00:00FX's love story, JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bissette, is a rating smash for Hulu and Disney+.
00:06But what's real and what's fake? What's fact and what's fiction?
00:10Here to help us is our senior reporter, Leah Bitsky.
00:13The show just wrapped up, the finale aired.
00:16Viewers are probably wondering, what did they get right in the show?
00:19What is based on true facts that we know?
00:22Absolutely. First of all, it's kind of reignited the nation's interest in JFK Jr.
00:28and Carolyn Bissette's love story, so people are going crazy for it
00:32and really digging into what actually happened, where did they actually go.
00:36The show got a lot of things right. They definitely did their research.
00:40And then there's other things that were definitely dramatized for the purpose of the show,
00:46which is very Ryan Murphy.
00:47Exactly. I mean, we see the characters in New York City going to all these restaurants.
00:51That part is correct.
00:53Yes, that is definitely correct.
00:55They go to places like the Odeon in Tribeca.
01:00They go to Bubby's, which is one of my personal favorites.
01:03They go to Nobu.
01:05They go to Raos.
01:06And I talked to a few of the owners of some of these restaurants,
01:11and they definitely were regulars at these places.
01:14So, for example, the chef at Bubby's, he told me the other day
01:19that they treated Bubby's as their personal living room.
01:23That's how comfortable they were there.
01:25It's so New York, too, to have your go-to restaurant.
01:27But the first date spot, which went viral as an Indian restaurant
01:30with all the beautiful lighting, that was just for the cameras.
01:33Yes, that's correct.
01:35Well, so the owner of that restaurant did tell The Post
01:39that they definitely did dine there,
01:44but it's not confirmed that that was their first date location.
01:48Gotcha.
01:50Whether or not that's true, I don't know.
01:52But people are lining up out the door at that restaurant to try to get in,
01:57just trying to sit at the same table that they maybe dined at.
02:01I mean, New Yorkers are obsessed with this show.
02:02So, you know, Gen Z is wearing their style around the East Village.
02:06I've seen guys with a backwards Kangol hat.
02:08So they got the style, the 90s style, exactly right.
02:12They did their research to a T for Carolyn's wardrobe.
02:18Exact replicas of the clothing that she wore.
02:21You'll see that in the show.
02:22And Sarah Pidgeon, you know, she's an established Broadway actress.
02:25She's so good in the show, looks just like her.
02:27And, of course, something that they got exactly right was casting JFK Jr.
02:32Paul Anthony Kelly.
02:33I mean, aside from the thirst tweets that you can read about him,
02:37he really just looks so much like the original.
02:41And he was an unknown.
02:42He was plucked out of obscurity.
02:44You know, they saw hundreds of actors.
02:46And he was a male model, did Brooks Brothers.
02:49And so it's exciting to see that the show has really captured that excitement
02:53for the, you know, the Kennedys, the Camelot.
02:56Definitely.
02:57And I think that, you know, I'm hoping that big things are in store for him,
03:04you know, because he really, I think he really pulls at the heartstrings of viewers in this.
03:09And there's a really sweet moment when he's crying in the arms of his mom,
03:15Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, when he finds out that she has cancer and she's going to pass away soon.
03:21And it's just a really emotional scene that I think he just did such a good job.
03:27Like, you don't really expect that from kind of a light, or what's supposed to be a light story.
03:32Yeah, it's called Love Story.
03:33And of course, Jackie O is played by Naomi Watts.
03:36So here's a relatively unknown actor going toe-to-toe in a dramatic scene with, you know, an award-winning
03:44actress.
03:44It's very cool to see.
03:45Okay, we've got to talk about what they got wrong, though.
03:49You know, when the show starts, they say, you know, they have a little disclaimer that some details of the
03:55story were dramatized, changed.
03:58Break it down for us.
03:59What did they not get so right?
04:02So, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sasha Chermayev, who is JFK Jr.'s best friend from high school.
04:11And she attended his wedding.
04:14She was one of just theāshe was one of only 40 people that attended that wedding, by the way.
04:19Yeah, it was such a small affair.
04:21It was not a Kennedy wedding.
04:22It was down in, like, coastal Georgia.
04:24Yeah, and so that's how close a friendāthat's how close they are that she was one of the people there.
04:31So what really happened on the wedding?
04:32We see it's sort of like a hot, muggy day in the show, that there'sāCarolyn's dress isn't fitting in, the
04:39whole thing is late, you know?
04:40Yes.
04:41So the show, Love Story, portrays the day as kind of, like, a drag for the guests, that they were
04:47waiting in the heat, and it was this, like, long process, and they're like, this is annoying.
04:52Sasha told me it wasn't anything like that.
04:55All 40 people at the wedding, they're all close friends.
04:58They all know each other very well.
04:59So they were just hanging out, drinking beers, having a good time, and they were like, the bride's going to
05:05get there when they're going to get there, you know?
05:07It wasn't thisābecause it wasn't this actual, like, Kennedy event, it was very chill, and everyone was just happy to
05:14be there and supportive.
05:15She said that it wasn't actually hot on the day.
05:18It was a beautiful September day, and Carolyn actually provided all the guests with these beautiful woven fans.
05:24So if they did get hot, they had a way to cool off.
05:26So that was definitelyā
05:27It gets muggy, but you're just happy to be outside.
05:30It's nice.
05:31And there's an island breeze, you know?
05:33So that was definitely not true.
05:36The show also portrayed Caroline Kennedy and Carolyn Bissette as sort of being rivals over the wedding details, and Caroline
05:44was portrayed by Meryl Streep's daughter, Grace Gummer.
05:48Yes.
05:49How much of that was real?
05:50So Sasha told me that there was known tension in general between Caroline and her husband and Carolyn and John.
06:03So that tension was real, but she also told me that on the day of the wedding, there was no
06:09tension at all.
06:10There was none of that, so that is not true.
06:12And Caroline wasn't really even involved in any of the, like, bridal party duties anyway in real life.
06:20Yeah, she was picked as the matron of honor, and the show dramatizes that.
06:24But I guess there wasāon the actual day, there's really no bad blood.
06:28Exactly.
06:29And Carolyn's sister and mother were more like the bridal party in those moments.
06:33So that was the wedding.
06:35They also maybe misportrayed Daryl Hannah, according to the actress.
06:40She seemed sort of like the homewrecker ex in the show.
06:44They portrayed her as a drug user and a jealous, you know, ex-girlfriend.
06:49What's the truth here?
06:51So Daryl Hannah did not have the best portrayal in the show.
06:56She was done dirty.
06:57Yeah.
06:57And people were talking about it.
06:59They were saying, wow, she must have been the worst girlfriend ever.
07:02But Daryl actually took it upon herself.
07:05She's a very private person, by the way.
07:08She doesn't come out and talk very much.
07:10She doesn't come out and talk very much to the press ever.
07:11She wrote an essay for The New York Times going through each instance in the show and saying,
07:18this didn't happen.
07:19No, I never did cocaine with my friends.
07:22No, I never used a family heirloom to do drugs off of.
07:27No, I never compared my dog's death to the death of John's mother.
07:31So she, like, she destroyed her portrayal.
07:36So it's coming from her.
07:37So I think we can trust that the show did not get this right about Daryl.
07:44I mean, maybe the show needed a villain.
07:45But the real villain that might be accurate was the paparazzi.
07:49Mm-hmm.
07:50So you wrote that that part of the show, they did get right.
07:54Yes, that is absolutely correct.
07:56She was 100%āCaroline was 100% harassed by the paparazzi.
08:02It was so much for her.
08:04Sasha told me that Caroline started to become agoraphobic, and she would stay in her apartment.
08:12She didn't want to leave.
08:13It got much worse after the wedding.
08:17I'm told that during their honeymoon, which was in Turkey, the paparazzi was everywhere,
08:22and that was kind of the beginning of the end for them, where they realized,
08:26oh, no, my life is never going to be private again.
08:30And she actuallyāI wrote this exclusive for Page Sixā
08:34that Caroline was looking for a home outside of New York in the suburbs
08:40because she wanted to move away from all of the media attention and tabloids
08:45and just live privately where they could raise a family
08:48and not worry about, you know, photographers camping outside their home all the time.
08:54Somewhere with a long driveway, somewhere that's private.
08:57That's really wild to hear because they were such a New York City couple.
09:00Exactly.
09:00Another detail about Caroline, dramatized in the show, was her leaving Calvin Klein.
09:06Mm-hmm.
09:06How much of that was accurate?
09:07So she definitely left after she got married,
09:12but it didn't have anything to do with her thinking.
09:18The show portrays Caroline as leaving Calvin Klein
09:22because she says that her relationship with John is a distraction to the company,
09:27but that's not true.
09:29The real reason is because she needed to move out of the spotlight
09:34to make space for John's career at George magazine.
09:38That's right.
09:38He launched his magazine like a couple years before,
09:41and it was like a political lifestyle magazine.
09:43Yes.
09:44And Crawford was famously on the cover as George Washington.
09:46Yes.
09:47So there was maybe a conflict of interest there if she worked in PR.
09:50Exactly.
09:51The finale just aired.
09:52Of course, everyone knew this miniseries would eventually have to tackle the tragedy,
09:57the tragic plane crash in July 1999.
10:00We don't want to spoil any details of how it's portrayed,
10:03but we do have information about some of the eerie details leading up to the actual tragedy.
10:09I obtained a report from the National Transportation Safety Board,
10:13which basically outlined the entire investigation into how JFK Jr. died in that plane crash on that horrific day.
10:23And Carolyn and her sister Lauren.
10:25Yes, exactly.
10:26And it's so interesting because they interviewed so many people who spoke with John before the accident,
10:35and there were all these signs that he shouldn't have gone in that airplane and flown it himself that day.
10:41For one, he had an ankle injury, and just two weeks before the deadly plane crash,
10:48he flew that same plane with a flight instructor who actually had to assist John in landing the plane
10:57and taxiing it because of his ankle injury.
10:59So that's kind of an indicator that he shouldn't have been flying a plane alone with this injury.
11:06Right.
11:07And then there was, you know, inclement weather in the middle of their flight.
11:10They were flying from New Jersey to Hyannisport to drop off Lauren first,
11:15and, of course, they crashed.
11:19It's so sad.
11:20And, you know, the show is, at its heart, a love story.
11:23It's the name of the show.
11:25But, you know, their tragic demise, especially with all of the death that the Kennedy family has faced over the
11:31decades,
11:32is really just, it's probably one of the main reasons the show was so interesting to the public.
11:39I agree.
11:39It is a love story, but it's a tragic love story.
11:44And I think that's why, you know, it's hard to look away, but also sometimes you kind of want to
11:52look away because it's really heartbreaking.
11:55There's so much loss.
11:57But I also think it's nice that it's reigniting people's interest in their legacy and the power couple that they
12:07were.
12:07They were American royalty, or as royal as it gets.
12:11Absolutely.
12:12And there's already, season two of Love Story has already been, you know, approved.
12:16And the showrunner actually revealed that the couple he's most interested in tackling next is Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
12:25I cannot wait for that.
12:26That'll be great.
12:27Lindsay Lohan played Elizabeth Taylor in a TV movie many years ago, so maybe Lindsay will get cast in this.
12:33Oh, my God.
12:34We should ask her if she's interested.
12:36That would be amazing.
12:37Well, Leah, this was such a great breakdown.
12:40All the, what they got right and what they got wrong for Love Story.
12:43And for more on this story, you know, go to page6.com.
12:46We have all of the amazing details.
12:48Thanks so much.
Comments
1