Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s earlier romances, including Michael Bergin

Before her marriage to John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette moved in circles of attractive, influential men: Alessandro Benetton, nightlife impresario Will Regan and Calvin Klein model Michael Bergin. Bergin met Bessette in the 1990s while both worked for Calvin Klein and later appeared on Baywatch.

Friends recalled that Bergin’s presence provoked jealousy from Kennedy and that Bessette was frequently drawn back to the model. Bergin wrote in his 2004 book The Other Man that their relationship continued after she began seeing Kennedy, and he told Good Morning America the affair “was wrong — on my part — and her part.” Excerpts from Bergin’s memoir, cited by Maureen Callahan, describe a confrontation in which Bessette allegedly injured Bergin’s face.

Callahan also recounts Bergin’s claim that Bessette told him in 1993 she was pregnant, said the child was his and planned an abortion; Bergin reportedly accompanied her to the procedure and continued to hope he might win her back. Ultimately Bessette married Kennedy in 1996.

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