Trump recalls JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s 'wild kisses' at Mar-a-Lago

President Donald Trump shared memories of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s relationship in a recent interview, recalling their playful, passionate dynamic during visits to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“I actually knew him and liked him, and he liked me, believe it or not,” Trump said on Fox News’ The Five Thursday, adding that JFK Jr., founder of George magazine, even featured him on the cover in March 2000, the year after Kennedy’s death.

Trump described the couple’s time at Mar-a-Lago: “They would bicker together, in other words have little fights, and then they would make up and start kissing wildly. 

It was one of those relationships, and you never know how those relationships are going to turn out.” He called their deaths “tragic.”

John, 38, and Carolyn, 33, died in a plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999, along with Carolyn’s sister Lauren Bessette, 34.

Interest in the couple’s life has been reignited following Ryan Murphy’s FX drama Love Story, which premiered Feb. 12 and concluded its season on Thursday. 

The series stars Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr. and Sarah Pidgeon as Bessette, and chronicles the highs and lows of their private romance that became a national fascination.

FX described the show as charting the “complex and heartbreaking journey of a couple whose private love became a national obsession,” inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

The series dramatizes events, including their secret wedding on September 21, 1996, held at the First African Baptist Church on Georgia’s Cumberland Island. 

Letitia Baldrige, former White House social secretary, noted that planning the ceremony required “the skill of James Bond and the whole CIA” to keep the media unaware.

Some family members, like JFK Jr.’s nephew Jack Schlossberg, have criticized the series, calling it a “grotesque display” of their private lives. 

Pidgeon told People in February that the response reinforced her sense of responsibility to portray Bessette respectfully.