Love Story is an American biographical romantic-drama anthology television series created by Connor Hines and executive produced by Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, D.V. DeVincentis, Kim Rosenstock, and Hines. The fifth installment in the American Story media franchise, it airs on FX and FX on Hulu.
The first season, John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, charts the whirlwind courtship and marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and premiered on February 12, 2026.
On August 13, 2021, it was announced that FX had ordered a new spin-off series American Love Story. The first season would cover the "whirlwind courtship and marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy," ending with their deaths in a private plane crash in 1999.
In June 2025, Jack Schlossberg, nephew of John F. Kennedy Jr., criticized the series for not consulting the Kennedy family during development and accused the production of "profiting off" his uncle's life "in a grotesque way." He urged the show's creators to donate part of its proceeds to the John F. Kennedy Library. Murphy later stated he intended to make a donation. In July 2025, Murphy remarked that it was an "odd choice to be mad about your relative that you don't remember," prompting Schlossberg to share personal memories of his uncle on Instagram and reiterate his criticism that the project was exploiting his family's history for profit.
In March 2025, it was reported that Sarah Pidgeon would be playing Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. In May 2025, it was reported that Naomi Watts would play Jackie Kennedy, while newcomer Paul Kelly would lead the series as John F. Kennedy, Jr. In June 2025, Grace Gummer, Sydney Lemmon, and Alessandro Nivola joined the cast. In a series regular role, Gummer would portray Caroline Kennedy. In recurring roles, Lemmon would portray Lauren Bessette and Nivola would play Calvin Klein. On June 13, 2025, Ryan Murphy shared a first look at Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette on his Instagram. The same day, it was announced by Murphy that Leila George and Noah Fearnley had joined the cast as Kelly Klein and Michael Bergin. In July 2025, Omari K. Chancellor joined the cast of the series, now titled Love Story, in a recurring role as Gordon Henderson. In November 2025, Constance Zimmer joined the cast in a recurring role as Carolyn's mother Ann Messina Freeman.
Principal photography on the series began in June 2025. With Kennedy having lived at 20 North Moore Street in Tribeca, many exterior shots were filmed around there, including in the historic 53âÂÂ55 Beach Street, and throughout Tribeca and Soho. The scenes at Cape Cod were shot in Bellport, Long Island.
Love Story premiered on FX and FX on Hulu on February 12, 2026. Internationally, the series was made available to stream on Disney+.
John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette accumulated more than 25 million hours of viewing across Hulu and Disney+<nowiki/> for its first five episodes. FX announced that this represented the highest streaming total for a limited series in the network's history and made it its most-watched limited series on both platforms. Viewership for the fifth episode was reported to be 51% higher than that of the premiere. The series also prompted increased activity on TikTok following its release. Searches for John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy reportedly increased by more than 9,100% in the month after the premiere, while the hashtag #lovestory generated more than 21 million posts globally.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette has an approval rating of 80% based on 40 critics' reviews. The website's consensus reads: "Ryan Murphy's Love Story finds a winning pair in Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon as they embody the tragic, lovely, and shining aspects of John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette in a mindful yet entertaining new series." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 63 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable".
Sarah Pidgeon received praise for her performance as Bessette-Kennedy, with Nicholas Quah of Vulture writing, "Carolyn is the closest thing the show has to a genuinely inhabited character: quick and curious, existentially adrift but committed to selfhood, carrying an undercurrent of anxiety about the world she's entered that the script only intermittently knows what to do with." Critics compared the series to The Crown, with Judy Berman of Time writing both shows depict the "ultimate gilded cageâÂÂwhat perpetual scrutiny does to a family compelled to prioritize appearances over relationships, tradition over love".
However, writers commented that Love Story finds nothing new or insightful to say about its central couple or the Kennedys as an institution. Berman wrote: "For all its flaws, The Crown balanced its royal characters' travails with bigger questions...Love Story shows no interest in understanding what the Kennedys meant, and still mean, to a nation that prided itself on having no kings but elevated this particular dynasty as a surrogate royal family. That's a shame, especially as heirs whose affiliations range from the far right to the young left continue to drive American politics. If the people we put on pedestals are mirrors for society, then what did the Kennedys say about us in the 1960s? The '90s? Today?"
In The New Yorker, Doreen St. Félix wrote the show's "Wikipedia-page-like narrowness on the doomed romance excises all that contemporary dramaâÂÂPresident Bill Clinton invoking J.F.K. as a forefather, Ted Kennedy, the brother of J.F.K. and R.F.K., recovering from the scandal of Chappaquiddick and the humiliation of a failed Presidential run to become the 'lion' of the SenateâÂÂthat makes the Kennedy story, one of a relationship to a greater culture". Quah added "Love Story...is so tightly focused on the relationship [between Carolyn and John Jr.] that nine episodes of emotional trivialities begin to feel indulgent...In flattening the rhythms of Kennedy and Bessette's life together into a cycle of domestic discord, Love Story takes a relationship long freighted with myth, glamour, and cultural obsession and renders it strangely ordinary".
In March 2026, actress Daryl Hannah, who is portrayed as a character in the series, criticized Love Story in a guest essay in The New York Times. She wrote that the show's depiction of her was "not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John", and said it falsely attributed behavior to her that never occurred, including hosting cocaine-fueled parties, pressuring John F. Kennedy Jr. into marriage, and planting stories in the press.