Everything 'Love Story' got right and wrong about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette

FX's love story, JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, is a rating smash for Hulu and Disney+. But what's real and what's fake? What's fact and what's fiction? Here to help us is our senior reporter, Leah Bitzke. The show just wrapped up, the finale aired. Viewers are probably wondering, what did they get right in the show? What is based on true facts that we know? Absolutely. First of all, it's kind of reignited the nation's interest in JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's love story. So people are going crazy for it and really digging into what actually happened. Where did they actually go? The show got a lot of things right. They definitely did their research. And then there's other things that were definitely dramatized for the purpose of the show, which is very Ryan Murphy. Exactly. I mean, we see the characters in New York City, going to all these restaurants. That part is correct. Yes, that is definitely correct. They go to places like the Odeon in Tribeca. They go to Bubby's, which is one of my personal favorites. They go to Nobu. They go to Rios. And I talked to a few of the owners of some of these restaurants. And they definitely were regulars at these places. So, for example, the chef at Bubby's, he told me the other day that they treated Bubby's as their personal living room. That's how comfortable they were there. It's so New York, too, to have your go-to restaurants. But the first date spot, which went viral as an Indian restaurant with all the beautiful lighting, that was just for the cameras. Yes, that's correct. Well, so the owner of that restaurant did tell The Post that they definitely did dine there. But it's not confirmed that that was their first date location. Gotcha. Whether or not that's true, I don't know. But people are lining up out the door at that restaurant to try to get in, just trying to sit at the same table that they may be dined at. I mean, New Yorkers are obsessed with this show. You know, Gen Z is wearing their style around the East Village. I've seen guys with a backwards Kangol hat. So they got the style, the 90s style, exactly right. They did their research to a T for Carolyn's wardrobe. Exact replicas of the clothing that she wore. You'll see that in the show. And Sarah Pidgeon, you know, she's an established Broadway actress. She's so good in the show. Looks just like her. And of course, something that they got exactly right was casting JFK Jr. Oh my God. Paul Anthony Kelly. I mean, aside from the thirst tweets that you can read about him, he really just looks so much like the original. And he was an unknown. He was plucked out of obscurity. You know, they saw hundreds of actors. And he was a male model, did Brooks Brothers. So it's exciting to see that the show has really captured that excitement for the, you know, the Kennedys, the Camelot. Definitely. And I think that, you know, I'm hoping that big things are in store for him, you know, because he really, I think he really pulls at the heartstrings of viewers in this. And there's a really sweet moment when he's crying in the arms of his mom, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, when he finds out that she has cancer and she's going to pass away soon. And it's just a really emotional scene that I think he just did such a good job. Like, you don't really expect that from kind of a light or what's supposed to be a light story. Yeah, it's called Love Story. And of course, Jackie O is played by Naomi Watts. So here's a relatively unknown actor going toe-to-toe in a dramatic scene with, you know, an award-winning actress. It's very cool to see. Okay, we got to talk about what they got wrong, though. You know, when the show starts, they say, you know, they have a little disclaimer that some details of the story were dramatized, changed. Break it down for us. What did they not get so right? So I had the pleasure of interviewing Sasha Chermayeff, who is JFK Jr.'s best friend from high school. And she attended his wedding. She was one of only 40 people that attended that wedding, by the way. Yeah, it was such a small affair. It was not a Kennedy wedding. It was down in, like, coastal Georgia. Yeah, and so that's how close they are, that she was one of the people there. So what really happened on the wedding? We see it's sort of like a hot muggy day in the show, that there's—Carolyn's dress isn't fitting, and the whole thing is late, you know. So the show, Love Story, portrays the day as kind of like a drag for the guests, that they were waiting in the heat, and it was this, like, long process, and they're like, this is annoying. Sasha told me it wasn't anything like that. All 40 people at the wedding, they're all close friends. They all know each other very well. So they were just hanging out, drinking beers, having a good time, and they were like, the bride's going to get there when they're going to get there, you know? It wasn't this—because it wasn't this actual, like, Kennedy event, it was very chill, and everyone was just happy to be there and supportive. She said that it wasn't actually hot on the day. It was a beautiful September day, and Carolyn actually provided all the guests with these beautiful woven fans, so if they did get hot, they had a way to cool off. I'm from Georgia. It gets muggy, but you're just happy to be outside. Yeah, and there's an island breeze, you know? So that was definitely not true. The show also portrayed Caroline Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette as sort of being rivals over the wedding details, and Caroline was portrayed by Meryl Streep's daughter, Grace Gummer. Yes. How much of that was real? So Sasha told me that there was known tension in general between Caroline and her husband and Carolyn and John. So that tension was real, but she also told me that on the day of the wedding, there was no tension at all. There was none of that, so that is not true. And Caroline wasn't really even involved in any of the, like, bridal party duties anyway in real life. Yeah, she was picked as the Matron of Honor, and the show dramatizes that, but I guess there was—on the actual day, there was really no bad blood, and— Exactly. —Carolyn's sister and mother were more like the bridal party. Exactly. So that was the wedding. They also maybe misportrayed Daryl Hannah, according to the actress. She seems sort of like the homewrecker ex in the show. They portrayed her as a drug user and a jealous ex-girlfriend. What's the truth here? So Daryl Hannah did not have the best portrayal in the show. She was done dirty. Yeah, and people were talking about it. They were saying, wow, she must have been the worst girlfriend ever. But Daryl actually took it upon herself—she's a very private person, by the way. She doesn't come out and talk very much to the press ever. She wrote an essay for the New York Times going through each instance in the show and saying this didn't happen. No, I never did cocaine with my friends. No, I never used a family heirloom to do drugs off of. No, I never compared my dog's death to the death of John's mother. So she destroyed her portrayal. So it's coming from her. So I think we can trust that the show did not get this right about Daryl. I mean, maybe the show needed a villain, but the real villain that might be accurate was the paparazzi. So you wrote that that part of the show they did get right. Yes, that is absolutely correct. She was 100 percent—Carolyn was 100 percent harassed by the paparazzi. It was so much for her. Sasha told me that Carolyn started to become agoraphobic and she would stay in her apartment. She didn't want to leave. It got much worse after the wedding. I'm told that during their honeymoon, which was in Turkey, the paparazzi was everywhere and that was kind of the beginning of the end for them, where they realized, oh no, my life is never going to be private again. I wrote this exclusive for Page Six that Carolyn was looking for a home outside of New York in the suburbs because she wanted to move away from all of the media attention and tabloids and just live privately where they could raise a family and not worry about photographers, camping outside their home all the time. Somewhere with a long driveway, somewhere that's private. That's really wild to hear because they were such a New York City couple. Exactly. Another detail about Carolyn dramatized in the show was her leaving Calvin Klein. How much of that was accurate? So she definitely left after she got married, but it didn't have anything to do with her thinking. The show portrays Carolyn as leaving Calvin Klein because she says that her relationship with John is a distraction to the company, but that's not true. The real reason is because she needed to move out of the spotlight to make space for John's career at George magazine. That's right. He launched his magazine like a couple years before and it's like a political lifestyle So there was maybe a conflict of interest there if she worked in PR. The finale just aired. Of course, everyone knew this miniseries would eventually have to tackle the tragedy, the tragic plane crash in July 1999. We don't want to spoil any details of how it's portrayed, but we do have information about some of the eerie details leading up to the actual tragedy. I obtained a report from the National Transportation Safety Board, which basically outlined the entire investigation into how JFK Jr. died in that plane crash on that horrific day. And Carolyn and her sister Lauren. Yes, exactly. And it's so interesting because they interviewed so many people who spoke with John before the accident. And there were all these signs that he shouldn't have gone in that airplane and flown it himself that day. For one, he had an ankle injury. And just two weeks before the deadly plane crash, he flew that same plane with a flight instructor who actually had to assist John in landing the plane and taxing it because of his ankle injury. So that's kind of an indicator that he shouldn't have been flying a plane alone with this injury. Right. And then there was inclement weather in the middle of their flight. They were flying from New Jersey to Hyannis Port to drop off Lauren first. And, of course, they crashed. It's so sad. And the show is, at its heart, a love story. It's the name of the show. But, you know, their tragic demise, especially with all of the death that the Kennedy family has faced over the decades, is really just—it's probably one of the main reasons the show was so interesting to the public. I agree. It is a love story, but it's a tragic love story. And I think that's why, you know, it's hard to look away. But also sometimes you kind of want to look away because it's really heartbreaking. There's so much loss. But I also think it's nice that it's reigniting people's interest in their legacy and the power couple that they were. They were American royalty, or as royal as it gets. Absolutely. And there's already—season two of Love Story has already been, you know, approved. And the showrunner actually revealed that the couple he's most interested in tackling next is Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. I cannot wait for that. That'll be great. Lindsay Lohan played Elizabeth Taylor in a TV movie many years ago. So maybe Lindsay will get cast in this. Oh, my God. We should ask her if she's interested. That would be amazing. Well, Leah, this was such a great breakdown, what they got right and what they got wrong for Love Story. And for more on this story, you know, go to page6.com. We have all of the amazing details. Thanks so much. Thank you.