What To Know
- Carole Radziwill returned to The Real Housewives of New York City on September 15.
- She revealed her reaction to Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, which is about JFK Jr., her late husband’s cousin, and his wife, Carolyn Bessette.
- Radziwill explained why she only watched four minutes of the show and shared what Bessette was really like.
Carole Radziwill addressed one of the topics fans have been wanting to hear more about during her first episode back on The Real Housewives of New York City. During a group brunch, Radziwill was grilled about her relationship with John F. Kennedy Jr., her late husband Anthony Radziwill’s cousin, and Carolyn Bessette.
The conversation, of course, came up due to the release of Ryan Murphy‘s Love Story earlier this year. The romance-drama series, which stars Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon, depicts JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s relationship, as well as their eventual deaths in a 1999 plane crash.
“I’m dying to ask you about Love Story,” Daisy Toye admitted on RHONY. “I have so many questions. Are you bombarded with people asking you questions?” Carole admitted that, “yes,” she has been “bombarded” with buzz about the series.
“I’m still going to ask because I’m so obsessed,” Daisy continued. “I want to know all about Carolyn Bessette.” This prompted Jessel Taank to jump in, wondering, “Just ask the question. Was she a b**ch? That’s what I want to know.”
Daisy shut down that line of questioning. “No, that’s not my question,” she insisted. “Was she fun? Would she vibe with us?” Carole confirmed that JFK Jr.’s wife was “very fun,” adding, “She’s a girls’ girl before there was a thing called a girls’ girl. I don’t know what she was like on the show because I don’t watch the show.”
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Carole clarified that she “watched about four minutes of it the other night with my best friend because she’s like, ‘Let’s just kind of watch it together.’” However, she turned it off because “it’s just too much.”
When Jessel asked Carole what she thought about people having a “Carolyn Bessette” summer with a “minimal Calvin Klein aesthetic” in 2026, the RHONY vet admitted, “I don’t love that,” and said, “I don’t think you can do that.”
Jessel kept pushing, asking, “Do you think the family is cursed? The dad gets assassinated. The mother has cancer. They both die,” at which point Carole became visibly uncomfortable. “Too much. Too much,” Erika Hammond warned, and Carole confirmed, “It’s a lot.”
She then added in a confessional, “Does it register to her that the tragic death of my cousin and best friend might be upsetting to me? I want to strangle her.” Carole ended up leaving the brunch early.
Earlier in the episode, she opened up about how her memoir from 20 years ago landed on the New York Times Bestseller List due to the renewed interest in the Kennedy family. “It’s bittersweet because it’s hard to see some of the most traumatic years of my life in a television show,” she explained. “But getting back on the New York Times Bestseller List doesn’t come without Love Story.”
In a more lighthearted conversation with Erika about the show, Carole revealed how she found out Murphy was making JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s story into a limited series (she previously shared the shocking story in a March 2026 interview). “You just can’t make this up,” Carole said on RHONY. “I went on a bunch of dates with a guy. He calls me and he said, ‘I just auditioned to play your late husband.’ He’s not the only one, actually. I matched with someone on Raya and he was like, ‘I think I auditioned to play our late husband.’ Two guys!”
The Real Housewives of New York City, Season 16, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Bravo