Love Story showrunner Connor Hines is defending his decision not to consult the Kennedy family for the latest in Ryan Murphy’s anthology series about the marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and fashion publicist Carolyn Bessette.
“As a writer, it’s healthier and more effective to have some distance from your subject matter,” he told Variety at the show’s New York premiere. “You can approach the subject matter more objectively than when you’re talking to someone privately. Because they’re giving you their time, you feel a sense of responsibility to convey exactly what they’re saying.”
“It’s also an incredibly large family,” he concluded. “So where do you start?”
The series drew heavy criticism from JFK Jr.’s nephew Jack Schlossberg, who accused the production of “profiting off” of his uncle’s life in a “grotesque manner.” Last summer, while the series was filming in New York, he posted multiple videos on social media in which he called on Murphy and Hines to donate a portion of their proceeds to the John F. Kennedy Library.
“I’m going to donate,” Murphy told Variety in June 2025. “I also love Jack’s Instagram where he lip-syncs to ’90s girl group stuff. I want more of that. But I think it’s really hard when your relatives are in the media all the time.”
This isn’t the first time Ryan Murphy’s work has clashed with the properties of its subjects. Producers cited Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors as the creative basis and did not seek permission from the Versace family before proceeding with production on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. The Versace family publicly denied the series was a “work of fiction” when it was released in 2018, claiming that the research published in Orth’s book relied on “secondhand hearsay” and contained “inconsistencies.”
One of the rare instances where Murphy consulted on a real-life subject was during the development of “American Crime Story: Impeachment,” which re-examined the story of Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky served as a producer on the series.
“I didn’t think I should get a pass because I was a producer,” she told Variety in 2021. “It was trying to flush out things like, ‘I could have said more of this, or maybe I wouldn’t have said that because of X, Y, and Z. Or maybe Bill said this.'” And I felt so listened to. But there were a lot of notes they didn’t take, so I had to learn to respect the process too. ”
Despite not consulting the Kennedy family, Hines and Murphy paused development on FX for three years to better understand FX’s central themes. Although Bessette’s marriage (and the couple’s shocking 1999 plane crash) was widely documented, she remained fiercely protective of her personal life. Producers chose to wait until 2024 when Elizabeth Beller’s detailed biography, Once Upon a Time: The Fascinating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, which is said to be the inspiration for the series, is published.
“This woman has been portrayed by many of these stories in a way that feels really unfair and lacking context and empathy,” Hines said.
“Love Story” stars Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette, Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr., and Naomi Watts as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
“She was really protective of her privacy, and rightly so,” Pidgeon explained. “I think there’s a lot to say to protect your privacy. Sometimes it’s not important to everyone. It’s for yourself.”
“Love Story” is currently available on Hulu.
