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Hulu and FX’s hit series “Love Story” has sparked a renewed global fascination with the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.
The Ryan Murphy-produced drama examines the whirlwind courtship and marriage of JFK Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) and Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) before they tragically died in a 1999 plane crash.
However, each episode begins with the caveat that “certain depictions of people and events have been dramatized or fictionalized for storytelling purposes.”
The late couple’s close friend, Sasha Chermayeff, criticized the show, telling Page Six in an exclusive interview that the writers and producers didn’t know Kennedy Jr. or Bessette.
“The way I look at it, [‘Love Story’] is just being made by a group of people that never met them, didn’t know them, and are just making it up as they go along,” she said.
Page Six spoke to multiple sources about the show’s major scenes and whether they tell the true love story between Kennedy Jr. and his wife.
Restaurant Regulars: Right
Throughout the series, the pair pops into several iconic restaurants, including Indochine, The Odeon and Bubby’s.
Writers of the show got this one right, as all three establishments were go-to spots for the pair during their relationship.
“Bubby’s was like a living room for those guys, and they were in all the time,” Bubby’s owner and chef Ron Silver recently told Page Six.
“It was a place where they would come together and also separately with their friends and have meetings or different things like that.”
They were also known to frequent Rao’s, Tribeca Grill, Il Cantinori and Nobu.
First Date Distortion: Wrong
In episode 1, the fictional first date between Kennedy Jr. and Bessette was filmed at East Village hole-in-the-wall, Panna II Garden Indian Restaurant.
Since the episode aired, New Yorkers have been lining up to dine at the same table where Pidgeon and Kelly sat and exchanged flirty lines.
While the restaurant’s owner, Bashir Khan, confirmed to The Post that the real-life duo was “regulars” in the ’90s, there is no confirmation that it was their first date destination.
Daryl Dynamic: Wrong
In the show, John’s ex-girlfriend Daryl Hannah (Dree Hemingway) is portrayed as a clingy, self-involved partner.
Hannah addressed the show in a brutal essay for the New York Times, saying that her portrayal wasn’t “a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John.”
The series also includes scenes where Hannah uses cocaine, does drugs using a family heirloom belonging to his dad President John F. Kennedy and compares his mom Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ death to the passing of her dog. Hannah denied each instant as completely false.
“I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties,” she wrote. “I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s.”
The show suggests that John’s family didn’t approve of his relationship with the “Splash” actress. In one scene, his mom didn’t show up to a family dinner because John took Hannah as his date.
However, John’s cousin exclusively told Page Six that the show’s representation of Hannah was “unfortunate.”
“Daryl Hannah was great,” Douglas Kennedy said. “Whenever I saw her, she was very sweet and had [John’s] best interests at heart. I think that’s a misrepresentation.”
Family Feud: Wrong
The series suggests that there was tension between Carolyn and John’s sister, Caroline Kennedy, on their wedding day.
In episode 4, Carolyn and Caroline also get into a heated argument over the wedding plans.
In episode 6, Carolyn asks Caroline (Grace Gummer) to be her matron of honor over her own sister, Lauren, because she doesn’t want John’s sister “resenting” her. And when Carolyn is getting ready for the ceremony, Caroline is seen looking indifferent and uninvolved in the wedding prep.
However, Chermayeff — who was one of 40 guests in attendance at John and Carolyn’s 1996 wedding — exclusively told Page Six that there was no friction between Carolyn and her sister-in-law on that day.
“People knew that there was some tensions between them as the two couples,” Chermayeff said, referring to John and Carolyn, and Caroline and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg.
“That was something that people did know, but it wasn’t really apparent at the wedding,” she continued. “At that point, there wasn’t a feeling of tension at all. It was just not there.”
Furthermore, Chermayeff didn’t recall Caroline being involved in any bridesmaid duties on the big day.
“I’m not convinced that she had to do anything like that. I think Carolyn had her people pretty much with her,” Chermayeff said.
Warm Wedding: Wrong
In the wedding episode, the show filmed the ceremony at the historic First African Baptist Church in Cumberland Island, a secluded isle off the coast of Georgia.
The venue is the exact location where Carolyn and John exchanged vows.
But the series also suggests that guests were impatiently waiting for the bride, who was running two hours late due to a wardrobe malfunction with her gown. This is untrue, according to Chermayeff.
“The bride is always going to take her time and come out when she’s ready — nobody minded,” Chermayeff said. “The idea that it was like this uncomfortable thing and whatever people wrote is just wrong.”
The show also made it seem like guests were left sweating in the September heat, but Chermayeff said, “It wasn’t in any way hot or uncomfortable at all.”
“It was actually a beautiful climate,” Chermayeff assured, also noting that Carolyn provided woven fans for guests to use if they did need to cool off.
Helicopter Havoc: Right
John and Carolyn’s wedding took place in complete secrecy against all odds.
In episode 6, there is a moment when Carolyn and her bridal party are getting ready for the wedding at the Greyfield Inn when they hear a helicopter circling overhead.
Chermayeff confirmed that there were, indeed, paparazzi helicopters flying over the inn on the day of the wedding, but guests were able to lose them by sneaking off to the chapel in Jeeps.
“We had lost the helicopters and they weren’t able to find the cars,” she said. “The beautiful ceremony was able to happen in silence with the water and not with the press, so it was a super lucky thing.”
“We were all happy about that. They just didn’t find us. So it’s like a miracle,” she said.
Carolyn Criticism: Wrong
Carolyn struggles to feel accepted by Caroline and the Kennedy family matriarch, Ethel Kennedy, throughout the series.
However, Douglas, the 10th child of Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, denied this storyline, telling Page Six that “everybody around Carolyn loved Carolyn.”
“It’s difficult to capture the intricacies of people’s lives in movies or television,” he explained. “If you know people, these types of things often fail in capturing the essence of who people were.”
“John was the leader of my generation,” he adds. “He was irreplaceable.”
Calvin Klein Quitting: Wrong
In episode 6, Carolyn quits her high-power public relations job at Calvin Klein after their wedding — telling the designer that her relationship with JFK Jr. has become a distraction.
“I hope you know how deeply indebted I am to you — for your mentorship, your friendship — you’ve changed my life,” Carolyn tells Klein (Alessandro Nivola). “You saw something in me and fostered it and for that I am forever grateful, truly.
“I think it’s become apparent that I can no longer serve you or this company in the way we both would like.”
When the fashion brand founder expresses his surprise that she is resigning, she replies, “I just think my presence here has become a bit of a distraction. My whole job is to promote your work and I can’t do that to my full ability.”
In reality, Carolyn left her job to ensure that John’s journalism career remained in the spotlight.
“She left her job basically because everything had to revolve around John and George magazine,” Chermayeff said, referring to the political lifestyle magazine Kennedy Jr. co-founded in 1995.
There was also allegedly a “conflict of interest” for advertisers if Carolyn remained at the American clothing company.
“She was supposed to sort of give up everything in order to make his career moves more palatable for the world, and I feel sad about it,” Chermayeff said, noting that in the ’90s, women “weren’t really as important.”
Paparazzi Pressure: Right
In episode 7, John and Carolyn come back from their honeymoon, only to be bombarded by the relentless paparazzi. Carolyn responded by barely leaving their Tribeca apartment.
This depiction is accurate, with Chermayeff telling Page Six that Carolyn “started to get a little agoraphobic.”
“So many photographers just harassed [her],” Chermayeff said, noting that her thriving social life took a hit due to the heavy media attention surrounding their relationship.
“The next thing you know, you can’t go anywhere and you are being followed,” she said. “It was hard. Really, really hard.”
The show also accurately portrayed John being more comfortable with the paparazzi.
“I mean, John wasn’t struggling with [the media attention]. John was struggling with the fact that it was really hard for [Carolyn],” Chermayeff shared. “He had no problem with it. He didn’t know anything other than that.
“His whole life was being this little center of attention in the world, and he had fully reconciled [with] it and was completely at home with it.”
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