Lauren Bessette Deserved Better. She Still Does.
9 min readWhen RoseMarie Terenzio thinks of the late Lauren Bessette, she thinks of a smart, accomplished professional, but also someone who “was so much fun and so down to earth,” she tells ELLE. In other words, she thinks of Lauren as someone very similar to her younger sister, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy—but with her own hopes, dreams, and signature characteristics.
It’s a shame, then, that even FX’s popular drama Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy fails to give Lauren the attention and recognition she deserves. In the show’s finale episode, as she was in life, Lauren is all too easily forgotten as the third victim of the 1999 plane crash that killed her, her sister Carolyn, and John F. Kennedy Jr.
When John, Carolyn, and Lauren died together on July 16, 1999, John and Carolyn—the more famous of the three—received the majority of the media attention, while the loss of Lauren was largely relegated to the background. In Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, Lauren is played by actress Sydney Lemmon, but even in the show her life and death are not treated with the same detail and intimacy. Say those who knew her, Lauren’s story is worth telling, too.
“I wish that she was just treated as the full person that she was,” says Liz McNeil, who, along with Terenzio, co-authored the 2024 book JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography.
“She was her own person with a full life, and so accomplished,” McNeil tells ELLE, adding, “It’s just so tragic—the loss of three lives, and she just had everything ahead.”
Lauren and Carolyn—the latter of whom married John in 1996—were indeed very alike, Terenzio says, and very close, though they had their differences. Terenzio, who served as John’s executive assistant from 1994 until his death in 1999, and Lauren were both single in the ’90s in New York City, and Terenzio says they used to trade dating horror stories—like when a guy regifted Lauren chocolates originally intended for him. Lauren made what Terenzio calls “the best drink ever,” a shot of vodka with three olives and a little olive juice. And despite being a principal at Morgan Stanley, she’d answer the question, “What do you do?” by responding, simply, “I work at a bank.”
As Love Story depicts, Carolyn’s fame skyrocketed thanks to her romance with and eventual marriage to John, but Terenzio says Lauren helped keep Carolyn in check.
“Lauren was so down to earth and so cool, but she was also very like, ‘Oh give me a break, Carolyn,’” Terenzio says. “‘Stop. You’re being dramatic.’ She would give her shit all the time.” John found Lauren “really funny,” she adds, “and I think he loved that she gave Carolyn shit. And I also think he had a lot of respect for her as a professional, because she was so successful and she worked really hard.”
In addition to her hard-charging professional side, “there was this sweet, vulnerable side to Lauren that just made you want to be around her,” Terenzio says, adding that Lauren “was a powerhouse, but she was this understated, really compassionate, funny, warm person. And that doesn’t always—especially for women—go hand-in-hand with the perception of a powerhouse. Lauren had a very grounded, subtle way of exuding how successful she was.”
Elizabeth Beller, author of Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy—the book that inspired FX’s Love Story—tells ELLE that, while it’s “impossible to know” what would have come of Lauren’s life had she had more years to live it, “Lauren had flown up the ranks at Morgan Stanley and was made vice president by the age of 33—she would have excelled at most endeavors,” she says.
Lauren Bessette (left), Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (center), and John F. Kennedy Jr. (right) in 1997.
Lauren, a twin, grew up with her siblings in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Lauren Gail Bessette and her twin sister, Lisa Ann Bessette, were the first children born to William and Ann Bessette on November 5, 1964, in White Plains, New York. Their younger sister, Carolyn, would be born just 14 months later on January 7, 1966. The three sisters were deeply close, no doubt bonded by their parents’ divorce in 1974, when the sisters were young. Ann, a teacher and administrator, remarried a few years later, and the three girls were raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, by their mother and their stepfather, Dr. Richard Freeman, an orthopedic surgeon.
According to a 1999 article in the Cape Cod Times, friends as far back as high school remember Lauren as brilliant and driven, with a dry sense of humor, possessing “a generous spirit,” the outlet reported, and “an almost photographic memory.” Lauren’s Greenwich High School friend Abby Crockett Tuttle remembered that Lauren was eager to help others in their high school days as a member of the Signettes, the high school’s public service club. “She played bingo games with the elderly once a week, sang in nursing homes at Christmas, helped start the community’s first recycling program, and tutored the mentally handicapped,” Cape Cod Times reported.
“I remember her as an eclectic and fun person,” David Dall, a high school classmate of Lauren’s, told The New York Times in 1999, following Lauren’s death. “She was friends with everyone.”
Lauren graduated from high school in 1982 and headed off to college at Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, New York, where she majored in economics but also studied political science and psychology. She graduated in 1986 and was a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the college’s economics honor society.
“She was a beautiful girl, incredibly smart, one of the smartest people I have ever met,” her college friend Taylor Greene told Cape Cod Times. “She taught me a lot. She was always helping people to improve and be better at what they do.”
Professor Daniel McGowan—who instructed Lauren in Monetary Theory and Policy—told The Observer in 1999, “You would like to have a roomful of Laurens. She was definitely honors material. But she was fun to have in class, because she was interested in the subject, wanting to learn.”
After college, Lauren moved to New York City, where she joined Morgan Stanley as a financial analyst. She left the company in 1989 to go back to school, earning her master’s degree in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. Beller tells ELLE that Lauren’s GMAT scores were in the top 1 percent, “which got her into Wharton during an era when finance was male-dominated.”
“Yet, at the same time, she didn’t let go of her femininity,” Beller adds. “Instead of the pantsuits many women felt pressured to wear to be taken seriously, Lauren might show up to a meeting in a Prada shift dress.”
After earning her MBA, Lauren rejoined the team at Morgan Stanley, and in 1994 began working in the company’s Hong Kong office, where she’d remain for four years.
Lauren was growing in her career at Morgan Stanley and had just moved back to New York City one year prior to her death.
In December 1998, Lauren was promoted from her vice president role at Morgan Stanley to a principal in the investment banking division. As a result, she moved back to New York City, where she lived just blocks away from John and Carolyn’s loft at 20 North Moore Street. Already close, Lauren and Carolyn became even closer after Lauren returned to the U.S. from Hong Kong.
One former Morgan Stanley executive who worked with Lauren in the early 1990s told The Observer that she “was very professional. At that time, most of the women who really came across were typical career women—meaning, very, very much focused on the career, really trying to kick ass. She was much more balanced.”
Another former colleague, noting how her death had been overshadowed by John and Carolyn’s, told The Observer of Lauren and her thriving career, “She may have been more successful than they were.”
Lauren was a force of nature, according to those who knew her.
In New York City, Lauren thrived. She loved the city’s booming nightlife and enjoyed traveling on the weekends, just as she was doing on the night she lost her life. She enjoyed the arts, attending the ballet and opera; she was also generous, often attending and supporting charity fundraisers and events.
An ample amount of Lauren’s time was spent with Carolyn. “Every time I saw them together, it was just smiles and laughter and sometimes serious conversation,” Lauren’s colleague Chip Arndt told Town & Country. “You could really tell that they were each other’s confidantes in that regard.”
Beller cites Arndt as saying what good company Lauren was, describing her as creative and spontaneous, “finding the balance between being 100 percent on top of everything in the conference room with living an exciting life.” She went out of her way to help her friends, much as Carolyn did as well; Lauren, Arndt said, had a knack for making sure everyone felt special.
She died at just 34 years old.
On the night of July 16, 1999, Beller says that Lauren shortened a meeting at Morgan Stanley to head to meet John at the offices of his magazine, George, and, according to The Observer, the two got caught in traffic en route to the Essex County Airport.
“She was conscientious, responsible, and polite, so she called [someone] with whom she was working on a deal from the car on the way to the airport to say she was sorry she’d had to leave, and that she would continue the paperwork and email him the next morning,” Beller tells ELLE.
The Observer reported that Lauren was “still wearing a beige work dress as she walked the tarmac to Mr. Kennedy’s Piper Saratoga 32.” Lauren was reportedly headed to Martha’s Vineyard to spend time with Bobby Shriver, one of John’s cousins, whom she was rumored to be dating; John and Carolyn had plans to drop Lauren off at Martha’s Vineyard before heading on to their final destination of Hyannis Port, where John’s cousin Rory Kennedy’s wedding was to be held the next day.
After the plane went missing on Friday night over the Atlantic Ocean, on July 17, a black garment bag bearing a business card with Lauren’s name washed ashore. After it was retrieved from the water, the situation became more grave. After an excruciating search by both the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy—as ordered by President Bill Clinton—fragments of the plane were first located on July 19, three days after the crash. On July 21, five days after anyone had last heard from John, Carolyn, or Lauren, their bodies were finally discovered.
In her eulogy delivered by her uncle Jack Messina, Lauren was remembered as “rich, vibrant, and multifaceted,” as reported by The New York Times. Messina also recalled Lauren playing miniature golf in her backyard, “dressed in pajamas and high heels,” the outlet reported.
“If the events of these past eight days have taught us anything, it is to honor the moment,” Messina said at the time. “Cherish those around you. Try to find a balance between work and family. Contribute something to your community, and above all share the love you feel for each other each and every day.”
Along with John and Carolyn, Lauren’s ashes were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean on July 22, six days after their fateful flight the Friday prior. After the three bodies were recovered from the wreckage of the plane, Lauren and Carolyn’s parents said in a statement, “John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette were true soulmates, and we hope to honor them in death in the simple manner in which they chose to live their lives. We take solace in the thought that together they will comfort Lauren for eternity.”
In Love Story’s season finale, Lauren and Carolyn’s mother, Ann Messina Freeman (played brilliantly by Constance Zimmer), becomes an advocate for Lauren after her death. Speaking to Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (Grace Gummer)’s husband Ed (Ben Shenkman), Ann says, “You keep saying her name. You keep saying ‘Carolyn.’ May I remind you that I had not one but two daughters on board that plane that [John] crashed.”
Later, when speaking to Caroline, Ann sums up the reality of the situation succinctly when she says, “Lauren is practically a footnote. But she wasn’t famous, so I guess her face doesn’t sell papers.”
Although Lauren remains a minor character in the show—the opportunity to develop her character further was a road not taken—there is one scene in which John’s sister, Caroline, admits that she didn’t “know Lauren very well, unfortunately.” But, she tells Ann, “I knew she was incredibly smart, funny, beautiful, dynamic.” This, too, is worth remembering.