Unraveling the Mystery of Carolyn Bessette’s Other Romance Amidst JFK Jr. Relationship

Carolyn Bessette will always be remembered as the captivating and mysterious blonde who captured the heart of John F. Kennedy Jr.

Before she became part of America’s “golden couple,” Bessette was involved in a passionate relationship with Michael Bergin, a rising Calvin Klein model. His striking physique once adorned six-story billboards in New York City’s Times Square during the mid-1990s.

Michael Bergin, with his good looks, was part of New York’s ‘it’ couple at the time. However, Bessette ultimately chose to be with the “Prince of Camelot,” who was also named People magazine’s sexiest man alive.

Today, at 56, Bergin’s appearance has transformed with silver hair and glasses, and his image no longer looms over Manhattan.

Instead, the former Baywatch star has found a new path in Studio City, California. As revealed by the Daily Mail, Bergin has successfully transitioned into real estate, working alongside his wife Joy, 55, while also being a devoted father to their two children.

But it’s his relationship from over three decades ago that has him back in the spotlight thanks to the new FX television drama resurrecting the fateful love triangle.

Silver-haired and bespectacled, former supermodel Michael Bergin, 56, was seen stepping outside his $2 million Studio City home in the wake of the new FX series premiere about his former love Carolyn Bessette

Bergin was one of the shirtless hunks who starred alongside Pamela Anderson and Nicole Eggert on the lifeguard show Baywatch. And he modeled for Calvin Klein as well

In the new limited series drama Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, Bergin – played by actor Noah Fearnley – can be seen fighting for the affections of the beautiful blonde Calvin Klein publicist at the same time she embarked on a romance with America’s most eligible bachelor. 

But the Daily Mail can reveal a very different Michael Bergin today, scruffy, but still handsome, and living a low-key life in LA. 

And, photos show, the former Baywatch and Baywatch Hawaii heartthrob appears to have held onto his great physique three decades on.

Dressed in black joggers, a Vuori sweatshirt and Adidas sneakers, he looked relaxed and in good spirits as he made friendly conversation with a neighbor outside his $2 million home on Saturday.

He was later seen heading to his real estate office a few miles away. 

Bergin and his wife of 22 years, Joy, share two grown children – Jesse, 25, a pitcher for the Miami Marlins, and Alana, 22, a model. 

Carolyn Bessette and John F Kennedy Jr tragically died in 1999 off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, when JFK Jr crashed his small private plane, killing everyone on board 

The couple’s love story, as well as Carolyn’s brief romance with Bergin is depicted in the new FX series, in which he is portrayed by Noah Fearnley (pictured on set)

The retired model famously laid bare details of his tumultuous relationship with his ex in his 2004 memoir, The Other Man: A Love Story – John F Kennedy Jr, Carolyn Bessette, and Me, in which he described their romance as intense and emotional.

Bergin, who was three years Carolyn’s junior, was just 23 when he took her on their first date, and, he admitted, lightning struck.

‘She looked across at me and smiled. Her whole face lit up when she smiled. I thought, I could look at that face the rest of my life,’ he wrote. 

‘I didn’t even know her but I felt connected to her in ways I couldn’t even begin to understand.’

The FX series dramatizes the whirlwind romance, including Bergin’s ‘makeover’ at the hands of his fashion-forward girlfriend, who dressed him in Calvin Klein’s latest fashions.

He revealed Carolyn also helped shaped him into a more refined version of himself, even helping him improve his speech.

Once the face (and body) of Calvin Klein, Bergin now advertises luxury homes alongside his wife, with their photos seen on bus benches throughout LA

These days, Bergin lives a much quieter life as a realtor in LA, where he lives with his realtor wife Joy, and his two adult children

The former TV heartthrob shows off his athletic frame in black joggers and a sweatshirt during a weekend outing in Los Angeles

‘Try not to drop your word endings. It makes your sentences sound unfinished,’ she told him, according to the book. He liked the constructive criticism. 

‘She was right. “Doin’, sayin’, goin’.” I sounded like a small-town hood and Carolyn was trying to help me change that. 

‘She was educating me. Shaping me. Refining me. And I not only allowed it, I appreciated it.’

Like Carolyn, Bergin was a Connecticut native, raised in the small blue-collar town of Naugatuck before graduating from the University of Connecticut in 1992. 

A photograph published in his memoir shows the couple curled up together on the couch inside his modest Naugatuck home, where, according to Bergin, she would visit him and his family on the weekends. 

The rare image underscores the intimate nature of their relationship portrayed in his book – a softer and more private portrait of Carolyn before she entered JFK Jr’s orbit. 

Bergin was later seen heading to his real estate office just a few miles from home

Bergin played character JD Darius on Baywatch and later starred in spinoff Baywatch: Hawaii for 88 episodes from 1997 to 2001

Their romance, which was largely out of public view, would later be eclipsed by the glare of her high-profile relationship with the Kennedy heir that dominated headlines. 

Bergin’s handsome looks – and his Adonis-like physique – were also evident at the time, prompting friends to encourage him to try modeling. 

By 1994 he was an international supermodel, landing the controversial Calvin Klein underwear campaign and other high-profile gigs.

Throughout their relationship, Bergin says, Carolyn remained quite a mystery to him, even lying about the depth of her blossoming romance with JFK Jr.

When he confronted her about the first images showing the two together in October of 1993, sitting on a curb watching the New York City Marathon, Carolyn denied there was anything going on. 

She claimed JFK Jr had a girlfriend (actress Daryl Hannah) and that she was just being ‘a friend’ he could talk to during a difficult time in his life.

Carolyn would go on to leave Bergin for JFK Jr – a high-profile relationship that would eclipse theirs

Three years later on September 21, 1996, she and JFK Jr were married in front of 40 guests at the First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island, Georgia.

Bergin has made waves with his claim that their sexual trysts continued after she married JFK Jr.

In later interviews he suggested it was more of an emotional affair that he finally walked away from after turning down a weeping Carolyn’s plea to get back together around May of 1998.

He never saw her again.

Carolyn, 33, and JFK Jr, 38, were killed along with her older sister Lauren, 34, when the small plane that Kennedy was piloting went down into the ocean en route to Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999.

In an excerpt from The Other Man, Bergin writes, ‘I found myself wondering what would have happened if I had said yes…would she be alive today? Would we be together? Would we be happy?’