Jack Schlossberg, grandson of President John F. Kennedy, slammed Ryan Murphy’s Love Story for exploiting his family’s history of public service.
“I struggle to find a universe where someone taking advantage of my family is helping me,” Schlossberg said in a Wednesday interview on Next Question with Katie Couric when asked if the show was a boost to his run for Congress.
Schlossberg, 33, currently campaigning for New York City’s District 12 as a Democrat, described the show to Katie Couric as a “mixed bag.”
While he was proud of his family’s legacy, he was particularly frustrated at the show for not treating his uncle, JFK Jr., with the seriousness he deserved.
“It’s not surprising that people, once they remember who he was, want to dress like him and be like him,” Schlossberg said. “My issue is ... to fictionalize and to sensationalize his romantic life without giving any credence to the serious things that he did,” he added.
“He was a smart, attractive person who cared about politics.”
Love Story imagined the whirlwind romance of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette and their untimely deaths by piecing together snippets from interviews, news articles, and tabloid footage.
“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,” Schlossberg previously said about the recreation. The Kennedy scion revealed that no one in the family was consulted during the production process.
“I thought it was an odd choice to be mad about your relative that you really don’t remember,” Murphy clapped back at him in a podcast episode with Gavin Newsom last summer.
Schlossberg was also irate over the show’s depiction of his parents, Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg.
“Whatever, who cares, stupid show,” Schlossberg retorted to Couric’s assertion that they weren’t portrayed positively on the Hulu drama. He described them as “the two nicest, most dignified, private people in the whole world who do nothing but help others.”
He added that the show even botched his father’s style. “They had my dad dressed up in some plaid outfit. My dad’s the most stylish guy I’ve ever met,” Schlossberg remarked.
