Lyra Smith
Something that we did want to talk about, like, especially in terms of, like, the tabloid coverage of her. And like, this time in New York is like, what? Well, I'm like, I can't.
- [47:49]
George Severis
Are you trying to ask about cocaine?
- [47:50]
Lyra Smith
I'm trying to ask about cocaine. I just, like. Because that's. It's part of the story around her.
- [47:57]
George Severis
And it was one of the big elements of her mythology and also of her as like an unapproachable B word. You know, it's like she's always on code, right?
- [48:08]
Lyra Smith
And she's mean just the way that you've just described. And the way that, like, her, the people who knew her described her transformation at that time and place, case lines up with, like, someone who's, like, getting into coke or blunt about it continuing. Yeah.
- [48:28]
Unknown Host
So at the time, I don't know, I think that maybe popped up here and there, but I think that narrative was pushed after the plane crash because immediately after the prank crash, she got blamed for being late to Jersey, where to the. It's the airfield or airport where all the private planes take off. So she was immediately blamed for going shopping at Barney's or Bergdorf's for a dress and then making them late. And that's why the plane crashed, which is ludicrous, as we know it was JFK Jr. S fault in every way imaginable. But that, that and, like. And also she was sitting at home doing lines of coke. And I think because of that, I never took those things all that seriously because they were so wrapped up in this sense of, like, how do we keep him pure? And, like, what else can we load onto this woman who can't speak for herself? In hindsight, understanding, sort of, you know, having a better understanding of how certain cultures in New York work, it wouldn't surprise me. But do I think she was a cocaine addict? I don't think she was a cocaine addict in the way that we understand. I imagine she recreationally used cocaine and maybe at times a lot of it, and also knowing how the fashion industry works and, like, the communities she was exposed to. But I don't ever get the sense that, like, I. I'd be surprised if he would marry an addict. And you don't ever get the sense from her that she's like an addict in the way that you can look at people, certainly, and be like, oh, there's a problem going on there. Even her appearance, like, her appearance was so intentional. And yes, parts of it, you can be like, wow, maybe this mom's doing quite a lot of coke, but. But I. I don't get it. The sense that, like, coke was the thing that was ruining her life. It sort of seems like part of the way that you operated in those world. Time. Yeah. And then if you think she's sitting home alone, she literally sat home alone for years. Like, imagine having that social life and then cutting it off completely and how lonely that must have been and how crazy making that must have been. Like, what are you doing by yourself? Are you going to do a line of coke? I don't know. You're probably going to take antidepressants, right? Like, we're probably talking more value of the dolls than we are hard drugs, but who's to say?
- [50:34]
George Severis
Sure.
- [50:35]
Lyra Smith
I mean, I think that's a thing. Yeah. It's like, I don't. There's nothing about her to me that screams addict.
- [50:41]
Unknown Host
Yeah.
- [50:41]
Lyra Smith
It's more just like being kind of for real about what that lifestyle would have. What she even would have been around.
- [50:51]
Unknown Host
Because you don't think that JFK Jr. Was a. Like, I don't think he was ever a person that was highly into drugs, but I just think like he came up in 80s in New York. She arrived in New York as it was transitioning into early 90s. In that world, I have to assume they're all. I mean, she smoked. I, you know, she was a smoker. Although you almost never saw her with a cigarette in hand in public, certainly after they were married. But he was a smoker and like everyone was a smoker. You know, smoking wasn't illegal in bars until the turn of the last century. It was like these things were not that big a deal. And I also think, like, that culture, again, was such a sealed one that even you remember when Kate Moss got caught doing lines of coke, you know, by the tabloids in like 2005 or something, even that felt shocking on sort of like a public scale. Even though if in those worlds it was probably the least shocking thing. Impossible. Right.
- [51:39]
Lyra Smith
Yeah, I mean, I, Yeah, there was a. I remember. I think it was like possibly Spencer Pratt, but I need to double check this. But just like talking about how before smartphones, celebs would just be doing coke in the club completely.
- [51:54]
George Severis
I mean, literally, like, Jennifer Aniston has talked about that. Yeah, like, it is.
- [51:57]
Lyra Smith
Yeah, yeah, it is.
- [51:58]
George Severis
You don't have to be some bad boy.
- [51:59]
Unknown Host
Right.
- [52:01]
George Severis
Doing Coke in 1999.
- [52:02]
Lyra Smith
He is somebody who's so, like, vocal about like. Let me tell you what ruined everything, right?
- [52:09]
George Severis
Like this.
- [52:09]
Unknown Host
I think Gwyneth has recently said that too. It was like, you can.
- [52:13]
George Severis
Oh, no, maybe it was Gwyneth. It wasn't. It wasn't Jen Aniston.
- [52:15]
Unknown Host
It was gw.
- [52:15]
George Severis
Yes, you're absolutely right.
- [52:16]
Unknown Host
I'm sure everybody. I mean, I just remember there being coke everywhere and I was not operating at that level by any means. Like, I was hanging out at some of the. I knew the doorman at a couple of like the hot clubs at that time. There was just cocaine literally everywhere. It did not seem. And then you have to imagine, like extrapolate that to backstage at a fashion show where everyone has to be high energy. I'm sure that was part of her life, but I never, never when she looked unhappy or like she was thin, like I never. There was never this sense of like even the Kate Moss heroin chic, there was not a sense of addiction going on there. And when those, when that sort of popped up again, it was like in a way that felt really dirty and like as a way to delegitimize or to make sure that JFK Jr emerged from this scot free. Right. Like with no responsibility.
- [53:03]
George Severis
Yeah. No, I think honestly one of the most compelling sort of elements of what you're saying is this idea that the media phenomenon that was Carolyn Bessette was. Was a symptom of downtown New York culture suddenly being thrust on the national stage. Like, it's so clear to me and I had never thought about it like that. So these things that aren't as big of a deal, you know, a stunning, beautiful woman, like walking on the street, like someone potentially not smiling that much, someone doing a little bit of cocaine on a Friday night, suddenly it's like you have to be like watching the nightly news and having an opinion about it as just like a normal American person completely.
- [53:41]
Unknown Host
And he was such an easily, like, he was so easily digestible. Right. He was like, yes, happy barbecue guy who liked to take his. Always was being photographed with his shirt off at the beach, who's like biking around New York and suddenly she appears and you're just like, you're right. She's like a manifestation of Manhattan in a way that is like. I mean, New York is an idea. And the reason, one of the reasons I think she has persisted for so long is because we never get tired of New York. But in the moment it's like so jarring and, and it's hard for people to remember, but prior to September 11, New York was its own. And particularly in the late 90s when LA crime dropped and there was so much money and it was so glamorous and like it was the center of the world. It was also very insular and very separate from the rest of the country. And there wasn't a lot of like, I remember after 9 11, all the love that was directed to New York from the rest of the country felt jarring because it did not have. It was not. While it was a global city, it was not accessible in the way that was it. It is, it became after 911 as like everyone's property. And, and so you would come, you would, you would come to New York to experience New York. And it was so addictive. And compelling and it. And. But like, the vernacular of New York was not globally spoken and it wasn't like, relatable.
- [54:56]
George Severis
I remember that. I remember that switch too. Like post 911 from. From New York being a beacon of, you know, sin and power to suddenly being emblematic of the American spirit. Like, as though, like, this is what America is, it's New York. And specifically. So, sorry, but like Wall street, like.
- [55:13]
Unknown Host
Yeah, exactly. Like a skyscraper, a skycraper that everyone hated. Right. Like the World Trade center was not. And also Windows on the World was. I remember going to it once. It was like where corporate corporations had their parties and where, like, it was not, like, it was just. It was a place that I think was different from how it's remembered in ways that, you know, are relevant to how we think of the two of them in that moment. And that the jagged edges of her were, as you say, like the jagged edges of New York.
- [55:44]
George Severis
Yeah. All right, so one of the things I had sort of referenced when we were introing you is this term that Vanessa Friedman used in a 2023 Times piece about Carolyn Bessette where she called her a ghost influencer, which I think in 2023 was especially relevant because that was when, then, if people remember, you know, the term quiet luxury was like trending on TikTok. And you would hear people, you would hear truly like random 22 year olds talking about stealth wealth. And it was very sort of jarring that suddenly this was like the big trend. It was when I feel like the row was really having a moment and, you know, people were sort of like getting back into kind of like a minimalist, preppy aesthetic, clean white shirts and. And whatever. And so I would love to know, like, in your opinion, what the trajectory of the Carolyn Bissett aesthetic has been like. It was huge in the late 90s, early 2000s. And then you were saying it has sort of like made a comeback in the last few years.
- [56:47]
Unknown Host
Well, I think right at the end of the 90s, you know, sex and the City arrives, right? Like, Sex and the City premiered in halfway through 1998, but no one began watching it for real until 1999. And they had to actually, in the second season, remove a JFK Junior reference because it aired two weeks before the plane crashed. And then they had to replace it when Samantha gets back into the socialites good graces by doing the gardening work. If you find an original clip of that, it's JFK Jr. Who gets her back in. And they had to change it to Leonardo DiCaprio two weeks later. Cause the plane crash happened because it aired before that. So Sex in the City arrives as a cultural force right as Carolyn Bessette exits. And the Sex in the City and Carrie in particular is often opulence. And I think, you know, when we think it feels normal now. But I really attribute Sex in the City and the sort of minutia of fashion, this obsession with the minutiae of fashion to Sex in the City where you start picking apart the different Manolos and you start IDing all of these small things. And it's like more and more and more, you know, Carrie would leave the house dressed. She was the exact. Even though Sarah Jessica Parker dated JFK Jr. Probably prior to all this. Like there's like a. There's an opulence to the figure of, of Carrie Bradshaw. And then simultaneously you have arriving in full force in that book that just came out. Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert really gets into this of like the Britney Spears youth culture of low slung jeans. And I can't remember all these people's names but like that sort of like Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton go she appearance.
- [58:22]
George Severis
And then Juicy Couture.
- [58:23]
Unknown Host
Juicy Couture completely. And it's very culture begins to skew to these very young girls, right? These teen girls aesthetic very over sexualized, cheap in a way I think that we can say even if the clothes themselves weren't cheap and you know, September 11th was a real sort of before and after moment. And these people start to emerge in the aftermath of that. And then what I really think is the before and after moment is Facebook arrives and is publicly accessible. So suddenly you have the beginning of social media that's arriving in this moment where you've got all these young girls and with their sort of tacky outfits is what is getting pushed out. It's what it sort of starts moving into magazines. And how much space are you giving to Carolyn Bissette and the pages of magazines? Before we had social media, right. Like there's only so much space that's going. You even see Gwyneth's style. She leaves behind, you know, the Calvin Klein era and starts moving into whatever she was doing next. This is pre goop. And then Kate Moss moves into her real vintage era. So you're seeing like all these figures that have held our attention go off into different routes at a time that social media begins to allow us to take more and more pictures of ourself. And what I think happened with Carolyn Bessette, the Row takes a lot of inspiration from her. So I don't think these two things are disconnected, but I think enough time passed and she disappeared from the culture to such a degree that when I pitched that story to Town and Country, they were sort of like, oh, this could be interesting, because no one knows who she is anymore, right? Like they had disappeared from a cultural vernacular in a way, including JFK Jr. That I think it allowed a new generation that now has access to far more information and, you know, the row, to feel like they discovered her. Right. Like she can be a discovery now as opposed to like a permanent. The same way I see people discover that Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt ever dated. I'm always like, how is that not common knowledge? But, you know, I'm sure I did that with my parents generation, right? Like, you just need that. That, like, that sense of like, oh, I've just discovered this person. Did you ever know about this person and then have the same reaction to her appearance that so many of us had to the original? And if you think about that timeline, like, that's 15 or 16 years that have passed. There's a completely different media environment culturally. We are, Are re. You know, addressing, as you said, all these women in the late 90s who got such a shitty ride. And Gwyneth, of course, now is in her growner years, who's now. The amount of phrases Gwyneth Paltrow has introduced into our lexicon is really fascinating. But like, she begins to introduce quiet luxury. So I think all of these things sort of like the timing of it has propelled her back into the culture in a way that I was very sensitive to because she occupied. Because she was so all consuming at a particular point when I. I would be sensitive to when she would re. Emerge because I was like, oh, it's not just like other people know who she is, like, you know, in that sense. And so I was aware of it and. And she's only, I think in the last five years that has shifted into overdrive. You know, the. Her clothing now gets auctioned for thousands of dollars. That would not have been possible 15 years ago. No one would have paid attention. I mean, you would have had a small subset of like 10 people, myself included, with no money, who would have been like, oh, it'd be interesting to see that Yoji dress that I was always obsessed with, you know, like in real life. Or what was how, you know, what her size actually was, the way we're always obsessed with those things. But like, that's selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars right now. And so I just think that it was the disappearing act of her culturally that allowed her to emerge as a discoverer at a moment where we have cycled back to sort of minimalism or what wealth looks like. Because now we're so exposed to people's wealth through social media, it becomes like a game of, like, can you hide your wealth through wealth? You know, whoever else you want to describe, Quiet luxury or Gwyneth. Or Gwyneth, we're still living with Gwyneth is like an ever illusion which is never going away.
- [62:28]
Lyra Smith
Yeah, it's like the blank baseball cap on succession. Like how. Yes, the. The extremely expensive, as plain as possible, as simple as possible.
- [62:41]
Unknown Host
And in terms of, like, fashion moments coming, I remember, you know, I was a child of the 80s, and in the mid to late 80s, the 1950s as a culture became, you know, maybe because of Back to the Future, but, like, I remember going to my mom and being like, have you ever heard of a poodle skirt? And, of course, my mother was a teenager in the 1950s, and two, she was like, come with me to the basement, child. And, like, pulled out of her clothes. So I think it's normal for each generation to go back, and we're just. We're operating at such an accelerated rate now that 15 years can feel like a lifetime. And when I was a kid, it was 30 years. And, you know, if you read about how, you know, the fashion icons of the 70s were dressing, they were all finding 1920s vintage clothing to wear. So it's like we're all just tapping back to the past is, you know, things that we can say we discover, and it's just happening more quickly. And again, the fact she never talked allows people to attribute mystery to her and, like, endless, endless assumptions and fascination in a way that probably would not have held up had she not died.
- [63:40]
George Severis
You know, it's funny, I. I wanted to ask you, as a sort of final question, if there is anyone in today's celebrity landscape that you think is, like, our Carolyn Bessette. And when, as you were talking, I was like, this is a stretch. But honestly, when you think about how the Olsen twins never speak, there is something. And they're actually, like, recreating that aesthetic. There's something about them that is almost approaching, you know, that kind of vibe.
- [64:06]
Lyra Smith
I've been thinking about them all day because, you know, my experience of the comparison of the, like, Paris Hilton era to, like, the Carolyn Bassett and the Gwyneth Paltrow is that to me as a kid, I thought, well, Paris Hilton Nicole Richie. That's like, what, like, cool. Like older teens, young 20s wear. And then Gwyneth Paltrow is what an adult woman wears, like a. You know, And I didn't realize, I think, so much how, like, how much of that disappeared, or I guess contextualize how much of that disappeared during that time. Like, that it was not sharing space. It was gone.
- [64:48]
Unknown Host
Yeah.
- [64:48]
Lyra Smith
And I am, like, the exact.
- [64:51]
Unknown Host
I'm.
- [64:51]
Lyra Smith
I think I'm two years younger than the Olsen twins. So I feel like I'm the exact age that I have idolized. Every single thing they have ever done in their entire lives, every decision they have made, every, like, change they have made to their appearance, and they were my obsession at that time.
- [65:08]
George Severis
It's funny, because they were such a big part of, like, Boho, Chic, which was as Glynis, as you said, like, the preview that was sort of like during the Paris Hilton, Rachel Zoe era. And then they were the ones who transitioned the culture into. Into quiet luxury. But anyway, I. I see your point. I saw you shaking your head when I was.
- [65:27]
Unknown Host
No, no, I think you're making a good point. I would say the Olsen twins. I was. I. I'm not sure I was too old for Full House, but I remember my sister's a year and a half younger. Her friends all had a crush on John Stamos in Full House. Like that. And Full House always bored me. And I always associated the Olsen twins with the two cute little kids on a. On a sitcom that I. And so it was a long time before I looked at them as serious people. And, I mean, far too long, to the point where I was like, I don't understand why people are even interested in the Olsen twins, even after they started the row. And that just goes back to how I was first introduced to them in that sort of 80s pop culture. But I do think you're right about the space that they occupy. And it also makes me very sad. Then this Kate Moss sort of occupied this space too, that the women who last the longest as objects of fascination are the ones who don't speak. Right. Jackie Kennedy was similar to that. Diana spoke eventually. But to some degree, that early shy die nature. Like, we really. Greta Garbo is still an iconic figure. Like, we really, really reward women for being quiet. And that makes me sad. Right. Like, of course, then we have Gwyneth, who never shuts up, and. And she seems to be doing fine. So she's the flip side of that.
- [66:47]
George Severis
She really is unique in that way to maintain a level of mystery. While legitimately having like, 14 media properties at any given time.
- [66:54]
Unknown Host
And when we talk about people who've lasted long enough to outgrow the hate I have had again, you can find women who are in late 90s New York who, like, all hate Gwyneth the way later generations hated Anne Hathaway. I've now come around where I'm just like, Gwyneth, you're still here. Like, I bow. Like, I.
- [67:10]
George Severis
She's a survivor.
- [67:12]
Unknown Host
Who am I to criticize? Decides like, you are clearly a genius on something.
- [67:17]
Lyra Smith
Well, I also, I remember as, like, I mean, I must have been a teenager because there was. I remember when the Olsen twins hosted snl and it was a huge cultural moment for me and my friends, and we all watched it together and it was the most that you saw them, you know, like, talk about themselves and talk about. And they did the sketch where there's the Mary Kate perfume and the Ashley perfume and how they, like, have to occupy these opposite, opposite traits for women in order, you know, And I remember, I learned or the first time I ever heard the quote, no is a full sentence. Was full sentence good for them?
- [67:55]
Unknown Host
I mean, talk about two people who have, like, transformed themselves. They're geniuses, too. They just. I don't personally, they never held my attention, but that is entirely generational and probably says more in my, like, interest in certain degrees of sophistication. But yeah, no, I think you're right.
- [68:11]
Lyra Smith
That they often it also, I mean, also, everything you. Everything that you've said about Carolyn's intentionality, her conscious choices and her, like, educated choices, I feel like is also you could apply to them. So, George, you did it.
- [68:30]
Unknown Host
Good talk.
- [68:34]
George Severis
Well, Glynis, this has been an absolute delight, I have to say. I could write a thesis on Carolyn Bissette after this conversation.
- [68:40]
Unknown Host
Well, I'm happy to hear it because she always found fascinates me. And there was a long time when people were like, why? So it's been interesting to see her return.
- [68:49]
George Severis
I was shocked when I saw the data on that article. I really. You really were ahead of your time on something. I think that's it.
- [68:57]
Unknown Host
Yeah.
- [68:57]
Lyra Smith
Thank you so much.
- [68:58]
George Severis
Yeah. Thank you so much. This was really lovely, guys.
- [69:00]
Unknown Host
This has been a delight. Thank you very much.
- [69:03]
Lyra Smith
That's it for this week's episode.
- [69:05]
George Severis
And next week we have our first entry of the Kennedy Movie Club.
- [69:10]
Lyra Smith
What's a month we're going to watch a movie that is based on a Kennedy story. And the first one is jfk.
- [69:19]
George Severis
That's right. Oliver Stone's jfk. It's not the movie you think it.
- [69:22]
Lyra Smith
Is, so subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for all things Kennedy every week.
- [69:29]
George Severis
Thanks for listening.
- [69:36]
Unknown Host
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