5 Real-Life Details Missing from Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette
‘Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette’ shows the whirlwind romance of the real-life political couple
The romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette has long fascinated the public. Their relationship was often portrayed as a glamorous and iconic love story that captured headlines throughout the 1990s.
The first installment of Ryan Murphy’s Love Story anthology introduces John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) — President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jackie Kennedy’s son — and his highly-publicized life.
Just as JFK Jr. is trying to find who he is outside of his famous family, he meets rising Calvin Klein associate, Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon). As their love story unfolds, they are under constant scrutiny from both the media and his powerful family.
The nine-episode limited series, which was inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, also stars Grace Gummer, Naomi Watts, Alessandro Nivola, Leila George, Sydney Lemmon, Dree Hemingway and Constance Zimmer.
While the show is based on true events, some parts were either changed, dramatized or left out to make it more interesting for viewers. For instance, much of JFK Jr’s on-again, off-again relationship with Daryl Hannah was cut to focus on him pursuing Bessette and on March 6, the actress wrote a scathing op-ed about the series in The New York Times.
“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. The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue,” she wrote.
Here’s everything to know about some of the details left out of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.
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Bessette thought JFK Jr. brought another woman to one of their first dates
In Love Story, Bessette and JFK Jr. meet at a fundraiser for the Amazon Rainforest, and they seem to instantly connect. However, Bessette doesn’t give JFK Jr. her number and instead suggests that he can find her at work.
JFK Jr. subsequently and unexpectedly shows up to Calvin Klein and asks Bessette to fit him for a suit. She agrees to a date, and later shows up to an Indian restaurant in New York City, but she almost leaves when he’s 20 minutes late. Luckily for him, Bessette stays, and they have a deep conversation.
While the series portrays how JFK Jr. didn’t initially impress her — with her initially declining and then him being late to dinner — it left out details from the early days of their relationship.
“She didn’t think he was serious,” a close friend recalled to PEOPLE in 2014. “He couldn’t believe she turned him down. It had never happened before.”
JFK Jr. remained persistent and “kept figuring out a way to keep coming back to the showroom [Calvin Klein] for more business meetings and more fittings.” In the show, he’s only shown once going to her place of work.
After JFK Jr. eventually wooed her enough to go on a first date, they actually met another time at a gala dinner, according to her friend MJ Bettenhausen in Beller’s 2024 book. Similar to how Bessette was unimpressed with JFK Jr.’s tardiness in the show, she was not thrilled when she thought JFK Jr. had brought a date to the gala.
“Sitting next to him was another woman that Carolyn either mistook as his date, or actually was his date,” Bettenhausen said.
Carolyn declined to see him afterward, and only changed her tune when they saw each other again at another fundraiser and reconnected as friends.
O2JFK Jr. was on and off with Daryl Hannah for far longer
In the series, after JFK Jr. and Bessette meet for the first time and begin to flirt at the gala, he returns to his N.Y.C. apartment where he’s greeted by his then girlfriend, Daryl Hannah.
Throughout the series, Hannah frequently pops back into his life, which represents the ups and downs of their relationship. At one point, while they are on a break, he goes on a date with Bessette, but she ends communication with him after seeing a photo of Hannah and JFK Jr. reunited at an event.
After the third episode, JFK Jr. and Hannah end their relationship over his mother’s disapproval of her (even though she unexpectedly shows up to Jackie’s wake). Upon his split from Hannah and his mom’s death, he heads to Bessette’s apartment, and they begin their romantic relationship.
In reality, JFK Jr. and Hannah had a complex bond for five years, and their relationship overlapped in later years with the beginning of his romance with Bessette. The former couple dated on and off from 1989 until 1994, but he had already developed a deep connection with Bessette three years prior to their final breakup.
Carole Radziwill, who was married to JFK Jr.’s closest cousin Anthony Radziwill, recalled meeting Bessette in 1991 in the Hamptons, but he brought Hannah the next weekend.
“The following weekend, John came back to the beach house, this time with Daryl, who he had been off and on with for a couple of years,” Carole said in the 2024 book by PEOPLE’s Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio: JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography. “He said he needed to try one last time to see if their relationship could work.”
She continued, “They stayed together for several more years and seemed happy. Although there were many times I saw John and he’d ask me about Carolyn because we stayed in touch a bit and I just knew he still had a longing for her.”
Carole later said that Hannah and JFK Jr. “broke up for good” shortly after his mom died in May 1994.
Love Story Executive Producer Brad Simpson explained to USA Today that they were aware they sped up JFK Jr. and Hannah’s relationship and made an effort to make the timeline less complicated as it may have been in real life.
“In reality, they were on again, off again, a little bit more than we had time to do in the show,” Simpson said. “But we needed to jump ahead, and we didn’t feel like the audience wanted to see the stop and starts of their romance.”
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JFK Jr. reportedly “regretted” not introducing Bessette to his mom before her death
In Love Story, JFK Jr. and Bessette were strictly friends up until his mom died in May 1994. Shortly afterward, JFK Jr. bikes in the rain to Bessette’s apartment, and they turn their relationship romantic for the first time.
However, some friends have said that the two were romantically involved before 1994.
In the three years before his mother died, JFK Jr. never introduced Bessette to Jackie, the show portrays that as due to the fact he was still dating Hannah.
However, in reality, JFK Jr. and Bessette had already been involved, because it reportedly “irked” her that she never met Jackie.
“Carolyn became increasingly irked that he wouldn’t introduce her to his mother,” Beller wrote in her book. “‘I took him to meet my mom,’ Carolyn told a friend.”
Beller further told PEOPLE at the time her book came out, “I think it was hard for him to take anything other than his work too seriously at that moment. If Carolyn met Jackie, I think he knew that that would sort of become a life of its own. And maybe he wasn’t quite ready for that.”
After the couple married in 1996, JFK Jr. apparently regretted his decision according to Beller.
“I know that he did regret it,” Beller continued. “That’s one of the things that he said to several friends, one of his main regrets was not introducing the two of them.”
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JFK Jr. and Bessette split for a year after he received an anonymous letter about their relationship
In the fourth episode, JFK Jr. and Bessette’s relationship faces a major test when he gets an anonymous letter.
After playing football in Central Park, JFK Jr. opens his gym bag to see a letter addressed to him alleging that Bessette was “fixated” on him before she met him, begged Klein to introduce them, dated around, did drugs and was a party girl.
JFK Jr. brings up the letter to Bessette, and she angrily breaks up with him and ignores all his calls. However, the series depicts that after he suddenly appears at her apartment, they make up and profess their love for each other. It’s only after their rekindling that they start to publicly date.
In real life, JFK Jr. did receive a similar anonymous letter, but it caused far more damage to their relationship than depicted in the show. In Once Upon a Time, Beller claimed that JFK Jr. got the letter far earlier on in the relationship, around 1992, when he was still on and off with Hannah.
JFK Jr. reportedly brought it up to Bessette at a restaurant called El Teddy’s in Tribeca, and it led to a “messy” breakup.
“John presented Carolyn with a letter,” Beller wrote. “The author who sent it to him, a friend of his, came from the milieu of boarding schools, Ivy League universities and ‘old money’ families of New York, though he didn’t divulge those facts until much later. The letter claimed Carolyn was a user, a partier, that she was out for fame and fortune.”
After reading off the letter, JFK Jr. allegedly “tossed the piece of paper at her, stood, and walked out the door.” To this day, the identity of the author has never been revealed, but Beller alleged that Bessette figured out who it was after “years” and went on to “freeze them out.”
“Within a week of the scene at the restaurant, John tried to call Carolyn. And call. And call and call and call,” she wrote.
Bessette reportedly didn’t return his calls for a year and began dating model Michael Bergin — who is portrayed by Noah Fearnley and only appeared in the first few episodes of Love Story.
By 1993, per Beller, “Somehow John convinced Carolyn to try again. And she gave it a shot.” She added, “But Carolyn was guarded about the revival of John, treading carefully.”
At the time of their reconciliation, he was still linked to Hannah and model Julie Baker. His relationship with Bessette became public in 1995. (Although they were first photographed in Nov. 1993 at the New York City Marathon. But nobody knew who she was at the time.)
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Carolyn’s sister, Lauren Bessette, was also Maid of Honor
The sixth episode of Love Story shows JFK Jr. and Bessette’s intimate wedding on Cumberland Island, Ga., on Sept. 21, 1996. Prior to their secret nuptials, Bessette and JFK Jr. were shown trying to get his sister, Caroline Kennedy, onboard after she expressed some hesitation.
In the series, Bessette tells one of her sisters, Lauren, that she is going to ask Caroline to be her Maid of Honor in hopes of making her feel more included. Lauren becomes upset and storms off.
However, a source told PEOPLE that in real-life, Caroline was Matron of Honor — since she was married to Edwin Schlossberg — and Lauren was Maid of Honor.
