Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's Colorist Reveals Why She Wanted to Dye Her Hair Black on Her Wedding Day (Exclusive)

Skyler CarusoSat, February 28, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC

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John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy at the annual John F. Kennedy Library Foundation dinner and Profiles in Courage awards May 23, 1999 in Boston, MA.Credit: Justin Ide/Newsmakers via Getty -

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's longtime colorist Brad Johns tells PEOPLE about working with the fashion publicist

He reveals why she wanted to dye her hair black, ditching her blonde hue before marrying John F. Kennedy Jr.

Johns, who was a close friend and confidant of Carolyn's, began working with her in 1996

Imagine making a major hair color change on one of the biggest days of your life.

That's exactly what Carolyn Bessette Kennedy wanted to do on the eve of her secret wedding to John F. Kennedy Jr., her longtime colorist Brad Johns tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview about his relationship with the late fashion publicist.

Johns previously told Page 6 that Bessette Kennedy asked him to turn her signature "child-of-the-beach" blonde locks black for the big day on Sept. 21, 1996. Now, he reveals why she wanted to make that drastic change and requested it so anxiously at the time.

John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy on Oct. 6, 1996.Credit: Lawrence Schwartzwald/Sygma via Getty

"She came in frantic. I said, 'What's wrong with you?'" he recalls to PEOPLE of Carolyn ahead of her intimate wedding at the First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island, Ga.

Having worked with Carolyn so intimately since the start of that year, Johns — who considered her a "gorgeous, beautiful young, very stylish, very funny friend" — knew her inside and out, so to see her in this way was out of the ordinary.

"She said, 'There's just a big thing going on,'" Johns recalls Carolyn telling him at the time, keeping the wedding a secret even from him. "She was always going to big events, so every day was a big event."

"So I said, 'Carolyn, you've been going to big events since you [got together] and you love him, and you look beautiful!'" he recalls, trying to calm her down. "She says, 'No, this is different! No, this is different! Let's just dye something totally different, like maybe black to look different than I looked before."

John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy on May 1, 1999.Credit: Tyler Mallory/Getty

He remembers her being "so frantic" at the time.

Johns, who's responsible for curating her iconic blonde shade from his original "chunking" technique (and documented his accomplished career as a hair colorist in his memoir, Dye), refused to do the drastic color change.

"I went, 'I'm not ruining all my work to make you look like Morticia'!" he says, jokingly referencing Morticia Addams from The Addams Family and her lengthy jet black hair.

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John Kennedy Jr. with his wife Carolyn Bessette.Credit: LaPresse / Alamy

Johns ultimately talked her down to the point where she let him do what he wanted with her hair, which wound up being a bit blonder, given the time of year being fresh off the summer.

"I've never seen her that nervous," he recalls, still unaware of the event she was preparing for, though he says he had a good idea. "Then I thought to myself, something big is going on with her... but she never told me, I never knew. I never knew."

"I knew to keep her looking like a surfer girl," he says looking back.

But why dye her hair black?

Related: https://people-app.onelink.me/HNIa/kz7l4cuf

"Because she was a nervous wreck," Johns claims. "And she thought... If you change your hair color, you're not the person who's nervous looking in the mirror, you're someone else."

"So then they become this," he says of the person with the unrecognizable hue. "Hair color's transformative."

Carolyn and JFK Jr.'s love story is now being documented in Ryan Murphy's American Love Story on FX and Hulu.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”