Late last week, Daryl Hannah wrote a NYT op-ed blasting Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. Love Story included “Daryl” as a character in the early episodes, because in real life, John was still on-and-off with Daryl when he began pursuing Carolyn. The show dramatized that very real history into something completely false though – they treated Daryl as a druggy, flaky actress who would randomly reappear in John’s life and pressure him to get married. As Daryl wrote in the NYT, none of that is true. Well, they’ve got some Kennedy cousin on the record saying that they all loved Daryl too:
John F. Kennedy Jr.’s cousin says Daryl Hannah’s controversial portrayal on “Love Story” is completely fabricated. Douglas Kennedy — who has not watched the FX series — exclusively tells Page Six that the show’s take on Hannah is “unfortunate.”
“Daryl Hannah was great,” he says. “Whenever I saw her, she was very sweet and had [John’s] best interests at heart. I think that’s a misrepresentation.”
As for Carolyn Bessette — JFK Jr.’s wife who perished alongside him and her sister Lauren on the ill-fated July 1999 flight — viewers watched as she has struggled to feel accepted by her sister-in-law, Caroline Kennedy, and family matriarch, Ethel Kennedy.
But Douglas, the 10th child of Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, tells Page Six, “Everybody around Carolyn loved Carolyn. It’s difficult to capture the intricacies of people’s lives in movies or television. 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.”
I’m not caping for Ryan Murphy or Love Story’s writers whatsoever, but I will say this… I remember the 1990s and I remember the stories around John and Daryl too. While the Love Story team definitely owes Daryl a huge apology for how they portrayed her, one of the things Love Story got right was the sense that Jackie Onassis and the Kennedy family really didn’t want John to end up with Daryl. THEY saw her as a flaky actress who wasn’t good enough for America’s prince. Digging up some random Kennedy cousin doesn’t change how John’s family felt at the time.
Meanwhile, Dree Hemingway (who played Daryl in Love Story) was asked about Daryl in a newly-released interview. The interview was conducted weeks before Daryl’s NYT op-ed though – Dree talked about trying to reach out to Daryl via a “love note to her saying how much I admired her, how much I’ve admired her as an actress and a woman, prior to even being cast as Daryl. How much I really just fell in love with her as a human being.” Dree spoke about how it was a real pleasure to research Daryl’s life and watch her old interviews. Which I believe – Dree clearly researched Daryl and did some crazy work to get Daryl’s voice. But yeah, the writing wasn’t there. They used a false version of “Daryl” to make Carolyn look good.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images and Paul Adao/INFphoto.com.
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- JOHN F KENNEDY JR AND CAROLYN BESSETTE AT THE PREMIERE OF AIR FORCE ONE. WASHINGTON DC. 24 JULY 1997 .PICTURES /,Image: 546302464, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: John Harrington / Avalon
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- New York, NY Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon are seen filming a scene for “American Love Story” in Chelsea, Manhattan, New York. Pictured: Paul Kelly, Sarah Pidgeon BACKGRID USA 28 OCTOBER 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: Jose Perez / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York City, NY Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly stopy by the Empire State Building to Celebrate Premiere of FX’s ”Love Story” in New York. Pictured: Sarah Pidgeon, Paul Anthony Kelly BACKGRID USA 12 FEBRUARY 2026 BYLINE MUST READ: Nancy Rivera / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- , New York, NY – 10/06/1996- JFK Jr. and new wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy just back from their honeymoon pose for photographers outside their Tribecca home. PHOTO by: Ken Katz/startraksphoto.com -K140002MRMRSJFK96_KK Editorial – Rights Managed Image – Please contact www.startraksphoto.com for licensing fee Startraks Photo New York, NY For licensing please call 212-414-9464 or email sales@startraksphoto.com Startraks Photo reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this image. If you violate our intellectual property you may be liable for actual damages, loss of income, and profits you derive from the use of this image, and where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or statutory damages. Featuring: John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette Where: New York, New York, United States When: 01 Jan 1998 Credit: Ken Katz/startraksphoto.com
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- New York, N.Y. – 6/12/1997- Carolyn Bessette walking JFK Jr.’s dog Friday. Exclusive -PHOTO by: Ken Katz/startraksphoto.com -KK_310807 Editorial – Rights Managed Image – Please contact www.startraksphoto.com for licensing fee Startraks Photo New York, NY For licensing please call 212-414-9464 or email sales@startraksphoto.com Startraks Photo reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this image. If you violate our intellectual property you may be liable for actual damages, loss of income, and profits you derive from the use of this image, and where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or statutory damages. Featuring: Carolyn Bessette Where: New York, N.Y., United States When: 01 Jan 1998 Credit: Ken Katz/startraksphoto.com
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- Paul Kelly, Dree Hemingway seen filming ‘American Love Story’ in Tribeca Featuring: Dree Hemingway Where: New York, United States When: 08 Jul 2025 Credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com
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- Paul Kelly, Dree Hemingway seen filming ‘American Love Story’ in Tribeca Featuring: Paul Kelly, Dree Hemingway Where: New York, United States When: 08 Jul 2025 Credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com
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- New York series premiere of FX’s ‘Love Story’ a story about John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette’ Featuring: Dree Hemingway Where: New York, New York, United States When: 03 Feb 2026 Credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com
I worked for a branch of the Kennedy family throughout most of the 90s, and Douglas and Daryl are absolutely right. Everyone liked her. I was there.
Thank you! I think series like Love Story playing fast and loose with portrayals of living people (albeit public figures) is kinda risky legally and really a disservice to both the subjects and the viewers.
It’s also the lazy Hollywood trope that has to pit women against each other. One has to be “better” than the other. They have to be catty and trash talk each other. It’s so adolescent and black and white. Lazy.
People forget that Daryl wasn’t just “some actress” — she’d grown up in upper class Chicago, went to Parker School, and the stepfather who raised her was Jerry Wexler. Daryl grew up around people who were hugely famous, and came from money.
I’ve never heard anything but lovely things about her from both my Chicago and Telluride peeps. Just really kind and lovely person.
I like Daryl. She was great in steel magnolias and splash especially. It is a shame about how she was portrayed in this miniseries.
Yeah. It’s well known that Jackie had reservations about Hannah and John getting married but that was about it. I’ve always heard, Jackie liked her well enough. And you can like someone and like two people as a couple but still have concerns about if they are a good fit long term. By all accounts it also seems that if they hadn’t died tragically; more than likely JFK and Carolyn’s marriage would not have lasted.
I agree that Jackie’s issue with Daryl was not a personal dislike of her. It was more about her profession and ties to Hollywood. Jackie had kind of a blind spot when it came to John. In her eyes, he was JFK’s only surviving son which meant she had certain expectations of him which weren’t always in keeping with what he wanted and who he really was. He was very intelligent but had a learning disorder. He needed help and she got it for him, but she never stopped trying to remake him in his father’s image. This is a mother-son relationship which would make a fascinating documentary or docudrama. Things did not come as easily for John as you might expect. Being a nepobaby is not always a lot of fun.
It seems Jackie had a good relationship with Daryl, but it also seems Daryl ended the relationship, not JFk Jr. Looks like she cut the cord, not him.
Daryl speaks positively about Jackie, which makes me think they were on good terms.
She’s also the stepdaughter of a billionaire so I can’t see them disliking her that much. She comes from their world…she’s not really an outsider.
Had Daryl not ended the relationship, I think it’s possible she could have married John. It sort of seems like Carolyn “won”
John because John was careless with Daryl’s dog…
Daryl and Carolyn looked more similar to each other than I remembered. JFK Jr sure had a type.
I sort of thought Carolyn was somewhat of a replacement for Daryl. This is speculative on my end though — I have no hard proof.
Hard to tell with him — he would date many women at a time and everyone kind of accepted it as normal because he was handsome.
He definitely seemed to have a type. Daryl Hannah, Carolyn Bessette and Sarah Jessica Parker could easily pass for sisters (with SJP being the short & petite version).
I dunno. I still feel that Darryl was the one that got away, and Carolyn was one that was socially acceptable to Jackie. John had a history of dating starlets: Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, and of course Darryl. She was also abused by Jackson Browne and John was her protector. I always thought Darryl was the one. Nonetheless I was living in LA and not really knowing. That’s all the stories from the gossip columns. So I may be continuing to wish cast due to all the romance novels I read then.
He also dated Christina Haag who was an actress, and Jackie liked her.
He never introduced Carolyn to Jackie, but I’m not sure if that’s because Jackie might have asked him why he was dating Daryl and Carolyn at the same time (one of which, Daryl, she actually had met).
I do think he would have married Daryl if she hadn’t dumped him.
Christina Haag tells a rather horrifying story of how one night John asked her to camp out with him on Martha’s Vineyard. She agreed thinking nothing of it. Then she was awakened in the middle of the night to the sounds of nearby explosions. It seems the Navy kept a bombing range on the Vineyard which she knew nothing about but John did. When Jackie found out, she really lit into her son for putting Christina in a dangerous situation. Of course, this is also an interesting glimpse into John’s psyche and need to flirt with danger.
John always wanted to enter the acting world. Hence dating a lot of starlets. It was understood that Jackie said no to that prospect. She liked Daryl but didn’t want John to be surrounded by Hollywood types.
Daryl is an activist so I don’t think she had difficulty contributing towards political discussions, if she had to participate in that sort of thing with the Kennedys.
She did an interview with Dan Rather where she said something about them in relation to public service (and admiring that commitment?) . I definitely don’t think she was flaky. Shy, yes. But she’s never come across as flaky in an interview situation.
I’m glad Darrell is speaking up because I think her portrayal was shabby. But I don’t think they made her look bad to make Carolyn look better, I think they made her look bad to make John look better. People don’t want to root for a Romeo who’s being unkind and dating behind the back of really wonderful women.
Great point.
I’m a few years younger than Carolyn would be today, and like so many other women our age in the 80s and 90s, I was enamored with JFK, Jr. and Carolyn and their love story. So, needless to say, I’ve been watching (and enjoying) the miniseries. However, it seems the writers used a mix of the book’s account and the rabid tabloid accounts of the mid-late 90s to craft this version of the story.
****SPOILER ALERT (just in case)***
In last night’s episode, Carolyn and her sister, Lauren met for dinner and when Carolyn shares her dismay over the paparazzi and tabloids, Lauren tells her (paraphrasing), ‘in every story concocted by the media, there has to be a protagonist and an antagonist. Of course, John (as the only son of a beloved, slain President), is the protagonist, which makes you [Carolyn], the antagonist.’
It’s almost as if the writers told on themselves in that scene, because they did the same thing with Daryl’s character: they wrote a script that made Daryl the antagonist to Carolyn’s protagonist so we’d root for Carolyn, then flipped the tables on Carolyn to make her the antagonist to John’s protagonist (which is *exactly* what the US tabloid media did back then). It’s sad and disgusting that nothing has changed in 30 years, (and, in fact, has only gotten worse thanks to social media and insidious bot farms – Harry and Megan being the prime example).
Back in the 90s, there really wasn’t a way to discern the truth from the myriad lies printed in the entertainment mags, tabloids, and spewed on daytime talk/gossip shows, so it was easy to believe the narrative being spun.
So, aside from the terrific acting and chemistry by/between the lead actors, the best part of this series is getting to see a version of Carolyn’s story that we weren’t privy to back then. She was a warm, kind, independent young woman, who had a whole life before she met John (and was *not* the ice princess with anger issues the tabloids manufactured to increase readership). That said, I wish the writers would have given Daryl Hannah the same grace; they did her so dirty.
I was wondering if they were setting Carolyn up to be the antagonist because there are points in the series where I do start to get annoyed with her, but I really have no idea why — she’s not doing anything bad but simply existing. Maybe I’m annoyed because she knows this marriage is wrong for her, but goes ahead with it anyway. Unlike Diana, she doesn’t seem naive.
I was expecting to hate the guy playing JFK Jr, but he does make John seem kind of sympathetic at times (even though his character isn’t doing much of anything either but existing and looking kind of dim. They definitely don’t make him seem too bright, but maybe that’s the excuse needed for his actions).
If I were Caroline Kennedy, I’d be as mad as Daryl at my depiction haha. Is she really this… uptight? Maybe Jack Schlossberg got some intel that his mom wasn’t going to look good in this because I wind up feeling kind of sorry for JFK Jr anytime he’s in a room with Caroline.