How True Is Love Story? Carolyn Bessette Kennedy & JFK Jr’s Romance Was Even Stranger Than Fiction

By now you’ve probably gotten wind of Love Story, the Ryan Murphy-produced miniseries which dramatises the real-life romance of ‘90s It couple John F. Kennedy Jr. — known as JFK Jr. — and Carolyn Bessette. 

In true Murphy fashion, the buzzy show, currently six episodes into its run, has made headlines for its depiction of its real-life counterparts, and has cast fans’ minds back to a whirlwind love affair that defined a decade. 

Love Story stars Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr., the son of US President JFK, and Sarah Pidgeon as Bessette, a Calvin Klein executive turned style icon in her own right. 

The pair’s on-again, off-again relationship was already a tabloid fixture in the ‘90s, but Love Story — which covers their meet-cute all the way till their wedding and tragic death — has again thrust it into the spotlight, for better or for worse.  

So as fans continue to follow the couple’s romance on Love Story, everyone’s asking: What’s fact and what’s fiction? And how have the show’s real-life counterparts reacted? 

Below, we’re giving you the lowdown on the famous couple, and verifying or debunking some of the show’s key beats about their lives.

What actually happened between JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bassette?

Let’s fancy ourselves ‘90s historians and lay down what we know to be true of JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s romance, shall we? 

JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bassette met in 1992

Various biographies of those within the pair’s orbit have confirmed that JFK Jr. and Carolyn met in 1992. What’s less clear is the exact deets of their meet-cute. Kelly Rector — the ex-wife of Calvin Klein, who Carolyn was working for at the time — reckons they met when JFK Jr. came into the designer’s office one day for a fitting. 

“Unsurprisingly, John came out of the meeting smitten, with a few men’s suits and Carolyn’s phone number. He called within days,” Rector recalled. Despite that account, some friends of the pair contend they met at a fundraiser, with no mention of the Calvin Klein fitting. Whatever the case, we can safely say a fundraiser was involved.

Their courtship spanned many years

The pair kept in touch in the years after their 1992 meeting, at the same time JFK. Jr. was in a five-year on-and-off relationship with actress Daryl Hannah beginning in 1989. During his breaks from Daryl, JFK Jr. pursued Carolyn romantically, though she refused to commit to the heartthrob for some time. 

“She didn’t think he was serious,” JFK Jr.’s friend Gustavo Paredes told People. “He couldn’t believe she turned him down. It had never happened before.” 

Carolyn relented at some point during this courtship, since JFK Jr. introduced Carolyn to the Kennedy family in 1994. That’s according to Carole Radziwill, the wife of JFK Jr.’s cousin. 

“He brought her for Memorial Day weekend. They had been seeing each other for a few months, and that’s when I first met her,” Radziwill recalled in her memoir. “Then, he broke up with her a few weeks later because he got back with his ex-girlfriend Daryl Hannah.”

But Daryl and JFK Jr. did officially call it quits towards the end of 1994, after what is widely believed to be an argument over him accidentally killing her dog. 

JFK Jr.’s former chief of staff RoseMarie Terenzio revealed in her biography that Daryl’s dog was hit by a car after JFK Jr. lost control of it in Central Park. After that, Daryl insisted he fly out the dog’s ashes to Los Angeles, even as his mother Jackie Kennedy Onassis was dying from lymphoma. 

Corroborating the story, Radziwill said “John felt [Daryl] was punishing him by insisting he fly to LA that weekend. It was just a terrible time and a bad omen”.

The pair broke up for a final time soon after, at which point Carolyn and JFK. Jr. started dating seriously. 

They dated, fought and eventually married in 1996

Carolyn and JFK Jr. dated for about a year before he proposed on Fourth of July weekend in 1995. That’s according to Terenzio, who claimed it took Carolyn three weeks to actually accept the proposal because “she understood that the formality meant something, especially to John and his lifestyle”. 

“I actually think that made John even more eager to marry her,” Terenzio said. 

But flash-forward to February of 1996 and the fiancés were fighting. In now-infamous paparazzi shots, they were seen having a verbal spat in Central Park, prompting a tabloid frenzy. Biographers pretty much say the same thing about the cause of the argument.

“The cause of this infamous fight, and the many that followed, stemmed from Carolyn’s ongoing complaint that John let people walk all over him,” Kennedy biographer Steven M. Gillon wrote.

Terenzio reiterated that the argument centred on JFK Jr. “being taken advantage of by his friends”. 

The pair had put their differences aside by September of 1996, when they officially tied the knot with a wedding ceremony at the Greyfield Inn on Cumberland Island, a secluded destination off the coast of Georgia. 

They somehow managed to avoid press coverage of the ceremony entirely, with only 32 guests present when they exchanged vows, including Radziwill and JFK Jr.’s nephew, Jack Schlossberg, who was a ring bearer (more on him later). The newly married couple honeymooned in Turkey.

They hit a rough patch before their tragic death in 1999

1997 to 1999 was a rough period for the couple. Media scrutiny intensified, particularly on Carolyn, after their nuptials. By 1998, rumours hit the press that Carolyn had cheated on JFK Jr. with model Michael Bergin. 

The state of their marriage in 1999, the year they died, depends on who you ask. Biographer Edward Klein claimed the couple had been quarrelling over whether to have kids, with Carolyn hesitant given the harshness of her fame. 

“I hate living in a fishbowl,” Carolyn told a friend, per Klein. “John may be comfortable living like this, but I’m not. How could I bring a child into this kind of world?” 

For his part, JFK Jr. apparently told friends the disagreement over children left the couple “headed for divorce”.

Others contend the marriage wasn’t at a low point, with Elizabeth Beller saying people had “noted they seemed very happy together” in the time before their death. Radziwill agreed, adding: “To say their marriage was on the rocks is just inaccurate.”

The pair tragically died in a plane crash in 1999

All of it culminated in an invite to the wedding of JFK Jr.’s cousin, Rory Kennedy. 

Carolyn initially didn’t want to go. Beller claimed Carolyn felt “she’d done her share of Kennedy events for the time being”, which apparently sparked another “enormous blow up” between the couple before she eventually agreed to fly to the wedding, located in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. 

“[Carolyn agreeing to go to the wedding] signified a truce of sorts,” Beller recalled. “They were working on their relationship at the time they died. They thought they had all the time in the world to figure this out,” biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli added.

It was en route to the wedding that Carolyn, her sister Lauren Bessette and JFK Jr. all died after their plane crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. Their bodies were discovered by Navy divers, who revealed JFK Jr., a trainee pilot at the time, was located in the cockpit.

A memorial was held for the trio in Manhattan, before their ashes were scattered at sea off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

What’s fact and what’s fiction in Love Story?

While Love Story covers the key beats of the pair’s romance, it slightly departs from (or exaggerates) some of the nitty-gritty details. 

Calvin Klein introducing the couple is unconfirmed

In the show, it was Calvin Klein who introduced Carolyn and JFK Jr. at a fundraising gala in episode one.  In reality, the designer’s matchmaking status is unconfirmed. Producer Brad Simpson said the Love Story team had “competing narratives” on their meet-cute, so they went with the “most common” one.

“The most common narrative [of] how they met was at this fundraiser, so we decided that would be their first meeting,” he said.

Jackie Kennedy didn’t despise Daryl Hannah

Love Story’s version of Jackie Kennedy, played by Naomi Watts, has a strong distaste for Daryl Hannah. Multiple scenes depict Daryl and JFK Jr. tiffing over whether Jackie approved of their relationship.

There’s even one moment where Daryl (played by Dree Hemingway) insinuates that the First Lady hates her because she reminds her of Marilyn Monroe — who infamously had an alleged affair with JFK. 

While it’s often said that the real Jackie disapproved of Daryl and her son’s relationship, her disdain was exaggerated on the show.

“John had measured most of the women in his life by Jackie’s opinion of them,” Taraborrelli wrote. “If his mother disapproved, as she did with actress Daryl Hannah, John became even more attached.”

Jackie’s friend, Jim Hart, also admitted she was “not a fan of that relationship”.

“It wasn’t like she hated Daryl at all,” Hart wrote in his biography. “She just didn’t want her son marrying an actress, it kind of was that simple. There was no great animosity, but she was always talking about ‘What do you think of Daryl? Do you think that’s right for John?’”

So did Jackie question her son’s relationship with Daryl? Probably. But did she outright loathe her? Likely not.

JFK Jr. did transport Daryl’s dog’s ashes

Love Story gets most of the facts about the death of Daryl’s dog right. In the show, the dog dies in Tribeca (in reality it was Central Park) and JFK Jr. transports the ashes to LA. 

Besides the location, that all happened, and its role in the demise of their relationship in Love Story seems largely true-to-life. 

“He goes [to LA] to bury the dog, and while he’s out there, his mom has a dramatic turn for the worse,” JFK Jr.’s friend Sasha Chermayeff recalled.

“He was deeply resentful that Daryl dragged him out there to attend a funeral for her dog when his mother was dying of cancer.” 

The couple fought in Central Park, but for more specific reasons

The show depicts the pair’s infamous Central Park spat, but the exact cause of the argument differs from historical accounts.

In Love Story, they argue broadly about all the cracks in their marriage, from commitment issues to maturity, but we know the real-life fight was actually about the much more specific issue of JFK Jr. being “walked all over”.

The couple being at rock bottom right before the plane crash is contended

Love Story would have us think the pair were at the very brink of divorce at the time of their plane crash, but the reality is much murkier.

As mentioned, there are conflicting accounts of just how close to rock bottom they were, but Love Story insinuates they were all-but separated. 

“If anyone says they knew what was going to happen in that relationship, they’re lying. John and Carolyn didn’t know what was going to happen,” author Steve Gillon wrote. 

What have the show’s real-life counterparts said?

Diverging even slightly from the facts is risky business, since the real-life counterparts of those depicted will inevitably have thoughts. In the Ryan Murphy TV universe, there’s no shortage of folks royally pissed off by their portrayal on his shows. 

Jack Schlossberg said Love Story  is “grotesque”

JFK Jr.’s nephew and the ring bearer at his wedding, Jack Schlossberg, slammed the show before it had even aired.

He demanded last June that Murphy donate the show’s profits to Kennedy causes. Murphy agreed to the request, but the hatchet was far from buried. 

Schlossberg doubled-down on the criticisms this month, saying Murphy “knows nothing about us” and describing Love Story as “fiction with a capital F” and a “grotesque display of someone else’s life”.

Safe to say he won’t be tuning in for the final three episodes. 

Daryl Hannah is not a fan, either

Holding just as few punches was the real Daryl Hannah, who penned a scathing op-ed about Love Story for the New York Times earlier this month.

“The choice to portray [my character] as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident,” Daryl wrote. 

“The character ‘Daryl Hannah’ portrayed in the series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John. It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show. These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false.”

Daryl took particular issue with moments in the show that depict her using drugs, destroying Kennedy family heirlooms and gatecrashing a memorial service — all of which she denied ever doing.

Carole Radziwill warned of “embroidered” facts

Radziwill, who does not appear in Love Story but had a real-life connection to the couple, has kept mostly tight-lipped about the show. However, she did subtly throw shade at the showrunners in an essay for Town & Country.

“The story keeps being told. Reinvented. Embroidered. Filled with details no one could know, by people who don’t care about the truth,” the Real Housewives of New York star wrote. 

“We think we own our stories. We don’t. Not in life, and certainly not in death. That is the quiet theft — slow at first, then at warp speed.”

Anette Bening said her scene “didn’t happen”

Actress Annette Bening was portrayed in Love Story by Megan Channell. A scene in episode one sees her meeting Carolyn during a fitting with Calvin Klein, but the real Bening said that moment “didn’t happen”. 

“A number of people mentioned it to me. I felt very flattered by the actress, I thought she was wonderful, it didn’t happen in real life,” Bening said on Good Morning America. “I met Carolyn Bessette once at Calvin Klein, but no, it didn’t happen that way.”

So there you have it folks, a brief history of the real JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette romance, and how it differs from what’s shown on Love Story.

You’ve now got all the intel you need to watch the final three episodes with a quasi-historian’s hat on. But like anything in the Murphy-verse, it’d be best to still proceed with caution and a generous grain of salt.

Love Story is streaming on Disney+, so you can make your mind up yourself!

Lead images: Getty Images, Hulu and X