Note: This article contains details from episode seven of FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.
After John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s ultra-private wedding on Georgia’s remote Cumberland Island in September 1996, they set off on their two-week honeymoon. The destination? Istanbul, Turkey.
According to C. David Heymann’s biography American Legacy: The Story of John and Caroline Kennedy, the couple’s honeymoon spot was actually recommended by John’s mother, Jackie Kennedy. John had visited Istanbul with his mother and her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, and in 1985, Mrs. Kennedy had gone to Turkey and reportedly “told John that if he ever married, it was an ideal place to honeymoon.” Years later, after her death in 1994, John took his mother’s advice.
Traveling under the aliases “Mr. and Mrs. Hyannis,” the newlyweds touched down in Turkey and checked into a $4,500-per-night penthouse suite at the Ciragan Palace Hotel, a luxury five-star hotel in a restored Ottoman palace on the Bosphorus. Christiane Amanpour, a close friend of Kennedy Jr.’s, had recommended the hotel to the couple, reportedly calling it “one of the most luxurious in the world, even by Kennedy standards,” according to Heymann’s book. Today, the hotel is run by the Kempinski luxury hotel group (and just as opulent as ever).
While in Turkey, Kennedy and Bessette-Kennedy enjoyed themselves, going on a guided tour and visiting sights such as the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and the Grand Bazaar. They dined at waterfront restaurants and visited Ephesus, now a UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site.
Just as Paul Anthony Kelly’s JFK Jr. says in episode seven of Love Story, the paparazzi that plagued the couple at home did indeed follow them to their honeymoon, with photographers from Globe spying on their itinerary in Turkey. For the second half of their trip, the couple sailed around the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea on a yacht, sunbathing and swimming.
And that detail in Love Story about getting matching tattoos? It’s true, according to Heymann. The author quotes Emil Gabron, a manager of a club the couple reportedly visited in Istanbul, saying: “They confessed that before leaving Istanbul, they went to a tattoo artist who plastered their respective behinds with shamrocks.”
