Carolyn Bessette Wanted a Wild Hair Transformation for Her Wedding to JFK Jr.

Many brides-to-be dream of beauty transformations ahead of their big day, but few seek a transformation as unexpected as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

Brad Johns, Bessette-Kennedy’s hairstylist, recalled the fashion publicist “came in a nervous wreck” just days before her private Georgia wedding to John F. Kennedy Jr. on Sept. 21, 1996, according to Page Six.

Johns said that the bride-to-be, known as much for her honey-blonde hair as her effortlessly chic fashion sense, approached him with an extreme request.

“She said, ‘I have something very special coming up. Dye my hair black,’” Johns recalled.

Johns, whose famous clientele included supermodels Kate Moss and Christy Turlington, did not know at the time that the unspecified “special” event was Bessette-Kennedy’s wedding day. Even so, his answer was swift and firm: “Absolutely not.”

“Women, when they’re in a panic, they want something different,” he said, noting that he would “never” have given his beloved client such a drastic light-to-dark transformation. In these instances, Johns suggests trying on a wig.

Instead of darker, Johns turned Bessette-Kennedy’s hair brighter with his famous “chunking technique,” incorporating lighter highlighted pieces around her face.

“I said to her, ‘Thank God I left those pieces in the front because you look like a princess,’” he said.

Johns previously told The Looker that he took Bessette-Kennedy from her natural “gorgeous, light golden brown” to the “beachy, chunky look” that would become her signature shade.

“We both thought she should be blonde. I [told her], ‘You’re too stunning not to be blonde…it would be iconic,’” he said.

Today, the “Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy blonde” is one of the year’s most sought-after colors, copied by celebrities like Kim Kardashian.

The sudden popularity of Bessette-Kennedy’s warm-toned blonde is driven partly by the release of Ryan Murphy’s limited series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, starring Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr. and Sarah Pidgeon as Bessette-Kennedy.

The series and its portrayal of the famous blonde’s hair color are not without controversy.

In a 2025 interview with Vogue, Johns criticised Pidgeon’s blonde shade as “totally wrong” based on behind-the-scenes images.

“No one would believe that Carolyn in the ’90s would ever have that color from me. It’s too 2024,” he said, adding that the look was “the opposite of what we were going for.”

“If you show that on TV and fashion people see it, they are going to think, ‘Why the f--- is she all ashed out with her hair only one color?’” Johns said. “My goal was child-of-the-beach color.”