What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in FX’s Love Story
6 min readSpoilers below.
In the years before his marriage, John F. Kennedy Jr. was considered one of the most eligible bachelors of his era—if not the most eligible bachelor. When he wed Carolyn Bessette in 1996, the pair became a source of enormous fascination: There was a sense that, together, they formed a perfect couple. That image was shattered in 1999 when the pair died in a tragic plane crash alongside Carolyn’s sister Lauren.
FX’s new fictionalized drama series, Love Story, recounts the couple’s seven-year relationship, with Paul Anthony Kelly starring as John and Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn. The show traces John’s career in magazines and Carolyn’s in fashion; their courtship; their marriage; and their eventual deaths. The supporting cast includes Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, and Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein.
But what does Love Story get right? And what does the series leave out? Here’s everything you need to know about the real-life events that inspired some of Love Story’s key moments.
Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette and Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr.
John and Carolyn’s First Meeting
In Love Story, we see John and Carolyn meet at a New York City fundraiser, introduced by Carolyn’s boss, Calvin Klein. The real story of their first encounter is less clear: Some friends recall them meeting when John came to Calvin Klein for a fitting in 1992, while others remember them meeting at a party. As John was dating actress Daryl Hannah at the time, he and Carolyn didn’t begin dating seriously until 1994, following the death of Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
John’s Bar Exam
John’s arc in the first episode of Love Story is fueled by the humiliating headlines written about him after he failed the New York Bar Exam not once but twice. The real-life situation was just as painful, as the New York Post did indeed run a now-legendary story titled “The Hunk Flunks… Again.”
Omari K. Chancellor as Gordon Henderson, Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette, and Tonatiuh as Narciso Rodriguez.
Carolyn’s Job
On their first date in Love Story, Carolyn informs John how she got her job at Calvin Klein. As she explains, she worked at a Calvin Klein store in Boston after college graduation, and she so impressed the company higher-ups that they recruited her to interview for a job at the company headquarters. This story is accurate to what The New York Times wrote about Carolyn’s real-life career trajectory in 1996.
Part of Carolyn’s allure was her ability to work with celebrities. In the first episode, she impresses Calvin Klein when she skillfully styles Annette Bening for an event. It’s unclear whether this exact scene really took place, but The New York Times reported that Bening was indeed one of the stars that Carolyn dressed while she worked for Calvin Klein.
John’s Magazine George
One of John’s biggest achievements was creating and running George. The magazine, which launched in 1995, covered both politics and popular culture in a witty manner that was considered unique for the time. The first issue featured Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington, a portrait that became an iconic image of the era. In the first episode of Love Story, we see John and his business partner Michael Berman (Michael Nathanson) meet with potential investors at the New York City restaurant Michael’s, which was, in fact, a top spot for media executives at the time.
The Kate Moss Headshot
It was indeed a 1993 Calvin Klein perfume campaign that electrified Kate Moss’s career. But whether it was actually Carolyn who fished her headshot out of a pile, as happens in the show, is unclear.
The Pool Party
Carolyn and John run into each other at a party for the book Pools, which was written by Kelly Klein, Calvin’s wife. It’s not known whether the pair actually saw each other at this event, but the setting itself is fictionalized in the show. While the real party that John attended was thrown at the New York Athletic Club, Love Story shot it at the iconic—and aptly named—midtown restaurant The Pool.
Noah Fernley as Michael Bergin.
Carolyn and Michael Bergin’s Relationship
The third episode of Love Story shows Carolyn and model Michael Bergin (Noah Fernley) looking up at a billboard of his Calvin Klein underwear campaign. The real Bergin did actually make a splash with such a billboard, and he did have a relationship with Carolyn, which he explored in his 2004 book The Other Man: A Love Story.
Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
John’s Park Mugging
As Carolyn and John sit on a park bench in episode 3, he tells her a story about when he was 15 years old and a man mugged him in the park. The anecdote establishes the fact that John’s mother encouraged his Secret Service agents to let him roam freely. As the New York Times reported in 1974, John was, in fact, robbed in Central Park when he was 13.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s Death
Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
The episode “America’s Widow” follows the Kennedy family after Jackie Kennedy Onassis is diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and eventually dies in 1994. The episode includes details such as Jackie receiving last rites shortly before her death, which is not something that’s been reported on publicly. We do, however, watch John step outside of the building—just as he did in real life—and speak to the crowd of reporters standing outside. “She was surrounded by her friends and her family and her books and the people and the things that she loved, and she did it in her own way,” he said.
Calvin Klein’s Paper Clips
Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein.
In episode 4, “I Love You,” we see Carolyn nervously straighten a row of black paper clips prior to Calvin Klein’s arrival at the office. This detail is accurate to the real Klein—as Womenswear Daily reported in 2004, the only paper clips the designer allowed in the office were black ones.
The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Auction
Also in “I Love You,” John and his sister, Caroline, catalogue their mother’s possessions after deciding to sell some of her belongings at auction. The real-life Sotheby’s sale of “The Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis” was held over four days in April 1996 and was one of the most famous auctions of all time. Among the pieces sold were President John F. Kennedy’s White House rocking chair, which went for $453,500, and the First Lady’s engagement ring from Aristotle Onassis, which was purchased for $2,587,500. Caroline says the sale is necessary to cover their $34 million in inheritance taxes, which isn’t quite accurate. $34 million was, in reality, the total amount brought in by the auction, and it’s unlikely the tax bill and the proceeds were both exactly $34 million.
Jackie’s Swimming Ring
Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy and Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
When Caroline and John are going through their mother’s things in episode 4, she points out what she calls Jackie’s “swimming ring.” The idea, Caroline explains, was that she switched to wearing this ring when she went swimming to avoid losing her wedding and engagement rings. At the end of the episode John looks at the ring again and then puts it in his pocket.
The swimming ring was first publicly referenced in What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship and Love by Carole Radziwill, whose late husband, Anthony, was Jackie’s nephew. She said that Jackie did indeed have an emerald and diamond band that she called her swimming ring.
The Letter
While John is playing touch football in the park in episode 4, he finds an anonymous letter left in his gym bag, one that makes nasty accusations about Carolyn’s behavior and character. John asks Carolyn about the contents of the letter and she storms out.
This story has some basis in reality. In RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil’s book JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography, John’s friend Brian Steel explains that he did ask around about Carolyn on John’s behalf, and reported negative stories back to his friend. As Steel shared, “[John] went out on a date or two with Carolyn, and he’s like, ‘I want you to find out as much as you can about Carolyn—I know you know people, like, you know, nightclub people, restaurateurs…I know you know people that went to college with her.’ And so I found out as much as I could about her and not all of it was good. I told him all of it. She was a club girl, and she dated a lot of people.”
The Boat Pictures
After John and Carolyn reconcile during episode 4, we see them enjoy a day out on his boat in the waters around New York City. The trip seems private and intimate, but when Carolyn returns to work, she sees paparazzi pictures on the front page of the New York Post.
In reality, the boating trip that was photographed took place in Martha’s Vineyard, not New York, and there doesn’t seem to have been a front-page story on Bessette in the Post at that time.
This story will be updated.