Carolyn’s older sister is portrayed by actress Sydney Lemmon on FX’s “Love Story.”

Who was Carolyn Bessette’s sister Lauren? Inside the life of the Morgan Stanley exec who also died in the plane crash

Carolyn's older sister is portrayed by actress Sydney Lemmon on FX's "Love Story."

By Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn is a writer and editor at **. His work has previously appeared on The A.V. Club, The Guardian, The Ringer, and many other publications.

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March 27, 2026 8:30 a.m. ET

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Lauren Bessette outside Bubby's in Tribeca on Nov. 15, 1997; Sydney Lemmon as Lauren Bessette on FX's 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'. Credit:

Lawrence Schwartzwald/Sygma via Getty; Eric Liebowitz/FX

Most everyone knows that John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999. What's less discussed is that they weren't alone — Lauren Bessette, Carolyn's older sister, was also on board that day.

JFK Jr., who was piloting the aircraft, was set to drop Lauren off at Martha's Vineyard before flying with Carolyn to Hyannis Point, Mass., for the wedding of his cousin, Rory Kennedy.

"Lauren wasn't a public figure, and she was obscured by the magnitude of John and Carolyn's fame," says Rosemarie Terenzio, a former colleague of JFK Jr., in *JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography.* "She was so beautiful and smart and funny."**

Lauren, who was 34 at the time of her death, is portrayed by actress Sydney Lemmon on FX's *Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, *which depicts her as a successful businesswoman and close confidant of her sister.

Below, we dig into the real details of Lauren's life, as well as her relationship with Carolyn and JFK Jr. before their deaths off the shore of Martha's Vineyard.**

Who was Lauren Bessette?

Lauren Bessette in New York City on Nov. 15, 1997.

Lawrence Schwartzwald/Sygma via Getty

Born in 1964, roughly a year before Carolyn, Lauren grew up with her sisters in Greenwich, Conn., before studying economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York, where she graduated with honors. She was also a member of the distinguished Omicron Delta Epsilon honor society.

In Elizabeth Beller's *Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, *Lauren is described as "studious and goal-oriented" and a model student. After graduating, she earned an MBA from the Wharton School and was hired by Morgan Stanley, the storied investment banking company. As Beller writes, Lauren's fluency in Mandarin proved instrumental to her rise there, and she would spend four years working from its Hong Kong office.

At the time of her death, she had recently been promoted from a vice president to a principal at Morgan Stanley.

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"Lauren was smart. She was bright and funny like Carolyn, but more subdued," recalled Jack Merrill, a friend of the Bessettes and JFK Jr., in *Once Upon a Time*.

Fergal Keane, a broadcaster and friend of Lauren's, paid tribute to her in a eulogy published in the *Independent*, saying she was "sincere" and "had the gift of a formidable intellect."

"[She] never met you with anything less than the full force of her personality," he writes. "And that was very powerful indeed. Her physical appearance was striking. Tall and statuesque, with long brown hair, she always surged rather than strolled; she was always the figure in the room who demanded the closest attention."**

Were Lauren and Carolyn close in real life?

Sydney Lemmon as Lauren Bessette on FX's 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'.

Kurt Iswarienko/FX

Lauren and Carolyn always had a tight bond, per *Once Upon a Time, *but their relationship deepened in the years prior to their deaths. Lauren moved back to New York City from Hong Kong in early 1998, when Carolyn was struggling with the pressures of her marriage and the paparazzi.

"Carolyn needed an ally in the midst of several crises," Merrill says in *Once Upon a Time.* The book notes how Carolyn had begun spending more and more time at Lauren's Tribeca apartment, just a few blocks from her home with JFK Jr.

Merrill adds, "Carolyn and Lauren were already close, but they became closer than ever."**

"[She] used to hang out at her sister Lauren's house in Tribeca and bitch about the invasion of her privacy," says William Peter Owen, a Bessette family friend, in *Once Upon a Time*. Beller writes that Carolyn would often spend the night at Lauren's** **place: "The message seemed to be: *I still have my own life. Take me for granted, and I won't be there*."**

Lauren and Carolyn became so close that Lauren even began dating in the Kennedy gene pool. At the time of her death, she was in a relationship with Bobby Shriver, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy.**

How did Lauren and JFK Jr. get along?

Sydney Lemmon as Lauren Bessette on FX's 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'.

Speaking with PEOPLE in March 2026, Terenzio said JFK Jr. had a "good relationship" with Lauren, noting that the political scion had "a lot of respect" for her.

“I think he trusted her judgment, for the most part,” she said. “I think he felt like she knew Carolyn — her family knew her better than anybody — and I think he felt like Lauren had really good insights."

Terenzio added, "She was very level-headed, she wasn't drama, and I think he liked that about her. She was the voice of reason, so to speak, a lot of times."**

Where can I watch Love Story?

*Love Story* is available to stream on Hulu.

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