The first time Carole Radziwill palmed an apple for “The Real Housewives of New York City,” the decision to join Bravo’s franchise required very little thought.
“I had never even seen the show or heard of the show,” Radziwill, 63, tells USA TODAY. Still, she thought, “I would do that."
After joining in the series’ fifth season, which aired in 2012, cameras captured Radziwill running the New York City marathon, forming a close bond with fellow castmate Heather Thomson and shutting down Sonja Morgan’s declaration that she partied “with John-John Kennedy and Madonna all the time.”
But after wrapping Season 10, Radziwill had enough and announced in July 2018 that she was leaving the show, explaining her “original curiosity about reality television
has waned over the years,” and she wanted to prioritize “TV and writing projects that better suit my more steady temperament."
Now, two weeks before the “RHONY” Season 16 premiere (Sept. 8, 8 p.m. ET/PT, streaming Wednesdays on Peacock), Radziwill says she is “shocked” by her return, which she attributes to fans rallying after an appearance at BravoCon in November. The next month, Andy Cohen, host of the network’s “Watch What Happens Live” and “Housewives” executive producer, phoned Radziwill to ask if she’d return. His request stunned her.
“I couldn't even talk for like, two minutes,” Radziwill remembers. “I was like, ‘I don't understand what you're saying.’”
She’s joined on Season 16 by returning housewives Sai De Silva, Erin Lichy and Jessel Taank, along with new cast members Hailey Glassman, Erika Hammond and Daisy Toye. And despite quickly agreeing the first go around, Radziwill says she “marinated around the idea for a few months.”
Privacy was a concern. Unbeknownst to Radziwill, whose late husband Anthony Radziwill is the nephew of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, FX dropped its dramatized depiction of the “Love Story” between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette around the time Radziwill began filming “RHONY.” The Ryan Murphy-produced anthology series, criticized as “stupid” and “grotesque” by Caroline Kennedy’s son Jack Schlossberg, premiered in February and depicts an inspired-by account of their meeting, romance, and deaths. A plane piloted by Kennedy Jr., carrying Bessette and her sister, Lauren Bessette, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on July 16, 1999. Less than a month later, Anthony Radziwill died following a long battle with cancer.
Below, Carole Radziwill reveals how “Love Story” rocked her, what it was like mourning her husband, Kennedy Jr. and Bessette, as well as why she doesn’t shy away from talking about the Epstein files.
Question: You’ve mentioned hesitation about giving up your privacy to return to “RHONY.” Is it hard to have a renewed spotlight on John and Carolyn?
Answer: That's a good question because in December, when I was pondering this idea of returning, into January, I knew “Love Story” was going to be on, but I didn't know when. Also, I didn't know when “RHONY” would start filming again. I signed on, and it just so happened that “Love Story” premiered in the same weeks that I started filming.
It was a very emotional time for me. That show, really, it was like a body slam. I didn't watch it, but you couldn't get away from it. Martha Stewart watched it. The other women on the cast watched it and were curious about this and that. It was very hard… I hadn't planned on talking about it. I wrote about it. I think people sometimes conflate talking and writing. What I had to say about that time in my life, I wrote in a book [“What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love”].
Because you were so close, is there anything that you wish people knew?
That was going to be the hill I would die on. I was the shepherd of their legacy, in a way, and I made that decision early, early on that I would do that, and that was a result, in part, my book. But I didn't expect that I would still be doing it 25 years later…
Around [the premiere of] “Love Story,” every magazine called and said, "Will you write about what they were really like?" And at some point I said, "It's not my job to tell people what they were really like," because the minute you put down anything on paper, or even talk about it in a way, it changes it.
They were wonderfully complex people, and all that that entails. I don't know what they were like on the show. I'm sure it was probably more black and white. They were so young when they died. Anthony had just turned 40, John was in his 30s, Carolyn was 33. Can you imagine? 33! She was just starting her life, and the scrutiny that she was under was unimaginable.
I feel like I'm much more protective. I don't mind that people don't know them. I don't mind that people think Carolyn was this way or that way. I don't even care that people still think that Carolyn was so late to her wedding that the guests were waiting in that little church without air conditioning for two hours. I almost prefer that they think that's what happened, at this point. I almost prefer that they don't know.
You mention the shock of Carolyn dying so young. For her and John to die in July and your husband to die in August, that is also unimaginable. How did those losses change you?
I would like to say I handled it perfectly, like I was a widow who did all the right things. But I was so shut down and so messy after that. I was angry. I left ABC News, where I had been 14 years [as a journalist and producer]. I sold my apartment that I had with my husband. I did all the things you weren't supposed to do, and I was really angry.
I was angry at them for leaving me. I was angry at the people around me who were constantly talking about it and trying to connect themselves to be relevant in this story. Like, "I remember I saw John three weeks before the plane crashed, on his bike." And I'm like, "I don't care. I don't care."
I think it was a long, very slow and steady [process]. I went to therapy. It was a long and steady path to being emotionally OK and emotionally regulated about this part of my life. I think writing about it really helped because then I felt like I own that story. This is my story. This did happen. I knew these people. This is who they were…
But I'll say, when “Love Story” aired… The emotions all came back. It’s a little grief that I felt, almost the whole time I was filming… You'll see the arc of that story throughout, I think, the whole season [of “RHONY”]. Certainly in the beginning, and then it comes up really big at the end, and that was completely unplanned.
Is there anything you can share about what was filmed for RHONY Season 16? In the trailer, a heckler yells at you about your name appearing in the released Epstein files. [Radziwill and Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted accomplice, once had a friendship.]
That was really shocking. That had never happened before or since. But it reminds me that we live in a different world now, and it feels a little more dangerous. I understand people's curiosity. It's a shocking story that involves very wealthy, powerful people. And I've talked about it publicly for years… This is not something that I ever try to avoid. So I kind of felt like it would come up on the show, and I was OK with it.
I've always been honest about knowing [Ghislaine Maxwell] 20 years ago. I never met [Jeffrey Epstein]. I never knew him. She never even talked about him... It's so different from what the public thinks about our friendship. I never considered her a really close friend… and I learned about it when everyone else learned about it. It’s so hard to think you knew someone, and even called them at one point a friend, and then you find out she was doing really horrific things.
When I think about this, it's not about defending my reputation. I think anyone who looks at the story knows exactly what's going on. And people like to pick at the low-hanging fruit and somehow are blind to what's right in front of them. But I think about the victims that did not get the justice they deserve. I think about all the other young girls that are sexually assaulted every day, more than I think about who Ghislaine Maxwell knew or didn't know 20 years ago.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Returning 'RHONY' star Carole Radziwill says 'Love Story' was 'a body slam'
