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Jessel Taank is explaining why she asked Carole Radziwill if Carolyn Bessette was a “bitch.”
Following a dinner scene on The Real Housewives of New York City in which Jessel, 46, mentioned the “Carolyn Bessette summer” fashion trend and spoke of a “curse” against the Kennedy family, Jessel revealed why she was so curious about Carolyn, whose late husband, John F. Kennedy Jr., was the cousin of Carole’s late husband, Anthony Radziwill.
“I asked those questions because I was coming off of this meeting I had with a fashion magazine, and we were talking about Carolyn Bessette summer,” Jessel explained on Page Six’s Virtual Reali-Tea. “Only because, from fashion girl to fashion girl, we are a little bit, you know, b*tchy and cold. I was just curious, like, did she have a demeanor where, like, she was sort of cold and maybe a bit of a fashion diva.”
“I maybe shouldn’t have gone with, led with the B-word. But like, I didn’t know,” she continued.
Although Carole made it clear she wasn’t a fan of the “CBK summer,” Jessel said she would be honored if she were Carolyn.
As for whether questions about Carolyn would die down as the season continued, Jessel suggested they would.
“I think that, you know, we, obviously, that’s our first kind of meeting with Carole where she, like, is talking about how Love Story affected her,” she reasoned.
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During another interview with Decider, Jessel first said that she didn’t feel “so inquisitive” about Carolyn in the moment.
“It was just, I was curious to know, like, how Carolyn was. Obviously, from a fashion girl to another fashion girl, that was, you know, something I was intrigued by,” she explained. “[But] I wish I had known how Carole was feeling about [Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette] in general. I didn’t realize that the show had hit such a nerve for her. So, that’s the one thing I wish I had visibility into.”
“We learn, as, you know, sort of the episodes kind of go along, that it really has been a very hard time for her. So, I do regret prodding her, but there wasn’t any mal intent. It was just curiosity,” Jessel insisted.
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Jessel also spoke of the matter earlier this week on Watch What Happens Live.
“I genuinely felt really bad that I was obviously talking about a subject that was very sensitive to her. What I meant was that, you know, Carolyn Bessette, in that moment, [Love Story] had just aired on Hulu and she was being celebrated for her style, and listen, she was beautiful, she had such a chic, minimal of her, how to dress, and I think that’s what I was getting at,” she shared.
The Real Housewives of New York City season 16 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.