The new FX series “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette” has prompted an unexpected surge of history lessons on TikTok.
Videos about what’s fact and what’s fiction in the show have garnered hundreds of thousands of views and plenty of debate in the comments. Jules Skylar, or @lastinglooks, has been posting throughout the season, which concluded on Thursday, including about the infamous Central Park fight, whether or not Calvin Klein actually introduced the couple and if Carolyn Bessette was unsettled by Princess Diana’s death.
These comparisons are part of a larger trend inspired by the show that has TikTokers using the platform to try to educate people on the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bessette — especially those who might have been children (or not yet born) when the couple was widely reported on.
Many viewers expressed heartbreak to just be finding out that Kennedy and Bessette were killed on July 16, 1999, along with Bessette’s sister Lauren, when a plane that Kennedy was piloting to Martha’s Vineyard crashed, meaning there certainly wouldn’t be a happy ending on the show.
“I was a little too young when they were famous to know much about them,” Skylar, 40, said in an interview this week. “But now watching the show, I have become obsessed with reading and watching everything about them. I fully understand the public fascination back then.”
Skylar has found that lots of commenters are also interested in helping her dig up interviews or articles that documented the lives of Kennedy (played in “Love Story” by Paul Anthony Kelly) and Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) to stack up against the show’s portrayals.
Their romance and their life in pre-Sept. 11 New York — when cellphones were rare, cigarettes abounded and cars were being hailed with raised arms, not apps — have reminded certain generations of that specific time in their past. For others, it has been a lesson in the social landscape of the ’90s and the Kennedy dynasty.
These are five ways “Love Story” has revisited themes of the era.
The Kennedy family’s orbit
The Kennedy family tree is vast and winding, with members making headlines consistently since the early 1900s. On the weekly podcast “Right Answers Mostly,” the hosts Claire Donald and Tess Bellomo dedicated a whole month to sifting through the family’s history and dynamics in what they called “Kennedy month.” Donald has also used their TikTok account, @rightanswersmostly, to inform viewers, including with the video series “what you didn’t learn in history class but wanted to: the Kennedy dynasty.” Among many topics, they touch on the so-called Kennedy curse and the family’s rise to political power.
Jack Schlossberg — who is running for a New York congressional seat and is the nephew of Kennedy and the grandson of President John F. Kennedy — has voiced his disdain for the show on social media and in interviews. On CBS Sunday Morning, he said that Ryan Murphy, the show’s creator, “is making a ton of money on a grotesque display of someone else’s life,” and suggested that Murphy donate the profits of the show to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Carole Radziwill, who isn’t depicted on the show but was married to Anthony Radziwill, Kennedy’s cousin, and was close friends with Bessette, had a differing opinion. On her Substack in February, she wrote: “No, I won’t be watching. But you should — watch it, and fall in love with them the way we all did back then.”
Daryl Hannah, who dated Kennedy on-and-off from 1988 to 1994, is characterized in the series as harsh, overbearing and a bit kooky. In an essay for The New York Times, Hannah wrote: “I have received many hostile and even threatening messages from viewers who seem to believe the portrayal is factual. When entertainment borrows a real person’s name, it can permanently impact her reputation.”
Prominent parts of the series — including Kennedy and Bessette’s first trip as a couple to meet the Kennedy family, as well as the pressure-filled “no spouse” dinner (a tradition in which couples were separated for the meal) — take place in Hyannis Port, Mass., a Kennedy compound on Cape Cod. As the show has aired, TikTok users like @vintageorvogueofficial have posted archival videos of the family on the estate.
New York City paparazzi culture
“Love Story” portrays how common it was in the 1990s to see Kennedy riding his bike to work, playing football with his friends and going with Bessette to some of their favorite New York spots like the Odeon and Bubby’s — outings documented in magazines and newspapers.
Viewers have been quick to pull up real photographic and video evidence, even posting shot-by-shot comparisons of such moments including when Kennedy gave a speech outside of their TriBeCa apartment, politely asking photographers to respect Bessette: “I just ask for any privacy you can give her as she makes that adjustment, would be greatly appreciated.”
In “Love Story,” Bessette is troubled while watching the news unfold about Princess Diana’s fatal 1997 car crash involving the paparazzi; by all accounts, that reaction was true to life.
“Carolyn was horrified by Diana’s death,” RoseMarie Terenzio, who was Kennedy’s executive assistant at George magazine, told People magazine in 2017. “She was also rattled by the fact that it could happen to John — that it could happen to her. She feared, ‘Now they’re going to focus on us even more because they don’t have her.’”
George magazine
In 1995, Kennedy and Michael J. Berman, his business partner, introduced George, a lifestyle and politics magazine. Their first cover featured Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington, and it went on to feature high-profile interviews and covers including with Barbra Streisand, on the cover as Betsy Ross, and Harrison Ford, on the cover as Abraham Lincoln.
Earlier this month, on her talk show “The Drew Barrymore Show,” Barrymore described her experience posing for the cover. She got a phone call from Kennedy, she recalled, who said that despite the clear wink of having her pose as Marilyn Monroe — given the rumors of his father’s relationship with Monroe — he wanted it to be “this sensual, straightforward, confident moment.”
Indulging a bad habit
According to pop girlies, the “Heated Rivalry” guys and mainstream media, cigarettes are back. In “Love Story,” Bessette is rarely seen without one — in hand or dangling from her lips when she’s fighting, at work and, of course, partying at the club.
On social media, viewers have pushed against the idea that Bessette embodied a “clean-girl aesthetic” and suggested that if they actually wanted to channel the ’90s style icon, they should take up smoking.
Calvin Klein, the brand and the man
Last week, on TikTok, Jennifer Hyman, founder of the clothing rental service Rent the Runway, said the show was “the best thing to happen to Calvin Klein since the ’90s.”
But it isn’t just the brand that people have been buzzing about online; it’s also the portrayal of Klein himself (Alessandro Nivola) and his then wife, Kelly Klein (Leila George).
The TikTok creator @thatssokaelynn spoke about the Kleins and their history in her video series “the glamorous & the reckless,” discussing how they met, how their relationship dissolved and rumors about Calvin Klein’s sexuality at the time.
Others on social media have shared their own experiences working at the fashion company back then, including the strict rules around flowers (white lilies only), paper clips (black, no staples) and Calvin Klein’s supposed penchant for hiring only attractive people.
Shivani Gonzalez is a news assistant at The Times who writes a weekly TV column and contributes to a variety of sections.
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