Carolyn’s reaction to John’s proposal:
Robert Littell as stated in the man we became:
“She’s the best shot I got,” John whispered to me as we walked off the racquetball court one spring evening. We were headed to the steam room at the Downtown Athletic Club and there was no one was around. He didn’t have to whisper. But John was talking about marrying Carolyn Bessette, and for him the subject was wrapped in excitement and sealed with secrecy.
I think she had no idea if she could handle being married to John. According to him, she resisted his proposal for an entire year. Playing hard to get? Maybe. I can’t imagine that too many women would have refused John, though, knowing he was madly in love. Which he was. But she was also aware, no doubt, that saying yes meant stepping into a ring where she couldn’t control all the punches thrown.”
Richard Blow in American son:
For a little context, Richard had proposed ti her then girlfriend, Nyssa.
“She knew that behavior in a woman, Carolyn explained. She’d been that way herself. Why, she had refused John’s proposal of marriage for almost a year. She had done everything she could to run away from him, but he had refused to let her. No matter how many times she broke down in tears and told John she couldn’t be with him, she was too scared, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was the only man she’d ever known who was so strong, so patient, so sure of what he wanted. She hadn’t realized how much she needed that until John provided it.”
“There’s a beast within Nyssa, and it’s strong,” Carolyn said. “You have to give up your ego. You have to sacrifice your self. She needs you to be strong. She needs you to fight for her. I know why she’s running away. No one’s ever fought for her before.”
Carole Radziwill (as stated in What remains):
“Carolyn calls me one afternoon in July. ‘What are you doing?’”
“Working, why?”
“Come down right now.” They are just back from the Fourth of July on the Vineyard. She has a story for me, too good for the phone.
“Well?” I take a banana from a bowl on the table. She’s lying on the couch, grinning, and I sit down on the floor facing her. She sticks out her left hand. “Look!”
“Wow,” I say. It catches me off guard.
“Stop saying ‘Wow’! You’re scaring me. He gave it to me this weekend.”
“Were you surprised?”
“Yes!”
She didn’t say yes or no, she tells me. They just understood it would happen. She loves him, but she isn’t in a hurry to be his wife. “Don’t tell anyone,” she says. And I don’t, not even Anthony. She would like to stay secretly engaged forever, I think.
Paul Rowland (Carolyn’s friend, as stated in CBK A LIFE IN FASHION):
“She seemed really jittery, and I was thinking, What is going on with you? she finally said, ‘He asked me to marry him’ with this terrified look in her eye. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘That’s amazing!’ She said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ and I asked her, ‘Well, do you love him?’ and she said ‘Yes!’ and I answered her, ‘Well what’s the problem? I don’t get it?’ and she looked straight at me, and she said, ‘Well, my life is really going to change. “
Gary Ginsberg in sons of Camelot:
“When John left the interview that day, he and Gary went off to play tennis. John was neither upset over the interview nor terribly interested in the game on the court. ‘You can’t tell anybody, Gary,’ John said, as he opened a small box to disclose an exquisite diamond engagement ring. ‘You gonna do this?’ Gary asked. ‘Yeah, I’m gonna do it.’ John had kept his intention of marrying Carolyn secret. It was a mark of how deeply he cared that after the failure of this important interview he was thinking not about the first issue of George but about the woman he wanted to be his wife.”
As soon as John got back to New York, he presented Carolyn with the engagement ring and asked her to marry him. Carolyn said that she needed time to think about it.
Rosemarie Terenzio in Fairytale interrupted:
“Rosie, are you ready for this?” she asked.
They had been at his house on Martha’s Vineyard for the long weekend, just hanging out, when John suggested they go fishing. “I wanted to go fishing like I wanted to cut off my right arm,” she said, laughing. But Carolyn agreed.
“He asked me to marry him out on the water, on the boat,” she said. “It was so sweet. He told me, ‘Fishing is so much better with a partner.’”
“That’s amazing!” I said.
“Yeah, but I’ve been a nervous wreck ever since I got off that boat. We had people up for the weekend, and I had to pretend like nothing happened. I just don’t want anyone to know yet,” she said. In her voice, I could hear the jitters stemming from her excitement and also from her nervousness over how people would react when they found out.
From the start, Carolyn was worried that when their engagement went public, the media would tear into her—saying she wasn’t good enough for John. And she was right to worry because that’s exactly what happened.
It seems that Carolyn didn’t explicitly say yes or no, as Carole described. She wanted to marry him, but she was hesitant, with moments where that hesitation felt stronger than others.
Why do you think she was hesitant?
Do you think she was playing hard to get?
Or do you think she was genuinely unsure about marrying him because of the pressure it would bring into her life?
Do you think it had to do with her problems with her own father? This could explain what she told richard blow. It also makes sense when you take into account what John told Billy Noonan.
Billy Noonan in Forever young:
“John pushed his hair forward, spiking it. “I understand her. I completely…I really feel”—his voice went high, almost a falsetto, with the emotion he felt for Carolyn, and he squinted toward the water—“I just completely dig her.”
“This has to be different,” John said. “It has to work. You know, Carolyn looks at marriage like a man does, that it’s not necessarily a lifetime thing, because of the way her mother got burned. It’s made her cynical about marriage. Carolyn’s father left her mother with three little kids. “But this can’t be like that, Billy,” he said again.”
But what do you guys think?
The picture was taken at a wedding in 1998. The daughter of the couple who got married recently made a few posts on TikTok. John was singing in Carolyn’s ear when the photo was taken. If you want to check out the girl’s TikTok, her name is Sophia_Zoa. Her parents flew with John and Carolyn a week before they passed :(