Why JFK Jr. asked Barrymore to dress as Marilyn &x27;Love Story&x27; fact check Erin Jensen, USA TODAYFri, March 13, 2026 at 2:10 AM UTC 0 One week after actress Daryl Hannah questioned "How Can 'Love Story' Get Away With This?" in an oped for The New York Times, FX's "Love Story" released its seventh episode (Thursdays at 9 ET/PT and streaming on Hulu). Joining John F. Kennedy Jr.
Why JFK Jr. asked Barrymore to dress as Marilyn - 'Love Story' fact check
Erin Jensen, USA TODAYFri, March 13, 2026 at 2:10 AM UTC
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One week after actress Daryl Hannah questioned "How Can 'Love Story' Get Away With This?" in an op-ed for The New York Times, FX's "Love Story" released its seventh episode (Thursdays at 9 ET/PT and streaming on Hulu).
Joining John F. Kennedy Jr.'s nephew Jack Schlossberg in calling out the inaccuracies of the limited series, Hannah said the small screen version of her, played by Ernest Hemingway's great-granddaughter Dree Hemingway, "is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John."
Though the series is based on Elizabeth Beller's book "Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy," "Love Story" took some liberties in dramatizing the work. We're here to analyze the latest episode to help you decipher fact from fiction.
1 / 0'Love Story' cast photos compared to real-life people including JFK Jr., Carolyn Bessette
FX's "Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette" (Thursdays, 9 ET/PT on FX and streaming on Hulu) depicts the romance of the pair, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1999. Let's take a closer look at the actors and the real-life people they're portraying.
Did John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette have matching tattoos?
The episode opens with John (Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon) returning from their honeymoon in Turkey, which the bride relished.
"Not sick of me after those two weeks?" John asks.
"Yes," Carolyn answers sarcastically, "those matching tattoos we got was my way of telling you I need a little space."
Per Beller's book, the real-life newlyweds mentioned ink to Emil Gabron, an acquaintance they met on their honeymoon.
"Gabron found them both witty and 'very sweet,'" Beller writes. "They exchanged contacts, and when Gabron brought his wife to New York later in the year, Carolyn and John invited them to their loft. 'They confessed that before leaving Istanbul, they went to a tattoo artist who plastered their respective behinds with shamrocks.'"
Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon star in a dramatized telling of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's "Love Story."What did Caroline Kennedy think of Drew Barrymore's Marilyn Monroe cover?
While arguing with his older sister Caroline Kennedy (Grace Gummer) and her husband Edwin Schlossberg (Ben Shenkman), John accuses them of wanting to capitalize on President Kennedy's legacy."What do you call this?" Caroline asks, holding a copy of the September 1996 issue of John's magazine, "George," featuring Drew Barrymore dressed as Marilyn Monroe, when she sang "Happy Birthday" to John F. Kennedy. (It's widely believed that Monroe and Kennedy had an affair.) Text on the cover read, "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" in honor of Bill Clinton's 50th.
"It's tongue-in-cheek," John fires back at Caroline in "Love Story." "Everyone else gets to poke fun at the family lore, why shouldn't we?"
"Because it isn't funny, John," Caroline explains. "In fact, it's tone-deaf and incredibly embarrassing."
Kennedy Jr.'s former executive assistant RoseMarie Terenzio says in the book she co-authored, "JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography," that Caroline Kennedy did not approve of the recreation.
"Caroline didn't like that he did that cover—not only that, she was pissed he never gave her a heads-up," Terenzio said in the oral history. "John said, 'Caroline's upset.…' I told him I thought she was right to be upset because it directly affected her. I said, "It's her family, too." And he just looked at me like, You got a point."
John F. Kennedy, Jr. and older sister, Caroline Kennedy, pose for a photograph on March 8, 1999 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
Kennedy Jr. addressed the cover during a September 1996 appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
"Bill Clinton turned 50 two days after we went on sale," Kennedy Jr. explained of the then-President's milestone. "And as an editor, that is a colossal opportunity that you can't let pass."
"I think my family is used to all manner of controversy," he added. "So, I think in the grand scheme of things, this probably didn't register too high on the Richter scale."
Barrymore shared in "JFK Jr." the entrepreneur "was coming at it with playfulness, and he felt that I was playful. I got that he wasn't out to hurt anyone, and that's what make me feel really inclined to do it."
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Did John F. Kennedy Jr. get into a physical fight with George co-founder Michael J. Berman?
In the series, Michael J. Berman (Michael Nathanson) grows increasingly frustrated with Carolyn's presence as well as John's aversion to leveraging his popularity to save their struggling magazine.
In the heat of an argument John rips up a contract for a "George" TV project and throws it in Michael's face.
"Do you have any idea what life is like propping you up 24/7?" Michael asks. "I mean, you can't do anything on your own. I've had to be your mommy and your f------ daddy."
John tells Michael to shut up and pushes him.
"You're nothing without your name, you're a sympathy case with a pretty smile," Michael says, shoving John back.
John decks him and the two briefly spar before John kicks Michael out of his office.
John F. Kennedy Jr. unveils his fresh political magazine, George, on Sept. 7, 1995, in New York City.
Per "Once Upon a Time," the two had a "final blowout" in 1997.
"John burst into Michael's office and shouted, 'We are not doing any of this,' making a move to grab the paperwork related to a possible TV deal on the horizon that could have potentially generated desperately needed revenue," Beller writes. "'I'll be the editor, and you can be the publisher. That's the way it's going to be.'
"The two men tussled over the folder, and, in the process, John ripped Michael's shirt cuff," Beller continues. "One Hachette alumnus recalled being told that at one point in the fight, John took a pair of scissors, raised them over Michael's head, and had to be held back by staffers."
Berman complained that Kennedy Jr.'s personal life negatively impacted his work performance, according to Beller. Kennedy Jr. accused Berman of being jealous of how well-liked Bessette was in the office. At one point, "John stormed out of Michael's office and into his own, locking the door.
"Michael went maniacal and chased after John, screaming, 'Open the f------ door! Open this door!'
"He tried to pick the lock with a letter opener he had grabbed from a nearby desk, to no avail… John sent an apology note with a new shirt a couple of days later, but Michael never spoke to John again."
1 / 0See John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's whirlwind romance
John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette became tabloid fodder when the publisher son of President John F. Kennedy, described as the "closest thing to American royalty," and the Calvin Klein publicist, "a star in her own right," met in 1992 while at his fitting for the clothing brand. In recent years, Bessette's fashion has found a new following – particularly on TikTok – as a new generation fawns over her simple but chic wardrobe. After they were married, Bessette was known as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. The end of the Kennedys' love story shocked the world when they died in a plane crash alongside Bessette-Kennedy's sister, Lauren Bessette. The former first son was piloting the aircraft when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard in 1999. Now, director Ryan Murphy is releasing the first installment of his "Love Story" anthology based on the whirlwind romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. See their relationship in photos, beginning here at the U.S. Customs House in New York City on May 19, 1999, for the Newman's Own/George Awards.
How did the incessant media attention affect Carolyn Bessette?
Through several instances in Episode 7, viewers can see how hounding paparazzi shrunk Carolyn's world. Photographers swarmed the offices of Ralph Lauren after Carolyn's job interview, on the street they called her names, and stories about her mental health flooded the tabloids.
"I impose a circus on anyone who comes within 15 feet of me," a lost Carolyn confides in her sister Lauren Bessette (Sydney Lemmon) in "Love Story." "Where am I supposed to go? I just feel like, for as long as I can remember I have known exactly who I am, and what I want, and now I just feel, like, paralyzed. I'm terrified of making the wrong move or drawing any more attention to myself."
Beller acknowledges in her book that the "'stuff in the press' was wearing on Carolyn. After a year of intense media scrutiny, she found it impossible to continue on in her previous profession, impossible to contribute in any meaningful and overt way to her husband's magazine—to which she had already contributed much—and impossible to leave her home without being physically chased. Feeling cornered, Carolyn went into a spiral of worry and anguish.
"'She felt like a caged animal,' said (friend) MJ Bettenhausen. 'The situation devolved, and she was afraid to leave the house.'"
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why John F. Kennedy Jr. asked Drew Barrymore to pose as Marilyn Monroe
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Published: March 12, 2026 at 11:09PM on Source: PRIME TIME
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