Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette – true story of tragic romance

The real-life romance between John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette is the inspiration for Ryan Murphy's new drama Love Story, where the couple is played by The Wilds star Sarah Pidgeon and newcomer Paul Kelly.

In the UK, the series will launch on Disney Plus on Friday 13th February 2026, presumably as a Valentine's Day tie-in, although this particular true story may prove too sad to tune into on that day of all days.

Using recent biography Once Upon a Time as its foundation, the series will recount how Kennedy Jr, then considered a highly sought after bachelor, came to meet Carolyn Bessette, a publicist of no great fame or inherited wealth.

Their fairytale romance soon came under considerable strain, caused in no small part by intrusions into their privacy by the media, which has been compared to the treatment of other high-profile couples more recently.

You can find more details below on their relationship, including its conflicting reportage and tragic end, as FX and Disney Plus original Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette makes its debut.

Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette true story explained

Love Story depicts the tragic romance between John F Kennedy Jr, the son of the assassinated US President, and Carolyn Bessette, a fashion publicist whose career took off while working for Calvin Klein.

The series draws its inspiration primarily from a biography of Bessette by author Elizabeth Beller, titled Once Upon a Time, which was a more sympathetic telling of her story than prior attempts in the mainstream media.

Bessette went from being an ordinary private citizen to a figure of tabloid interest in a very short space of time, after her romance with Kennedy Jr began in 1994, attracting a storm of paparazzi and press intrusion.

It is generally accepted that her newfound status made Bessette uncomfortable – as it would almost anyone. The loss of anonymity is hard to imagine, but this was the experience at its most extreme.

Where accounts disagree is precisely what impact this had on Bessette personally, and on her relationship with Kennedy.

The couple were secretly married in 1996, marking a rare moment of privacy for them, with the service taking place on Cumberland Island in the US state of Georgia.

Perhaps agitated by the closed nature of the event, the subsequent media interest in their union was insatiable, with the couple being greeted by a swarm of reporters and photographers from the moment they arrived home.

Kennedy's pleas for privacy, particularly for Bessette's sake as she had not grown up in the public eye as he did, went ignored as the persistent harassment continued.

In his controversial 2004 book The Kennedy Curse, author Edward Klein alleged that Bessette's behaviour became unpredictable due to distress over "living in a fishbowl" (via Vanity Fair).

Klein's account claims that Bessette became addicted to cocaine. He quotes an anonymous source who allegedly heard John scream that she was a "cokehead" during a public argument. Another anonymous source, he claims, reported seeing her with "white rings around her nostrils" after "a half-dozen trips to the bathroom".

However, these events are disputed by Beller's Once Upon a Time, which counters the most severe accusations and takes a more wistful view of the couple; a featured quote from Kennedy Jr's mentor George Plimpton even refers to them as "soul mates".

That said, the book does concede that their marriage had its issues.

A common cause of stress in the two differing recollections is their treatment by the press, but Beller also assigns some responsibility to Kennedy becoming distant as he devoted his attention to an ill-fated business venture.

George was the name of a politics and lifestyle magazine that Kennedy had co-founded with Michael J Berman in 1995, but a promising launch for the publication quickly lost momentum as the relationship between its partners soured.

These two crises go hand-in-hand, as Kennedy's stressful and all-encompassing work life further isolated Bessette, who felt trapped in her own home when journalists and photographers would wait for her outside.

The book concedes that Kennedy and Bessette did begin couples' therapy in the later period of their relationship, but casts doubt on the idea that they were abusive towards each other or on the brink of divorce.

Whichever the case, theirs was a story that ended in tragedy.

Kennedy had attained a pilot's licence in 1998 and, the following year, planned to fly his small six-seater plane from Essex County, New Jersey to the wedding of his cousin, Rory Kennedy, in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

In addition to Kennedy himself, the aircraft also carried Carolyn Bessette and her sister, Lauren, who was to leave them at Martha's Vineyard; an island in Massachusetts where she had plans of her own. Not one of them would reach their destination.

On the night of 16th July 1999, the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, with the fatal accident being investigated by the USA's National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

It concluded that the cause of the crash was pilot error and disorientation caused by poor visibility, noting that the darkness of night and hazy weather conditions would have made it difficult for Kennedy to identify his surroundings.

A public memorial was held for Kennedy and Bessette a week later at the Church of St Thomas More in New York City, where then-President Bill Clinton was among the attendees.

Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette is available on Disney Plus from Friday 13th February 2026.

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