Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette has been receiving heaps of praise from critics since before its debut on the 2026 TV schedule. However, Hollywood actress and activist Daryl Hannah, who dated JFK Jr. for a number of years in the ‘90s, isn’t singing the show’s praises.
In a recent New York Times guest essay titled “Daryl Hannah: How Can ‘Love Story’ Get Away with This?” the Splash and Blade Runner star spoke out to defend herself in response to the FX show’s portrayal of her in the years leading up to the 1999 tragedy that took the lives of Kennedy and Bessette. Hannah’s problems with the show have less to do with the Dree Hemingway (the great-granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway) playing her but more to do with the way she is presented:
The character ‘Daryl Hannah’ portrayed in the series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct, or my relationship with John. The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue. I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s. It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show. These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false.
While Hannah, who has dozens of credits to her name, fully understands that storytelling requires tension and an obstacle for the main characters to overcome, she doesn’t think a real, living person should be treated as a narrative device. These false assertions, as she put it, do nothing but put one woman down to prop up another.
If the presentation of Hannah as a mere obstacle and narrative device constructed to propel the plot in Love Story isn’t bad enough, the portrayal has also started to impact her everyday life.
The Actress Has Received ‘Hostile’ And ‘Threatening’ Messages In Recent Weeks
Later on in the guest essay, Hannah stated that while she has endured and remained silent about “outrageous lies, crappy stories, and unflattering characterizations” in the past, she felt she had to stand up for herself, especially after receiving “hostile” and “threatening” messages from strangers:
When so many people watch a dramatization that uses a real name, real-life consequences follow. In the weeks since the series aired, I have received many hostile and even threatening messages from viewers who seem to believe the portrayal is factual. When entertainment borrows a real person’s name, it can permanently impact her reputation… Many people believe what they see on TV and do not distinguish between dramatization and documented fact — and the impact is not abstract. In a digital era, entertainment often becomes collective memory. Real names are not fictional tools. They belong to real lives.
Hannah, who is justifiably upset about her portrayal as a needy, coke-addicted, and manipulative character instead of a real person on Love Story, no longer wanted her silence to be “mistaken for an agreement with lies.”
If you want to see what the show is all about, despite Hannah's misgivings about her portrayal, new episodes of Love Story: John F. Kennedy & Carolyn Bessette drop every Thursday on FX and stream with a Hulu subscription.
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