Howard Stern Recalls Friendship With Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr. ‘George’ Magazine Shoot

Howard Stern returned from a spring hiatus Monday morning, and revealed to his Sirius/XM audience that he’s one of the millions of Americans watching Ryan Murphy’s new season of Love Story, which chronicles the tragic saga of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. But unlike most viewers, Stern had a relationship with both of them.

“I knew the real Carolyn Bessette,” he said. “I won’t say I knew her well, but we had many, many conversations, more than casual conversations. She was very lovely. She was like a really nice woman … I don’t want to go into how I knew her, but I knew her. I know enough to keep my mouth shut about that. Some stuff you do have to keep private … But she was very nice to me, very open and talkative. She didn’t give me the nose-up-in-the air kind of thing. I don’t have any juicy, gossipy story.”

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He also spent time with John F. Kennedy Jr. when he agreed to pose for the April 1996 cover of his magazine George. “He actually showed up to the shoot,” Stern said. “It’s one of the worst covers I ever did, and I did a lot of bad ones. They convinced me to be chopping down a cherry tree with a chainsaw dressed up in colonel garb. I guess I was supposed to be George Washington, but George Washington didn’t wear this shit I was wearing. I looked like Paul Revere in drag.”

At the time, Stern was appearing on the cover of very few magazines. “I would do Rolling Stone and that was the only one,” he said. “But when John Kennedy Jr. [asks], who is literally American royalty and the nicest guy in the world … he was a super nice guy. And there was the opportunity that perhaps he’d come on the show.”

Kennedy indeed returned the favor, and granted Stern a very candid interview on his radio show. RoseMarie Terenzio, who served as Kennedy’s personal assistant and key confidante, recalled the build-up to the appearance in her 2012 book Fairy Tale Interrupted: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss.

“Hachette’s PR people and [publicist] Nancy Haberman were very distressed, but John told them he could handle it,” Terenzio wrote. “I was elated. The morning of the show, Carolyn called me at 6, when the program began, and we sat together on the phone listening to the radio. ‘I’m so nervous,’ Carolyn said. ‘So am I.’ ‘What? Don’t say that! I thought you said you weren’t nervous about him going on the show.’ ‘No, no. He’ll be fine,’ I said. I was really nervous. Howard had an unmatched ability to make people look stupid.”

Terenzio told Kennedy to simply defer to Stern co-host Robin Quivers if things got uncomfortable. “If you listen to the interview, that’s exactly what he does,” writes Terenzio. “He says, ‘Robin, I thought you were supposed to help me out here.’ And what’s funny is that she is so fucking head over heels, she goes crazy when he walks in.”

Looking back today, Stern focused on the George photo shoot. “John and the photographer did that thing they do to supermodels,” Stern said. They go. ‘Gorgeous, you look great. This is the greatest cover.’  I’m posing while the guy is clicking away, and I’m posing like I’m Cindy Crawford or one of the Hadid sisters. That was before I knew about photo approval. I guess I kind of look like Captain Hook or something.”

Stern’s only opposition to the miniseries is the portrayal of Daryl Hannah. He agreed with her fiery New York Times op-ed, where she wrote, “The character ‘Daryl Hannah’ portrayed in the series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John. The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s. It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show. These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false.”

“I’m on her side,” Stern said during his show. “She’s right. Her complaint is they’re making her look like a douche. From everyone I know who knows Daryl Hannah, they say she’s a great girl … All that aside, my wife and I love the TV show.”

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