Carole Radziwill Reflects on JFK Jr. and Carolyn

 was just 36 years old when she lost her best friends, John F Kennedy Jr, his wife Carolyn Bessette, and her husband Anthony Radziwill within the space of three weeks.

Carole was married to Anthony, a cousin of JFK Jr and nephew of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the pair were close friends with John and Carolyn, with the men serving as best man to one another at their respective weddings. 

Fans have become increasingly interested in Carole's relationship with the Kennedy's ever since the release of 's TV adaptation, Love Story - despite being shut out of the series entirely.

And in a new interview with The New York Times, Carole, now 62, touched on her friendship with Carolyn.

'She would just be my rock', Carole said of the time her late husband was undergoing treatment for . 'She was there for me all the time.'

For years, Carole says she has been rebutting narratives about JFK Jr, Carolyn and her late husband Anthony. 

'Defending Carolyn and talking about my husband was a hill I was going to die on', she said. 

'But honestly, I didn’t think that 25 years later, it would become a mountain', she added following the release of Love Story.

The Emmy-winning television journalist turned Real Housewives of New York City star also revealed the eyebrow-raising moment she found out her ex auditioned to play the role of her late husband Anthony in Love Story.

The ex - who has not been named - phoned her to tell her that he was up for a role in the series. 

Carole recalled pulling over in her car to collect herself upon hearing the news. 

The nine part FX and Hulu biographical drama follows JFK Jr (Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn's (Sarah Pidgeon) relationship, from an initial meet at a party to the deaths of the couple and her sister Lauren Bessette (Sydney Lemmon) on July 16, 1999.

The trio died when a small plane piloted by Kennedy crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard.

Speaking in an interview in 2005, Carole described their death's as 'soul-crushing'. 

She said: 'We were all unbelievably close. Their deaths brought me to my knees.'

However Carole is not present as a character in Ryan's adaptation, with a source telling Rob Shuter Carole 'was adjacent, not central' to the plot. 'This story is about John and Carolyn, Carole was never a primary player.'

A producer added: 'You can’t include everyone who attended the dinners. Audiences want the love story. That’s the engine.'

Yet it would seem Carole was more than someone that just 'attended the dinners' with regarding the couple as two of her closest friends, writing after their deaths: 'I lost everything that night.' 

A Hollywood insider told Y! Entertainment: 'For someone who values that Kennedy proximity, being left out of the definitive retelling? That’s a hard pill.'

Carole found herself in Manhattan at the start of her career where she worked her way up from unpaid intern to a producer at ABC. 

It was there that she met Anthony, John's cousin, who was an associate producer at the company. 

After dating for two years, Carole was introduced to the family and in 1992 the couple rented a summer home in the Hamptons with John and Carolyn. 

Speaking to People in 2005, Carole reminisced: 'I never heard him introduce himself as 'John F Kennedy Jr' in the 10 years that I knew him. He was just "John Kennedy".'

Immediately striking up a friendship with Carolyn, she recalled: 'She came right over to me as though she knew me and put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I had an extra toothbrush.'

Carole and Anthony's marriage was tainted by Anthony's long battle with testicular cancer. 

After his original diagnosis in 1989, he underwent treatment and was in remission. Yet new tumours emerged shortly before his wedding in 1994.

He was diagnosed with fibrosarcoma, a fatal form of bone cancer and for the next five years Carole acted as his primary carer until his death in August 1999, just a month after the fatal plane crash. 

Despite Anthony's illness, the pair went on with their careers, Anthony continued producing documentaries and Carole became a producer at a news channel in New York. 

And throughout his cancer battle, Carole described John and Carolyn as their biggest supporters. 

Speaking to The Telegraph in 2005, Carole said of Anthony and John's relationship: '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. He thought it would cheer him up, and it did. 

'But he also told me that he was afraid that if he stopped joking, Anthony would know things were really bad and would just give up and die.'

Yet in a tragic turn of events, John and Carolyn died just three weeks prior to Anthony's death after their plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. 

Carole recalled how she spoke to Carolyn as they were getting ready for the plane to take off and everything sounded fine. 

John had piloted this journey many times, but this time the night turned foggy and John lost his bearings and the plane crashed. 

Speaking to People in 2017, Carole revealed that on the night of their death she received a late-night call from John's friend 'Pinky', who was at the Martha's Vineyard Airport awaiting the couple's arrival.

After contacting air traffic control, Carole realised the plane was missing and reported their disappearance to the Coast Guard at around 2.30am.

'Once I said that out loud to the Coast Guard and made the missing persons report, I knew that this was a real thing. That was a heartbreaking moment.'

Prior to the release of her memoir in 2005, Carole opened up about the deaths of John and Carolyn in an exclusive essay with The Daily Mail. 

Recalling their last conversation where they made plans to see each other she said: 'Frozen in mid-conversation, we had the luxury, the last time we spoke, of talking about what we might have for dinner Sunday. It was a quick call. John was preparing to take off from a small private airport.

'Anthony and I would see them, in their house on the Vineyard where we were staying, in 48 hours. The plan, for July 18, was grilled steaks and peach pie.'

Describing the foursome's close bond, she shared the trips they had planned to take together and described Carolyn as 'the glue who kept people together'. 

Reflecting on their death she penned: 'I lost everything that night, I wasn't the only one.

'We all lost something. It was personal for me, and for their friends and family, but it was also bigger. 1999 was the end of an era. The end of a century. It was the end of an innocence we didn't even know we had.'

Reflecting on their time together she added: 'Carolyn was the glue who kept people together. Specifically, that summer, the four of us in a difficult time. 

'There was hope that George magazine would turn around. Hope that being together at the beach, after a family wedding in Hyannis, would correct a few errant curveballs. We'd all breathe, find strength enough in one day to be able to handle the next.'

Following the plane crash, it was just three weeks later that Anthony died in Carole's arms at New York hospital. 

She wrote in her memoir, What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love: 'I listen to [his] heartbeat until it is so faint I can barely hear it and then it's gone.'

Following Anthony's death, Carole went on to release her memoir in 2005 and it spent 12 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. 

In 2006 she began a monthly column with Glamour Magazine called Lunch Dates where she would have lunch with a range of celebrity guests including Alec Baldwin and Prince Andrew.