Greta Goes Head to Head With 'The Other Man'

This is a partial transcript from On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, March 29, 2004 that has been edited for clarity.

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GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Tonight on Fox News Channel, an exclusive with the man making headlines with his explosive book on his alleged affair with John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s wife, Carolyn Bessette.

Joining us in New York is former Calvin Klein underwear model and actor. Michael Bergin is the author of the new book, "The Other Man: A Love Story."

Welcome, Michael.

MICHAEL BERGIN, "THE OTHER MAN: A LOVE STORY" AUTHOR: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

VAN SUSTEREN: Michael, let's -- go ahead.

BERGIN: I'm sorry. Can I just say one thing to...

VAN SUSTEREN: Sure. You've got a lot of time.

BERGIN: You just said that I'm still in love with Carolyn, and Carolyn was my ex-girlfriend before -- you know, she was my girlfriend before John, but she has passed away five years ago, and I have moved on, and I am engaged to a beautiful woman, Joy Tilk (ph).

VAN SUSTEREN: The mother of your two children.

BERGIN: Right. The mother of my two children.

VAN SUSTEREN: I read the book.

BERGIN: Thank you. Thank you. You're the one.

VAN SUSTEREN: Yes.

BERGIN: Just kidding.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Anyway, "The Other" -- let's start with the title, "The Other Man." Did JFK, Jr., know you were the other man?

BERGIN: I don't think so, but if -- you know, I can't help but read the tabloids and newspapers and magazines, like everyone else, but, supposedly, the story got out because Carolyn threw this -- threw me in his face, and John was upset and went to his friends, and his friends eventually came to the media in his defense after his death saying that she was unfaithful.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Let's go back to the beginning, the early '90s. Where did you meet Carolyn?

BERGIN: I met Carolyn in a bar on the Upper East Side.

VAN SUSTEREN: And what -- what did you think when you first saw her?

BERGIN: I thought she was -- she was a beautiful woman, and she was dancing at the time and having a good time and smiling and whatever. So, you know, I looked at her, and she looked at me at times, and, you know, I got a chance to say hi to her, and I slipped her my phone number before I left.

VAN SUSTEREN: And this was at the time, if I can sort of short- circuit it, before your career took off as a model. You had just moved to New York, and you were attempting...

BERGIN: I just...

VAN SUSTEREN: ... to break into it.

BERGIN: Yes, I just graduated college a month before I moved out to New York, met Carolyn a month into living into New York City. I didn't have any friends, didn't know anyone, and she was -- you know, she was nobody famous, and I was nobody famous.

VAN SUSTEREN: So did she ever -- so, at some point, did she call you? You slipped her the card.

BERGIN: Yes, she eventually called me like five days later. Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: And what happened then?

BERGIN: We kind of started hanging out quite frequently, and we sort of had, you know, like an intense relationship for about a month, and then she stopped taking my phone calls.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. How old were you when you first met her?

BERGIN: I was 23, and she was, I believe, 26.

VAN SUSTEREN: So, in some way, at that age, she's an older woman a little bit.

BERGIN: Yes, yes. Especially -- she was three years older, and she was living in New York City for three years, and she was sophisticated and sort of jaded in the city, and I was just a young guy and a little immature and shy and all that. So it kind of didn't make sense, the two of us being together.

VAN SUSTEREN: So at what point did your relationship go from just sort of meeting someone, meeting a young woman, into being something more intimate?

BERGIN: I'm sorry. Rephrase that.

VAN SUSTEREN: When did your relationship become more intimate, simply from, you know, exchanging cards in a bar to a little bit more?

BERGIN: Yes, we -- you know, it -- very soon after. She called me five days later, and it all started like an intense relationship. We saw each other every single day and every single night, and everything was great, and I was in love with her, and I thought she was in love with me.

And, a month later, we got into like this tiny, little fight, and I think she was sabotaging the relationship because I called her and called her and called her, and she never returned my phone calls. So I don't know if she met someone else or I was a little too young or I don't know. I never found that information out.

But I was upset and heartbroken over it, and I moved on with my life and dated other people.

VAN SUSTEREN: But, in your book, Michael, what comes -- what's thread throughout the whole book is that...

BERGIN: Well, I...

VAN SUSTEREN: ... she didn't seem to acknowledge your -- she didn't acknowledge you. You wanted to be her boyfriend, but it was like she didn't want to go public with you.

BERGIN: Well, I -- you know, I'm sorry. There's a lot more to the story because I moved on with my life, but we rekindled the relationship about eight months later, and that's when it was -- that's when it started all over again, and her and I were seriously involved for about a month and a half -- about a year and a half, and we were together every single day, and she would come to Connecticut on weekends to my parents' house, and I would sometimes go to her family's house, and we were close.

VAN SUSTEREN: Why didn't she publicly acknowledge you, though? I mean, throughout the whole book, you talk about that.

BERGIN: I don't know. You know what? There's always two sides to the story. I mean my book and my stories are the truth, but it's coming from my heart and my brain.

And, you know, there are like little things that bothered me that I was upset about, that she didn't call me, you know, her boyfriend, or I -- you know, she wasn't my girlfriend, and people that she worked with, except her close co-workers...

VAN SUSTEREN: Let me -- let me just stop you right there because we've got to take a quick break. I'm -- Michael.

BERGIN: OK.

VAN SUSTEREN: So hold on. We're going to take a quick break.

Still ahead, a new "Girls Gone Wild" controversy. Will rape accusations land the creator behind bars, or is he the victim of celebrity?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAN SUSTEREN: Up next ON THE RECORD, rape accusations rock the "Girls Gone Wild" empire. Is there evidence to back it up?

And why was Janet Jackson bleeped on the David Letterman show last night?

Plus, a late-breaking update on a missing Wisconsin student.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAN SUSTEREN: We're back with a cable news exclusive with actor Michael Bergin, the author of the controversial new book, "The Other Man."

Michael, reading the book, what I took away from it is essentially two things, that you're brokenhearted or love sick and that you were used by Carolyn Bessette. Now take that and reconcile it with the so many e-mails I'm getting today that you're the ultimate cad revealing two abortions, drug use, and a cheating Carolyn Bessette. How do you reconcile those?

BERGIN: You know what? It's -- it was me doing something good. It's me coming out with the truth that needed to be -- needed to come out. I kept quiet about everything for seven years. I protected the secret. I knew it would be a big scandal. I did not want this to come out.

But everyone seems to know about this affair that I had with Carolyn. They write about it. They've been writing about it before there was an affair, and, since Ed Klein's book came out last summer, everyone's been hopping on the bandwagon saying horrible things about me, horrible things about Carolyn, and they seem like they know what happened. So...

VAN SUSTEREN: So is it -- it -- so I don't get it. Do you think that you come out looking better by sort of talking about her rather unflattering past that you depict?

BERGIN: You know, I -- you know, I don't know -- I don't know what I look like, OK, and every -- everyone's -- everyone's making me look like a jerk, but all I know is, you know, I put myself back last summer when all this stuff came out and the way I felt and what people were saying.

It's like -- you know what? I have -- I have a girlfriend at the time, OK. I'm engaged right now. She was three months pregnant last summer. I was devastated. She was devastated. My -- you know, my family was crumpling. My friends and family thought I said these horrible things about Carolyn, and they're asking me why, and I told them I didn't say these things.

They're making Carolyn look like a coke addict. I'm coming forward to tell truth about everything, to tell the world that she is -- she didn't dabble in drugs. She -- OK. I take that back.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, she did. You put in the book. You said she did this. You saw her do it.

BERGIN: Yes, I -- I can honestly say I've seen her do it twice, OK.

VAN SUSTEREN: OK.

BERGIN: She didn't like it. She got mad at me when I did it. She didn't like it. But, all of a sudden, like she's a coke addict.

You know, Ed Klein interviewed me, and he -- you know, he said all of this nasty stuff. He got me on the phone. He said I'm printing this, I'm printing this, I know this and whatever, and it scared me. It scared me to death. So I spoke to him.

And I -- he asked me about an affair. I -- in about 20 different ways, I told him it wasn't true, as far as I know she's happily married. I didn't want this stuff to come out.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. In...

BERGIN: But my main -- I'm sorry. But my main goal is for all of this to just be done and get over with, to tell the truth, so John and Carolyn could rest in peace, so I could get on with my life and get on with my family, all right, and so the Kennedys could stop hurting and the Bessettes could stop hurting. I know...

VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Let me just stop you for a second. I understand -- and I -- I don't have a whole of time. I'm curious about different things in the book.

In the book, you portray her as very coy with you. Even you have this sort of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) meow that you go back and forth with each other when you see each other in intimate times. Tell me did she love you or did she love John F. Kennedy, Jr.?

BERGIN: At what point? I mean...

VAN SUSTEREN: During her -- during her marriage when she was making trips to California.

BERGIN: OK. Well...

VAN SUSTEREN: She made at least two trips to California to see you.

BERGIN: Right. Well, Carolyn and I had this intense relationship before John came along, and he was pursuing her when she was my girlfriend. So, when she was married, I don't know. She didn't talk about her marriage.

And you know what? I don't look at it as an affair. I was living out in Los Angeles. She lived in New York. Her and I still remained friends. We had -- we both...

VAN SUSTEREN: But it was more than friends. I mean you write about it.

BERGIN: It was. It was. It was more than friends. It was more than friends. But we were so far away from each other, I saw her a handful of times over a period of two years, and she was -- she was going through a lot of stuff, and she came to me as a friend. She didn't come to me as a lover. She came to me as a friend, and then stuff happened, and it grew, and it grew, and then it just got out of control.

VAN SUSTEREN: So how -- how do you -- are you over Carolyn Bessette?

BERGIN: Yes, I -- yes, I'm over her. I mean she's -- she's been -- she passed away five years ago. I didn't talk to her a year and a half before that or whatever. She was my friend, and I was heartbroken when she passed away.

She's my friend, and I can't stand to see the whole world just attack her because now all this new information about the relationship was on the rocks and her having an affair with me. It just -- it just -- you know, it's just all wrong, and you know...

VAN SUSTEREN: Michael, in the book, you talk about the fact that you were dating her or having a relationship with her, and you -- and how did you learn that she was dating -- before the marriage, that she -- how did you first learn that she was dating JFK, Jr.?

BERGIN: Well, I was modeling at the time and doing more gigs and traveling the world a little bit. So her and I just, you know, started to separate in our relationship a little bit. But we were still seeing each other, you know. I thought she still loved me. She told me that she still loved me, and, you know, I thought I was still the one.

I was young and naive, and I basically saw on TV that she was -- that she was with John on a boat in Martha's Vineyard, and I was crushed, and I called her right away, and she said we're just friends, and she -- for months, she told me that they were just friends.

VAN SUSTEREN: So she lied -- so she was lying to you?

BERGIN: I don't know. Maybe they were -- maybe they were just friends, and maybe she was over me, and maybe she was starting to get into him. Maybe she was scared to get into him. I don't know. I don't -- I don't have all of the details. I only can tell the truth, and I can only tell what I know. I'm not -- I don't speculate in my book at all, and then that's it.

VAN SUSTEREN: Did you meet John F. Kennedy, Jr.?

BERGIN: I met him a couple of times, just shook his hand and said hi. We never had a conversation, no. But I like John. He's a stand-up guy, and I admired him, and all -- even when he was pursuing my girlfriend or whatever, I still admired him.

VAN SUSTEREN: And how did you hear the plane had gone down? Where were you?

BERGIN: I was in Hawaii. It was my first week of "Baywatch Hawaii," and my fiance called me, and she asked me if I knew what was going on and if I had the TV on, and I said no and I turned the TV on and there it was. You know, the Coast Guard and planes and boats and helicopters, you know, looking for their plane.

VAN SUSTEREN: And we were all watching.

Michael, thank you very much. Thanks for joining us with your new book "The Other Man: A Love Story, John F. Kennedy, Carolyn Bessette, and Me." Nice to see you, Michael.

BERGIN: Thank you, Greta. Nice to see you.

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