The official trailer for Ryan Murphy‘s Love Story recreated the ups and downs of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s high-profile romance before their tragic deaths.
FX released the first look on Monday, February 2, with Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) and John F. Kennedy Jr. ‘s (Paul Kelly) steamy romance quickly coming undone by fame and public interest.
“There’s a lot of tradeoffs being with someone like that,” Bessette is told after she starts to fall in love with Kennedy. “Shiny people — they belong to everyone.”
Bessette voices her concerns, admitting to Kennedy, “There is your world and then there is mine.”
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She added: “It is not a question of whether I want to spend the rest of my life with you, it is a question of whether I am cut out to be Mrs. JFK Jr.”
Bessette starts to spiral about how “everything” in her life “has changed” since her whirlwind romance started.
“You will never be given the benefit of the doubt again,” someone else suggests to Bessette. “The whole world will be watching you. It is your choice what you want them to see.”
Kennedy, meanwhile, receives advice from mom Jackie Kennedy (Naomi Watts). “There isn’t enough exposure in the world to prepare a woman to be your wife,” she notes.
Later in the sneak peek, Bessette breaks down in John Jr.’s arms about not being left alone. Footage is recreated from moments in their courtship — and marriage — that were caught by the public eye.
According to the official synopsis, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is a limited series that explores the “undeniable chemistry, whirlwind courtship and high-profile marriage of one of the most iconic couples of the 20th century.”
The upcoming show, which premieres February 12, is the first installment in Murphy’s Love Story anthology and is inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
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“It was a love story that captured the attention of the nation: John F. Kennedy Jr. was the closest thing to American royalty. The country watched him grow from a boy to a beloved bachelor and media sensation. Bessette was a star in her own right,” the show description continues. “Fiercely independent and with a singular style, she rose from being a sales assistant to an executive at Calvin Klein, and became a trusted confidante of its eponymous founder. John and Carolyn’s connection was immediate, electric and undeniable. As their love story unfolded on a national stage, the intense fame and media attention that came along with it threatened to rip them apart.”
In addition to Pidgeon, Kelly and Watts, the show stars Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein, Leila George as Kelly Klein, Sydney Lemmon as Lauren Bessette and Constance Zimmer as Ann Marie Messina.
In real life, John Jr. and Bessette met in the early 1990s and married in 1996. They died three years later in 1999 when their plane, piloted by John Jr., crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
“We have great scripts on that. We’re trying to figure out when it’ll land,” executive producer Brad Simpson said in an interview with Variety in September 2024. “It is a story that really resonates right now. It’s amazing. A lot of younger women are looking to her as sort of a representational icon of a certain period of time that’s really fascinating, and hopefully, we’ll be able to bring that to the screen soon.”
