Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s engagement ring broke every rule.
When John F. Kennedy Jr. proposed to the Calvin Klein publicist over Fourth of July weekend in 1995, he offered her a platinum eternity band set with alternating diamonds and sapphires — an understated choice from America’s most eligible bachelor.
The ring — and the romance it symbolized — is now back in the spotlight, thanks to FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.”
Kennedy, who was 34 at the time of the proposal, drew inspiration from a ring belonging to his late mother, former first lady Jackie Kennedy. The elder Kennedy had owned a gold-and-emerald eternity band by Jean Schlumberger that she nicknamed her “swimming ring” for its demure design.
Bessette Kennedy confirmed the connection, telling journalist Carole Radziwill that the band was “a copy of a ring [John’s] mother wore,” per Radziwill’s memoir, “What Remains.”
The tribute was especially poignant given that Jackie had died in May 1994, before the couple’s relationship turned serious. Bessette Kennedy never met her mother-in-law.
The sapphires and diamonds in the engagement ring also had a family connection: They were sourced by Maurice Tempelsman, the Belgian-born diamond merchant who had been Jackie’s companion until her death.
RoseMarie Terenzio, Kennedy’s longtime assistant, wrote in her memoir, “Fairy Tale Interrupted,” that she once picked up the ring from Tempelsman’s office without knowing what was inside. It then sat in a Duane Reade plastic bag on Kennedy’s desk until the proposal.
JFK Jr. popped the question on a fishing boat on Martha’s Vineyard, reportedly offering the line: “Fishing is so much better with a partner” and getting a coy “I’ll think about it” in return.
The ring nearly didn’t make it to the wedding. During the couple’s infamous argument in Central Park in early 1996 — captured in full by paparazzi — Bessette Kennedy flung the band off her finger in anger. Kennedy scrambled to retrieve it, pocketed it and eventually handed it back.
Now remembered as a minimalist fashion icon, Bessette Kennedy’s aversion to ornamentation was well documented. At her own wedding, she wore no earrings or necklace, and in the years after, Bessette Kennedy often left the eternity band at home, preferring her gold wedding band — a unique piece cast from a rattlesnake rib by friend Gogo Ferguson.
For a woman who once asked Prada staff to remove logos from her ski outfits, even sapphires could feel like too much.
Her jewelry habits were sentimental rather than showy. According to Sunita Kumar Nair’s 2023 book “CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion,” she wore her mother’s first wedding band in college and “joked about having to dip it in holy water” before wearing it, given her parents’ messy divorce.
The engagement ring’s whereabouts remain unknown. On July 16, 1999, Bessette Kennedy, her husband and her sister Lauren were killed when the small plane Kennedy was piloting crashed into the Atlantic. It’s unclear whether she was wearing the band, or whether it was recovered.
“Bessette Kennedy’s life and her romance with John Kennedy are cloaked in myth and mystery,” British Vogue jewelry director Rachel Garrahan has said.
“Her typically minimalistic engagement ring is no different.”
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