Did Carolyn Bessette Really Resist JFK Jr.'s Proposal? The True Story Behind Their Engagement

Episode 5 of Love Story: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette includes the political heir's proposal to the Calvin Klein associate

NEED TO KNOW

• The on-screen proposal had both similarities and differences to their real-life engagement

• In real life, JFK Jr. popped the question in 1995 on Martha's Vineyard

John F. Kennedy Jr.'s proposal toCarolyn Bessettewas anything but ordinary.

The political heir and theCalvin Kleinassociate's engagement played out on-screen inepisode 5ofLove Story: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, titled "Battery Park." In the limited series, JFK Jr. popped the question following a weekend at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. But, Bessette said no, telling him they still have to talk about how their lives will "fit together."

Bessette's hesitation led to the couple getting into an infamous public fight in a New York City park on-screen — whichdid happen in real life, but not because of the engagement. As history shows, she eventually said yes to JFK Jr.'s proposal and the pairtied the knoton Sept. 21, 1996.

Here's everything to know about JFK Jr.'s real-life proposal to Carolyn Bessette.

JFK Jr. proposed on Martha's Vineyard in 1995

JFK Jr.proposed to Bessette on Martha's Vineyardafter the Fourth of July weekend in 1995.

As JFK Jr.'s former assistant RoseMarie Terenzio wrote in her 2024 bookJFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography— co-written by PEOPLE editor-at-large Liz McNeil — he popped the question while taking Bessette out on a boat.

Terenzio recalled Bessette telling her, "He said, 'When you go fishing, it's always better with a partner. Will you be my partner?' "

He gave Bessette two rings — but it wasn't his mother's toi et moi

In the series, JFK Jr. proposes to Bessette with his late motherJackie Kennedy'sring. But in real life,Bessette's engagement ringwas insteadinspiredby Jackie's "swimming ring."

According to McNeil and Terenzio's book, JFK Jr. gave Bessette two rings, including his mother's "swimming ring," which Jackie wore when she didn't wear her real wedding sparkler.

JFK Jr. had asked the late diamond magnateMaurice Tempelsmanto create a version of the emerald-and-sapphire "swimming ring." Bessette's ring was in the same style, but with diamonds and sapphires around a band, per the book.

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Bessette resisted the proposal for about three weeks

As seen in the show, Bessette did resist JFK Jr.'s proposal in real life. According to Elizabeth Beller's 2024 bookOnce Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Bessette responded to his question by saying, "I'll think about it."

In June 2017, a close friend of JFK Jr.'s told PEOPLE that Bessette held the proposal off for "about three weeks," which made him "all the more intent on marrying her." But, she did eventually say yes.

The couple kept their engagement secret and JFK Jr. denied it when it began spreading in the media

After JFK Jr. and Bessette got engaged, the couple kept it a secret, as their relationship wasn't officially on the media's radar yet, per McNeil and Terenzio's book. Terenzio wrote that the Calvin Klein associate was trying to avoid being "under a microscope" once the news got out.

However, theNew York Postpublished an enlarged photo of Bessette's hand with the engagement ring ahead of Labor Day weekend. As the speculation began spreading in the press, JFK Jr. initially thought it was best to ignore it.

However, with theGeorgemagazine press conference happening the following weekend, he and his business partner were concerned that the conversations around the potential engagement would overshadow their launch of the publication. So, they decided to issue a denial statement which Terenzio read at the press conference.

"Once again, John Kennedy seems to be bearing the brunt of a slow news day," she said, per her and McNeil's book. "The stories circulating regarding an engagement are untrue. He is not engaged."

JFK Jr.'s friendSasha Chermayeffwrote in McNeil and Terenzio's book that the public denial was the first sign for Bessette that "this is what life with him is going to be about."

"It's going to be about whatever looks good for him and his world, and I just have whatever role I'm given," Chermayeff added.

Although Bessette was hurt by JFK Jr.'s public denial of the engagement, the couple moved forward and got married in September 1996 in a private ceremony in Georgia.

For more on the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, pick up PEOPLE's special edition, available now on newsstands andhere.

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byCUSTOS CAELORUM

in

February 28, 2026

Did Carolyn Bessette Really Resist JFK Jr.'s Proposal? The True Story Behind Their Engagement

Episode 5 of Love Story: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette includes the political heir's proposal to the Calvin Klein ass...

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Vatican removes salty white film coating Michelangelo's 'The Last Judgment'

VATICAN CITY (AP) —Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement"is getting a facial, with restorers removing a chalky white film of salt that has accumulated over the Renaissance masterpiece since its last major renovation three decades ago.

Vatican The Last Judgement

The Vatican on Saturday gave the media a sneak peak to the cleaning operation, which is taking place on a floor-to-ceiling scaffolding that has obscured the imposing fresco of heaven and hell that dominates the front of the chapel.

The cleaning operation is expected to be completed by Easter, in the first week of April. The public can continue to visit in the meantime, but will have to settle for a reproduction of "The Last Judgment" superimposed on a screen that covers the scaffolding.

Vatican Museum officials on Saturday described a simple but important cleaning operation to remove the white film of salt that has accumulated on the fresco thanks to the nearly 25,000 people who pass through the Vatican Museums each day.

"This salt is created because, above all, when we sweat, we emit lactic acid, and unfortunately lactic acid reacts with the calcium carbonate present on the wall," said Fabio Moresi, in charge of the scientific research team at the Vatican Museums that is overseeing the cleaning.

Climate change also has a role to play, since the visitors who do come tend to sweat more, creating even more humidity that reacts with the fresco, he said.

Vatican Museums chief Barbara Jatta described the film as a "cataract" that is easy enough to remove: Restorers dip sheets of Japanese rice paper into distilled water and apply them to the fresco, and carefully wipe away the salt film.

Viewed up close on Saturday on the scaffolding, the difference between before and after is remarkable: Sections of the fresco that haven't been cleaned look as if they are coated in a chalky dust; the cleaned sections show the vibrant colors and detail of the original. On the figure of Jesus, for example, at the center of the fresco, a privileged visitor can see how Michelangelo painted his hair and the wounds of his crucifixion.

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The Sistine Chapelis named after Pope Sixtus IV, an art patron who oversaw the construction of the main papal chapel in the 15th century.

But it was a later pontiff, Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the famous ceiling, the "Creation of Adam" showing God's outstretched hand, between 1508 and 1512. A later pontiff, Pope Clement VII, commissioned Michelangelo in 1533 to return to paint "The Last Judgment."

The other frescos of the Sistine Chapel, where Pope Leo XIV was elected in May, undergo yearly cleaning with restorers working at night on cherry-pickers that can be removed each morning before the public arrives.

But such machines can't access all of "The Last Judgement," since the fresco is located behind the altar, which is itself raised up marble steps. That logistical impediment required the mounting of a fixed scaffolding to access the full fresco to clean it.

The Sistine Chapel underwent a complete restoration between 1979 and 1999, when centuries of smoke, grime and wax buildup was removed. The Vatican has left small patches of the pre-restored fresco intact to show the difference, which are now visible on the upper floors of the scaffolding and show a nearly blackened wall.

Rather than radically reduce the number of visitors who can access the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican is studying ways to address humidity levels, through filtration systems and other technologies, so that the salty film doesn't form again.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP'scollaborationwith The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

byCUSTOS CAELORUM

in

February 28, 2026

Vatican removes salty white film coating Michelangelo's 'The Last Judgment'

VATICAN CITY (AP) —Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement"is getting a facial, with restorers removing a chalk...

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Robert Picardo 'Thought It Was a Mistake' When He Was Asked to Return to “Star Trek” Universe“ ”25 Years Later (Exclusive)

Robert Picardo reprises his Star Trek: Voyager role as The Doctor in the new live-action Starfleet Academy series

NEED TO KNOW

• The new series is set 1,000 years after the actor was last part of the franchise

• Picardo tells PEOPLE that returning to the Star Trek universe was "very unexpected"

Robert Picardo admits that, 25 years after he last played the holographic Doctor onStar Trek: Voyager, he was stunned when he got the call to return to the beloved sci-fi franchise for the new series,Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

"I would say [it was] very unexpected — I thought it was a mistake!" Picardo tells PEOPLE exclusively.

The 72-year-old reveals that after he reprised his role as The Doctor — in voice only — for a 2024 episode of the animated, kid-skewing seriesStar Trek: Prodigy, his animation agent got word that a different set of producers in the franchise wanted to meet with him. Picardo assumed it was for another voice role or cameo until he learned more about the gig in a follow-up call.

"They called back and said, 'No, it's live-action,'" he recalls. "And then I wasreallyconfused! And then my agent, my theatrical agent, [said], 'Yeah, they want to talk to you about being in the newStar Trekseries.' "

"Those first three or four weeks waiting for that meeting were really the strangest, that part of knowing they're interested but not knowing what it was," he says. "And then they laid out the idea they had for the character and how he would fit in and what he would be doing in the future: teaching cadets at a newly reopened Starfleet Academy."

Picardo had originally played the fan-favorite character — an increasingly self-aware, independent and somewhat egotistical Emergency Medical Hologram who provided a fresh lens on both humanity and technology while snarkily treating the crew of the starshipVoyager— for seven seasons between 1995 and 2001. However, with the new role, he wouldn't just be picking up The Doctor a quarter-century later; he was also thrown an unexpected acting challenge as the 2026 series was set nearly 1,000 years in the future.

"It's mind-blowing," he confesses. "I said to them, 'Wait a minute, you mean I have 800 years of digital memory — perfect clarity — so that an event that happened 792 years and 112 days and this many hours and minutes, that moment was not only recorded in here, but it was as clear as something that happened yesterday?' [They said], 'Yep, that's what it means.' I said, 'Alright, I'll start trying to wrap my mind around that now!' "

What struck him most about taking a quantum leap forward in time was how it would affect The Doctor's worldview. "Working side by side with 32 generations of organic colleagues growing old and dying around you, how does that influence your desire to form personal relationships?" he questions.

"I thought that on the surface, he would seem the same, at the same pace, the same attitude, the same snarkiness when he didn't feel he was being respected, the same 'I like feeling that I'm the smartest intelligence in the room,' all of those things," Picardo tells PEOPLE. "But that, when push came to shove, he wasn't very interested in going deeper with any individual. I wasn't excited to be your pal, you know what I mean? Because what's the end game for me?"

"So there was this kind of push-pull between being like The Doctor once he had grown more human-like, but with the sort of careful delineation of how far he wanted to go beyond cordiality in his relationships," he adds.

That emotional distance has been challenged on the new Paramount+ series by young SAM (Kerrice Brooks), another photonic being enrolled in Starfleet Academy, who longs for mentorship from The Doctor, who finally lowers his defenses.

"The Doctor, I think, likes feeling unique, but also a protege who is giving him more attention and interest that he clearly wants to return," Picardo explains. "He's both intrigued and annoyed by her."

AsStarfleet Academyhas been streaming new episodes each week, Picardo has been enjoying watching the always-passionate fanbase debate the various merits of the show — a phenomenon he's been long accustomed to.

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"It takes every newStar Trekshow two years or so to kind of hit its stride," he says. "And until then, people complain about what kind of female Captain Janeway should be. 'Do we really need a female captain in the mid-90s?' I mean, we were 25 years ahead ofDoctor Who,having the first female doctor! 25 years! And of course, Kate [Mulgrew] really won over all of the initial critics to the idea of taking this traditionally male role. And since then, of course, we've had Captain Michael Burnham, we've had Michelle Yeoh's character, [Captain Georgiou] and now Holly Hunter."

"I've been really lucky to be in shows that are led by women —China Beach,even before that, the Vietnam drama I was in where the point of view character was an Army nurse played by Dana Delaney," he adds. "So I feel like I've had this special luck to be on shows where women, female characters, really carried the show or were the dynamos behind the show."

Playing the holographic character has also given Picardo a unique perspective on a current, much-buzzed-about topic: AI.

"Obviously, we were ahead of the game onStar Trekwhen we did all of those episodes about core fears of artificial intelligence, when The Doctor's program was hijacked by another entity and his core programming of serving and being a healer was taken over so that he could now be threatening and even lethal," he says. "All of those things that have been very much in the public imagination the last three years, we were dealing with 30 years ago."

Picardo recalls once receiving a call from someone getting a PhD at Harvard, specializing in researching medical applications for AI, wanting to interview him for a book. "I said, 'You know, I'm only an actor,'" he recalls.

But the physician explained that, as a young viewer ofVoyager, he was captivated by the concept of an Emergency Medical Hologram programmed with the entirety of medical knowledge.

"But then he said, 'Watching your journey on the show, I came to realize that the knowledge is not enough. You need the human interface, you need the bedside manner. You need to mediate the information to a patient in order to have that bond and give them, so they have trust in you,'" Picardo says. "It is interesting for me as a bystander, as an actor who played this artificial intelligence physician, to now see so many of these concerns play out now and feel like, if only because of my role, I've been thinking about them for decades."

He's also been keenly aware of the rate at which technology advances. "Star Trekhas always been in the game of dreaming up something and then science tries to catch up with that dream because of all the young minds that were watching it at the time and because it just seemed impossibly cool if we could do that," he says. "I remember my little computer on my desk in Sickbay when we premiered seemed so impossibly small. And then, within a year and a half of our premiere, it was too big! PowerBooks came out and suddenly it was like, 'No, this looks like a joke.' "

"Star Trekis a great predictor, I think, of technologies, and it also encourages us to want to develop the science and engineering to accomplish them," he says.

As a result, inspired by the originalTrekseries' actress Nichelle Nichols' recruitment of women and minorities into the space program in the '70s and '80s, Picardo has "tried to take on that mantle with my relationship with the Planetary Society for more than 25 years," supporting funding for NASA's space science budget and sitting on its executive board.

It's just one aspect of the way being a part ofStar Trekhas impacted him, he says. "It changes your life in so many other ways through the people you meet who likeStar Trekor have been inspired byStar Trekas young people and grown into these amazing people that you meet and they giveyousome credit!" he tells PEOPLE.

"I mean, to sit on stage with five men who walked on the moon, just to be up there with them because, at least to the audience, we were connected somehow," he marvels. "So that connection between imagining what our future in space is and actually encouraging the work to be done now in order to get there is something that I have treasured in my life."

Read the original article onPeople

byCUSTOS CAELORUM

in Celebrities, lifestyle, PCelebrities, PoCelebrities, PolCelebrities, PoliCelebrities, PolitCelebrities, PoliticCelebrities, PolitiCelebrities, Politics, PoliticsCelebrities, showbiz, sports

February 28, 2026

Robert Picardo 'Thought It Was a Mistake' When He Was Asked to Return to “Star Trek” Universe“ ”25 Years Later (Exclusive)

Robert Picardo reprises his Star Trek: Voyager role as The Doctor in the new live-action Starfleet Academy series ...

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