We are already sad that there is no Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette this week. Though I will say that I can’t rewatch the show, because that last episode broke me. I cried the whole way through. But it did leave me asking questions and wondering what was true.
Like, where were John, Carolyn, and Lauren really buried? Were they really buried at sea?
John, Carolyn, and Lauren passed away in a tragic plane crash on July 16, 1999, while traveling to Martha’s Vineyard. I can remember that day like it was yesterday. In the finale of the show, it showed that the Kennedy family wanted to bury John and Carolyn at the Kennedy family burial plot in Massachusetts. However, Lauren was not a Kennedy and would not be allowed to be buried there.
What I found touching was that the Bessette family wanted Lauren and Carolyn to stay together. I found that to be a beautiful thing and something that I understood.
The series showed that there was a lot of tension surrounding where the three would be buried. However, it shows that they were buried at sea. Is that true? Turns out it was accurate.
In 1999, CNN reported that, “The final resting place for JFK Jr., his wife and her sister was off Martha’s Vineyard, not far from where they died instantly last Friday when the aircraft piloted by Kennedy plunged into the ocean.”
On July 22nd, the ashes of the three were spread in the same area of the crash, about seven miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The burial took place on the U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Briscoe, with members of the Kennedy and Bessette families present.
Kennedy’s assistant, RoseMarie Terenzio, wrote in her book, JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography, “I said, ‘Caroline, I think you should cremate them, and they should all stay together. I think John would want that. She wanted to honor her brother.”
If you missed Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, it is airing in its entirety on Hulu now.
