'INCONCEIVABLE'

RFK Jr.’s Sister Reveals What ‘Love Story’ Got Wrong

Kerry Kennedy says her mother, Ethel, was much less intimidating in real life.

Kerry Kennedy has not actually watched Ryan Murphy’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. But she insists the show got a key detail wrong.

In one scene, Carolyn Bessette, played by Sarah Pidgeon, is denied breakfast at the Kennedy family’s Hyannis Port compound. The family matriarch, Ethel Kennedy, coldly tells her she should have signed up.

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Kerry, one of Ethel’s daughters, told People that the show’s depiction of her mother was completely inaccurate.

“Oh, there’s no sign-up,” Kerry, 67, said. “In my mother’s entire life, there is no way on earth she would ever deny somebody a meal.”

“I mean, it’s just so completely inconceivable,” she added. “She’s all about, ‘Come in, come in. Let me get you some food. You’ve already eaten? Let me get you some cake. You’ve already had cake? Here’s some chocolate and some nuts.’”

In the show, Ethel, played by Jessica Harper, is an intimidating, rigid figure.

According to Kerry, the real-life Ethel “definitely did not have a sign-up” and was actually “very easygoing.”

“I was just reading a book by somebody who worked in the Justice Department for my father, and they were saying how daddy would call mummy and say, ‘Well, we’ve got 10 people over here, and could we come over for lunch?’ And she’d say yes,” she explained.

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Kerry, who used to be married to Andrew Cuomo, told People that she usually avoids shows about her family’s history because they “irritate” her.

“They don’t get the people right, they don’t get the accents right,” she explained.

Still, she doesn’t entirely disapprove of Love Story.

“My understanding of that show is that in the end, it made people like our family, and so I think it’s probably a good thing in the long run to have it, but it’s not something I’m going to particularly watch,” she said.

The nine-episode series, centered on JFK Jr.’s romance with Carolyn Bessette, draws on Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

Although many details in the show come from real life, others were exaggerated or changed for the screen.

Along with the sign-up sheet, Love Story depicts Ethel quizzing her nieces and nephews with political questions over dinner.

That detail is true, according to biographer J. Randy Taraborelli. He writes that Ethel once asked Bessette her opinion on the federal assault weapons ban and, when she hesitated, told her, “You may want to read up on it.”

Later, Taraborelli says their relationship warmed, and Bessette even confided in Ethel about her fears of marrying into the Kennedy family.

Kerry Kennedy isn’t the only one critical of Love Story’s version of events.

Daryl Hannah, an ex-girlfriend of JFK Jr. who is played by Dree Hemingway in the show, wrote an essay for The New York Times slamming her depiction in Love Story.

“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,” she wrote. “The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue.”

Watch Rory Kennedy on Obsessed: The Podcast:

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Evgenia AnastasakosBreaking News Intern

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