Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's Engagement Ring Is a Decades-Old Mystery — Where Is It Now?

For most of her adult life, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was under the microscope of media attention. She was a fashion designer with dreams of the future when she fell in love with and married John F. Kennedy Jr.

Her marriage to a Kennedy rocketed her life into the front pages and put her squarely in the sights of a never-ending march of paparazzi until her death in 1999.

But there were some aspects of her life that she managed to keep private, such as an engagement ring that has been the center of a firestorm of intrigue for decades. Here's what we know about the engagement ring and why people are so obsessed with it.

While Carolyn's engagement ring has long been a source of intrigue to those who follow the Kennedy family, surprisingly little is known about it.

In 1995, John proposed to Carolyn with an eternity band. It was timely and fashionable, but also surprisingly secretive. Rumors and headlines have clouded the truth of the ring to the point where little can be verified about the ring's origins or what it meant to the couple.

According to InStyle, second-hand rumors have suggested that the ring John had made for Carolyn was commissioned with inspiration from a ring once owned by his mother, the famed Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

Despite being a fashion icon, Carolyn was an understated person who preferred simple styles for herself, reflected in the band's diamond and sapphire accoutrements. According to the outlet, the ring's value at purchase is estimated at around $13,000.

John and Carolyn wed in secret in 1996, somehow managing to avoid press furor as they tied the knot on Georgia's Cumberland Island.

And while people got glimpses of Carolyn's ring in press photos from time to time, she was surprisingly mum on details, which is a stark contrast to how celebrity engagement rings are usually covered in the media. Usually, Carolyn opted to wear her simple wedding band, making the engagement ring even more mysterious as time went by.

But in some ways, the ring's life after her death is perhaps its most enduring legacy because no one knows where her ring is today.

Carolyn and John died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999, and questions about what happened to the ring have intrigued Kennedy-followers for decades.

Some believe that the ring was lost during the plane crash, damaged or otherwise lost in the accident. Others believe that it was recovered.

As the Washington Post notes, divers recovered the bodies of Carolyn, John, and her older sister Lauren several days after the crash. No note was made of the ring at that time.

All three were cremated, so she wasn't interred with the ring. Was she even wearing it the night she died? Did someone find it at the site of the crash? Was it damaged beyond recognition?

These questions have swirled for decades, but even with the arrival of Ryan Murphy's John and Carolyn Love Story documentary in 2026, few answers have been forthcoming about the ring's fate. To this day, it remains Carolyn's greatest secret treasure, a fiercely guarded piece of privacy in a life laid bare for the media.