Carole Radziwill says ‘the emotions all came back' when ‘Love Story' aired and she returned to ‘RHONY'

Carole Radziwill said she felt emotional when she returned to The Real Housewives of New York City while Love Story aired on FX. She said Love Story, which dramatized the relationship of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, felt 'like a body slam.' The Real Housewives of New York City season 16 premieres on Sept. 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. Carole Radziwill is opening up about an emotional start to 2026. The journalist, who is returning to The Real Housewives of New York City for the reality show's 16th season after leaving in 2018, is reflecting on what it was like when Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette aired in February. Radziwill is related to the Kennedy family through marriage. Her late husband, Anthony Radziwill, was a first cousin to John F. Kennedy Jr. through their mothers, Lee Radziwill and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The Ryan Murphy-produced show depicted a dramatization of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's relationship, from their courtship to their marriage and their tragic death in July 1999. Weeks after JFK Jr., Bessette, and her sister Lauren Bessette died in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Anthony died of cancer. Carole Radziwill at BravoCon in Las Vegas in November 2025. Rich Polk/Bravo Radziwill began filming RHONY in early 2026, during the same period that Love Story aired on FX. She told USA Today that it was 'a very emotional time' for her. 'That show, really, it was like a body slam. I didn't watch it, but you couldn't get away from it,' she said. 'Martha Stewart watched it. The other women on the cast watched it and were curious about this and that.' 'It was very hard… I hadn't planned on talking about it. I wrote about it. I think people sometimes conflate talking and writing. What I had to say about that time in my life, I wrote in a book [the memoir What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love],' added Radziwill. Radziwill recalled how when Love Story premiered, publications reached out asking if she would write about what the Love Story subjects were really like. 'At some point I said, 'It's not my job to tell people what they were really like, because the minute you put down anything on paper, or even talk about it in a way, it changes it.' 'They were wonderfully complex people, and all that that entails. I don't know what they were like on the show. I'm sure it was probably more black and white.' Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter. She also told USA Today about the grief she experienced. 'I think it was a long, very slow and steady [process],' she said. 'I went to therapy. It was a long and steady path to being emotionally okay and emotionally regulated about this part of my life.' 'I think writing about it really helped because then I felt like I own that story. This is my story. This did happen. I knew these people. This is who they were,' Radziwill added. John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bessette at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., in May 1999. Tyler Mallory/Getty Ultimately, when Love Story aired, Radziwill said 'the emotions all came back.' 'It's a little grief that I felt, almost the whole time I was filming… You'll see the arc of that story throughout, I think, the whole season [of RHONY],' she told the publication. 'Certainly in the beginning, and then it comes up really big at the end, and that was completely unplanned.' Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr. and Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette on 'Love Story'. FX Radziwill, who was not depicted in the Emmy-nominated show, wrote about the limited series after it premiered in February on her Substack. 'Sitting here now, we know how it ended,' she began. 'And yet the story keeps being told. Reinvented. Embroidered. Filled with details no one could possibly know, by people who weren't there and don't care about the truth. We think we own our stories. We don't. Not in life, and certainly not in death,' she continued. 'But now I am at peace with it all,' Radziwill wrote. 'I no longer worry about misrepresentations, false narratives, or bent truths. I don't flinch at flat, lifeless descriptions or cornball storylines. I don't care whether people get it wrong, get it right, or ever know what they were really like.' The Real Housewives of New York City season 16 premieres on Sept. 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo, and is available to stream the following day on Peacock.