A childhood friend of John F. Kennedy Jr. has denied that there was any friction between his sister Caroline Kennedy and his wife Carolyn Bessette on their wedding day.
In an exclusive interview with Page Six, Sasha Chermayev addressed the rumors that have been swirling for years, following the portrayal of the strained relationship between Carolyn and her sister-in-law on Hulu and FX’s Love Story series.
“People knew there was tension between these two couples,” Chermayf said of John and Carolyn and Caroline and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg.
“It’s something that people knew, but it wasn’t very obvious at the wedding,” she added.
Mr Charmaykh said all 40 guests who attended the intimate wedding on a remote island off the coast of Georgia in September 1996 were “on their best behavior” and the bride and groom were “happy”.
“At that point, there was no tension at all. It just wasn’t there,” she doubled down.
Although Carolyn was Carolyn’s chief bridesmaid, Chermayev recalled that bridesmaid duties were filled by the bride’s mother, Ann Messina Freeman, and her sisters, Lisa and Lauren Bessette.
Bessette’s closest friends Jessica Weinstein, Jules Birnbaum and Narciso Rodriguez (the latter designed Bessette’s wedding dress) were also by her side on the big day.
When asked if Caroline had taken on the role of bridesmaid, Ms Chermayf said: “I’m not convinced that she had to do something like that. I think Caroline had her people pretty much following her.”
Instead, Chermayev recalled that Caroline spent much of her wedding weekend caring for her three young children with Ed Schlossberg: Rose, Tatiana (who died of cancer in December 2025), and Jack.
She also remembered that Caroline joined John’s friends and family on the beach in the hours leading up to the rehearsal dinner.
Produced by Ryan Murphy, the FX drama depicts the tumultuous relationship between Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon) and Caroline (Grace Gummer).
In episode 4, Carolyn has a frosty exchange with John (Paul Anthony Kelly) after he invites a Calvin Klein publicist to his sister’s birthday dinner.
Signs of tension between Carolyn and Caroline were further revealed on Thursday night’s episode, which depicted not only the wedding day, but the lead up to it.
In one scene, Carolyn and John get into an argument with Caroline and Ed about their wedding plans during a sit-down dinner.
When Caroline explained that she wanted a small wedding because she wanted to avoid the “Kennedy spectacle,” she blurted out that she wasn’t “involved in any decisions” about the wedding.
In another scene, Carolyn and her younger sister Lauren get into an argument after younger sister Lauren tells Carolyn that she will be her special guardian.
“I don’t know what else I can do to make her respect me,” Carolyn told Caroline’s sister, adding, “I can’t participate in my wedding and married life with her hating me.”
When Lauren asks why she hates Caroline, Carolyn replies, “For taking away the only family I had left. The Kennedys are like the Beatles. I feel like Yoko.”
Lauren is completely heartbroken and tells Carolyn, “This meant nothing to (Caroline). It meant everything to me.”
Later in the episode, Carolyn is seen getting her hair and makeup done before the wedding. While Carolyn is in the corner of the room with her mother and sisters, on the other side of the room a very disinterested Caroline is shown sitting in a chair reading a book.
Chermaykh, who refuses to watch the show about his late friends who tragically died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999, pointed out that the writers and producers did not know about Carolyn or John.
“The way I look at it,[‘Love Story’]is just a bunch of people who have never met and never met and are just making it up as they go,” she said.
A representative for Caroline did not respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
