How Was RHONY’s Carole Radziwill Related To The Kennedys?

Carole Radziwill is far more than a former Housewife on The Real Housewives of New York. She is an award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and a well-connected woman in New York’s high society.

One of the most intriguing things about Carole when she joined RHONY in Season 5 was her familial relationship with the Kennedys.

The Kennedy family may as well be one of the last-standing first families of American politics and society. John F. Kennedy is most notable as America’s 35th president. More than his presidency, his family life was a tabloid’s dream — especially how loved his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was.

As time passed, the Kennedys fame fizzled out, but the allure has always been attached to their name. So how did a family member of the Kennedys end up on Bravo?

Carole Radziwill Was Related To The Kennedys Through Marriage

Carole Radziwill met her late husband, Anthony Radziwill, while working as a journalist in the late ‘80s on the Menendez trial (Lyle and Erik Menendez), as reported by Bravo.

• People reported that the two dated for two years before getting engaged and marrying.
• The two never had children.
• During that time, Carole found out more about Anthony’s extensive and impressive family tree, which included the famous Kennedys and his status as a prince.

In the early ‘90s, John F. Kennedy Jr.’s romance and marriage with Carolyn Bassette was all over the news. The couple soon became closer friends of Carole after dating and marrying Anthony.

Carole Became Closer To The Kennedys Through Marriage

In an interview with The Telegraph, Carole described the foursome as "unbelievably close." The couples spent summers together in the Hamptons and traveled together. She referred to Carolyn as her "best friend," explaining the kind of person she was. "Whether things were going great or things were going terribly, [Carolyn] would be there for you. She swooped in and made all of the hundreds of hospital stays and doctors visits bearable. And she really was there for both of us nearly every day that last year of [Anthony's] life."

In a sudden twist of fate, Carole faced unbelievable tragedy in a short amount of time.

Bravo reported that Anthony was diagnosed with sarcoma (a rare bone cancer) before his and Carole's wedding in 1994. Carole explained that Anthony needed Carole's support during that time and wanted to keep his diagnosis a secret from the rest of the family, especially the tabloids.

[Cancer] was seen as a death sentence. So it's not something that you wanted to talk about.

The journalist explained, "No one would talk about it openly, even though there was many, many, many treatments and there were a lot of cures also for different cancers. But still it was that lingering thing, like, 'Oh, you have cancer.' And it was always said with a whisper. Still, even today it is, which is just interesting. That became our secret."

Outside of Carole, the one person who did know was Anthony's cousin, John. In her interview with The Telegraph, she shared how John helped Anthony's mindset during that time. "When they were kids, John was always the one who joked with Anthony and could make him laugh. So his way of dealing with the cancer was to continue being funny." John told Carole that if he stopped joking around with Anthony, he would "give up and die."

The small number of people who knew about Anthony's illness kept it a secret for five years. During the time of his diagnosis, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette died tragically in a plane crash.

In Carole's memoir, What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love, she explained that she was one of the first people in the inner circle of the Kennedys to learn of their deaths, after receiving a late-night phone call from Martha's Vineyard Airport that John's plane never landed.

After no response from John's plane, the Coast Guard was called and they found pieces of John and Carolyn's plane, with the bodies still strapped to the seats. The cause of death was based on a pilot error, as reported by The Washington Post. John was flying the plane.

Three weeks after the death of her beloved friends, her husband succumbed to his illness and passed away.

I listen to [Anthony's] heartbeat until it is so faint I can barely hear it ... and then it's gone.

The death of her husband and close friends "brought [Carole] to [her] knees."

Carole Radziwill's Journey To Bravo

Decades after the death of Carole Radziwill's husband, Anthony, Carole found herself in a new area of fame: reality TV. As a diehard New Yorker and well-connected woman in New York's society, she was the perfect addition to Season 5 of The Real Housewives of New York.

Unlike the other women, Carole was more serious, was married to royalty, and had an intriguing career as a journalist. The former Housewife was very open about her personal life with the Kennedys but still had an air of mystery.

According to Showbiz CheatSheet, Carole explained on Behind The Velvet Rope With David Yontef that she wasn't going to drag her husband's family ties to the Kennedys through reality TV fodder.

"I was not going to go in and exploit my late husband’s family or the Kennedy family," she shared on the podcast.

The former ABC correspondent explained she had a clause in her contract refusing Bravo to use the Kennedy name for marketing purposes. “So I never [talked about the Kennedy family], except for the history package, like in the first season or the second season, when you had to explain kind of who you were, I never said anything about the Kennedy family. In fact, I think Sonja [Morgan] was the one that brought it up a bunch of times. And I just stayed away from it. In fact so much so that in my first-year contract, there’s a clause.”

Carole explained more about the clause.

It’s like five paragraphs. How Bravo cannot use my Kennedy connection to promote their show.

"It was really detailed out because I wanted it to be really protective over that. And I thought that would be a deal-breaker, but they agreed to that. So honestly, by the time I signed the contract, I felt comfortable with what I was going to do on the show.”

While a fan favorite for her quick one-liners and effortless flair, Carole gave a statement to US Weekly about leaving RHONY after six seasons. She explained she wanted to get back to her journalist roots and she would miss her time on Bravo, "I will remember this entire experience with delight, humor and a veracious accuracy. Next.”