Ryan Murphy’s FX drama Love Story is wildly popular with audiences, but its real-life counterparts are less than thrilled with their depictions.
Actress Daryl Hannah denounced the “tragedy-exploiting” series and her character’s portrayal in it, writing a searing New York Times op-ed.
The Hollywood star had previously kept her silence on the show, which chronicles the relationship of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, and includes a narrative of Hannah’s own relationship with Kennedy.
Hannah condemned the show for featuring “a character using my name and presents her as me.”
“The choice to portray her as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident,” she wrote.
“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,” she continued.
Hannah went on to slam certain depictions of her in the series, saying it is “appalling” to have to defend herself against a television show.
“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.”
The actress Dree Hemingway plays Hannah, delivering a performance that has garnered much attention. Hannah wrote that she has received “many hostile and even threatening messages from viewers” in the weeks following the show’s release.
Hannah, now 65, dated JFK Jr. for about five years, in an on-again, off-again relationship that ended in 1994, according to People. Hannah has a prolific career as an actress, appearing in several cult hits, including Blade Runner, Roxanne, Steel Magnolias, and Kill Bill: Volume 1.
She gained critical acclaim for her role in 1984’s fantasy rom-com Splash, which she starred in opposite Tom Hanks. Hannah played a mermaid whom Tom’s character, a lonely bachelor, falls in love with. The New York Times said the film “couldn’t have been much sweeter.”
Hannah married singer Neil Young in 2018, after dating since 2014. The two have collaborated creatively in Hannah’s directing ventures, including Paradox (2018) and Coastal (2025).
In addition to her acting and directing career, Hannah has been noted for her environmental activism. She has been arrested multiple times for participating in protests and has spoken out on issues such as farmers’ rights, climate change, and conservation.
“For decades, my work has focused on environmental advocacy, documentary filmmaking and animal-assisted therapy for seniors living with dementia and Alzheimer’s,” Hannah wrote in the Times. “My professional life is built on compassion and responsibility. Reputation is not about ego; it is about the ability to continue doing the meaningful work I love. Like any career, doing good work requires an intact reputation. This is why I am choosing to stand up for myself now.”
Hannah also attested that the Kennedy family is “notoriously private” and that she has always “honored their right to privacy.”
“Real names are not fictional tools. They belong to real lives,” she reiterated.
Hannah said her then-boyfriend’s mother gave her some advice while the pair was dating.
“Jacqueline Onassis once gave me some wise advice: She told me that while tabloids, magazines and newspapers often sold ridiculous lies, they were nothing more than bird cage liner by the next day. At the time, I found great comfort and consolation in those words,” she said. “But today they no longer hold true. In the digital age, stories do not disappear, yesterday’s news isn’t tossed out with the morning paper, and lies live online forever. They are archived, streamed, clipped, memed and resurfaced endlessly. A dramatized portrayal can become, for millions of viewers, the definitive version of a real person’s life.”
Hannah is not the only insider to have criticized the show. Jack Schlossberg, JFK Jr.’s nephew, has decried Murphy and the series in multiple interviews.
“I would just want people who do watch the show to watch it with one letter in mind, and that’s a capital ‘F’ for fiction,” he said in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning.
Schlossberg, 33, said that no one from the Kennedy family was consulted for the series.
“The guy knows nothing about what he’s talking about, and he’s making a ton of money on a grotesque display of someone else’s life,” he said, slamming Murphy.
Love Story, which premiered on February 12, has become FX’s most-watched limited series on both Hulu and Disney+. The first five episodes of the series have been streamed for more than 25 hours, according to Variety.
The series currently holds an 80 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Viewers have quickly fallen for the romantic leads, Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon, who have become fixtures on the internet and sparked a newfound obsession with 90s fashion.
JFK Jr. married Bessette in 1996. The two had an allegedly tumultuous relationship, which Love Story attempts to unpack. They died in a plane crash in 1999, when Kennedy was 38, and Bessette was 33.
