No, Kim Kardashian did not pay $192K for Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s Prada coat

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s record-breaking Prada coat didn’t end up in a celebrity’s closet.

When the late style icon’s camel outerwear sold for $192,000 at auction earlier this month — a world record for any garment she once owned — internet commenters immediately began speculating that Kim Kardashian may have been the buyer.

“I swear to God if Kim K pops up with it,” one wrote. Others called the purchase “dystopian” and “morbid.”

But Lucy Bishop of The Fashion Auctioneer, which handled the sale, confirms to Page Six Style that the coat was acquired by a museum, though she declined to name the institution. (We’ve reached out to several fashion museums for confirmation on whether they purchased the piece.)

Kardashian, 45, was a reasonable guess. The Skims mogul has a well-documented appetite for famous garments and accessories, having paid $379,500 for a Cartier watch once owned by Jackie Kennedy Onassis at auction in 2017. She told Vogue she wore it to the White House because “it gave me some power.”

In 2022, she famously squeezed into Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” gown for the Met Gala red carpet, and the following year, she dropped $197,453 on Princess Diana’s amethyst-and-diamond Attallah Cross necklace at Sotheby’s.

Bishop told us the Bessette Kennedy sale drew interest from around the world. “It really was a mix between fans and fashion-loving women, but also really serious private collectors, museums and institutions,” she says.

The record-breaking coat — a size-42 double-faced wool-angora style with a faux tortoiseshell Prada buckle — was one of Bessette Kennedy’s most photographed pieces. She was captured wearing it in March 1997 while walking with JFK Jr., and again in October 1998 while out with the couple’s dog, Friday.

The final hammer price was $160,000; the $192,000 total includes the buyer’s premium.

Bessette Kennedy originally gifted the coat to RoseMarie Terenzio, JFK Jr.’s longtime assistant and the author of “JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography,” who later passed it — along with a second camel Prada coat — to her friend Michele Ammon. Both coats were consigned by Ammon.

Terenzio consigned two pieces of her own: an eggshell-white Prada coat, which sold for a little over $9,000, and a Yohji Yamamoto dress that fetched $20,000. Bessette Kennedy wore the Yamamoto dress to an event celebrating the anniversary of the Apollo space program on March 5, 1998.

It was the second time she parted ways with pieces Bessette Kennedy had given her — items she tells Page Six Style she no longer wore and hoped others would have the chance to appreciate. In 2024, she consigned three lots to Sotheby’s — a black Prada coat, a vintage leopard-print coat and a Yohji Yamamoto jacket — which Staud founder Sarah Staudinger snapped up for a combined $177,600.

Terenzio has donated a portion of the proceeds from both sales to Hearts of Gold, a nonprofit supporting homeless mothers and their children.

Interest in Bessette Kennedy has surged alongside FX’s hit series “Love Story,” which has become the network’s most-watched limited series ever on streaming.

Bishop says the prices make sense in context. “Even to buy a wool coat from Prada new from the store today will start at around $5,000,” she notes — and those lose value the minute you walk out with them, whereas historical pieces often accrue value over time.

She points to Princess Diana’s market as a benchmark: A decade ago, the average sold price for a Diana gown was around $50,000, and now it’s closer to $1 million.

Only seven authenticated pieces from Bessette Kennedy’s wardrobe have ever come to market — all originally gifted to Terenzio — and the rest of the late style muse’s closet, including the Narciso Rodriguez wedding dress that reshaped the bridal industry, has never surfaced.

Estate law points to CBK’s one living sister, Lisa Bessette, as the likely custodian of her wardrobe, though she lives a private life and has never spoken about the inheritance.

By contrast, Jackie Kennedy’s wardrobe — including the ivory Valentino gown she wore to marry Aristotle Onassis in 1968 — has been widely exhibited.

“I would love for there to be an exhibition on Carolyn Bessette Kennedy hosted by a major museum,” Bishop says. “I think that would be fantastic.”

She held a two-day exhibition in Chelsea ahead of the auction, and says the crowds were multigenerational. Women who were Bessette Kennedy’s contemporaries in the ’90s brought their daughters along to see the pieces.

“Women all over the world are still fascinated by her and still adore her,” Bishop says.