Fairy Tale Interrupted: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss

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Overview

Working Girl meets What Remains, the behind-the-scenes story of an unlikely friendship between America’s favorite First Son, John F. Kennedy Jr. and his personal assistant, a blue-collar girl from the Bronx.

To everyone else, John F. Kennedy Jr. may have been American royalty, but to RoseMarie Terenzio he was an entitled nuisance—and she wasn’t afraid to let him know it. RoseMarie was his personal assistant, his publicist, and one of his closest confidantes during the last five years of his life. Here she bravely recounts her own Fairy Tale Interrupted, describing the heartwarming relationship that developed between a ...

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Overview

Working Girl meets What Remains, the behind-the-scenes story of an unlikely friendship between America’s favorite First Son, John F. Kennedy Jr. and his personal assistant, a blue-collar girl from the Bronx.

To everyone else, John F. Kennedy Jr. may have been American royalty, but to RoseMarie Terenzio he was an entitled nuisance—and she wasn’t afraid to let him know it. RoseMarie was his personal assistant, his publicist, and one of his closest confidantes during the last five years of his life. Here she bravely recounts her own Fairy Tale Interrupted, describing the heartwarming relationship that developed between a blue-collar girl from the Bronx and a veritable prince.

After John and Carolyn’s tragic, untimely deaths on July 16, 1999, RoseMarie’s whole world came crashing down around her, along with her hopes for the future. It took more than a decade before she felt ready to tell her story that is at once a moving tribute and a very real picture of her friend and employer.

Many books have sought to capture John F. Kennedy Jr.’s life. None has been as intimate or as honest as Fairy Tale Interrupted, a true portrait of the man behind the icon—patient, protective, surprisingly goofy, occasionally thoughtless and self-involved, yet capable of extraordinary generosity and kindness. She reveals how John and Carolyn handled media attention, the reality of life behind the scenes at George magazine, and how she dealt with the ultra-secretive planning of John and Carolyn’s wedding on Cumberland Island—and the heartbreak of their deaths.

Fairy Tale Interrupted is a deeply loving story and a fascinating adventure, filled with warmth, humor, insight, and five years’ worth of unforgettable memories.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Talking back to John F. Kennedy Jr. was not anything Rose-Marie Terenzio, a girl from the Bronx, ever imagined herself doing. Nevertheless, this is how her relationship with Kennedy began. And in this candid memoir, Terenzio discusses the professional and personal role she played in the lives of JFK Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Wanting relief from the economic stress of her childhood, Terenzio felt lucky when she landed a job as a junior-level publicist with an upscale Manhattan public relations firm; then Kennedy moved into the same office. When Kennedy left to start a magazine, Terenzio became his personal assistant. In September 1995, Kennedy launched the political magazine, George. Terenzio writes, “I hadn’t even turned thirty yet, and I was working with JFK Jr. at the most intriguing magazine in the country, in what seemed like the absolute center of the universe.” Terenzio deftly reconstructs the wonderfully addictive yet strange and high-pressure world in which she worked and that the young couple navigated daily. Terenzio’s captivating story, told with style and grace, chronicles her time with Kennedy within the glorious but often brutal bubble that encircled his world, and what he taught her about living. (Jan.)
Kirkus Reviews
Entertaining memoir from the personal assistant and publicist to John F. Kennedy Jr. For five years, Bronx-born Terenzio worked for the iconic JFK Jr. The author recalls tense first encounters with the dashing socialite as he insinuated himself, unannounced, into her spacious office, but eventually his persistent attempts to ease the tension worked and the two became friendly. Terenzio eventually became his personal assistant at Kennedy's start-up magazine, George. The author soon discovered that assisting a Kennedy was no easy feat, but her story makes deliriously fun reading. Juggling last-minute responsibilities and thwarting the rapacious media and "annoying hangers-on" became commonplace duties in her job working for boss who could be callous and had little patience for mistakes on a schedule overflowing with business and social engagements. Terenzio characterizes herself as a hard worker with a direct demeanor and an Italian temper, a diehard Howard Stern fan who assumed the role of Kennedy's gatekeeper, constantly "controlling access to someone who everyone wanted a piece of." She also proves herself a model of loyalty, trustworthiness and discretion during her tenure on Kennedy's payroll, most notably during his courtship to Carolyn Bessette, whose friendship Terenzio also cherished. Kennedy's tragic accidental death in 1999 would end the author's association with the family, but the memory of her dedicated service is heretofore memorialized, with obvious admiration. A fitting personal tribute to a unique boss.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781439187685
  • Publisher: Gallery Books
  • Publication date: 7/10/2012
  • Pages: 256
  • Sales rank: 303,448

Meet the Author

RoseMarie Terenzio was John F. Kennedy Jr.’s executive assistant from 1994 until his death in 1999. The founder of RMT PR Management, a public relations and talent management firm in New York City, she served on the board of Reaching Up, a nonprofit organization founded by John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1998. Visit her websites: FairyTaleInterrupted.com and RMTPRManagement.com.

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