JFK Jr’s nephew, Jack Schlossberg, has hit out against Ryan Murphy’s new series following the love story between his late uncle and his wife, Carolyn Bessette.
Set in the 90s, Paul Anthony Kelly plays the titular son of assassinated US President John F. Kennedy opposite Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn, a Calvin Klein employee who eventually married the world’s most eligible bachelor.
The high-profile couple – remembered as American royalty – alongside Carolyn’s sister Lauren, tragically died in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard in 1999.
Based on Elizabeth Beller’s 2024 book, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Murphy’s nine-episode FX adaptation, Love Story, has garnered scrutiny from the Kennedy clan.
Most notably from Schlossberg, the son of Caroline Kennedy (JFK Jr’s sister), who is currently running for Congress in New York’s 12th district.
Already with a large social media following, the Kennedy heir – who recently mourned the loss of his sister Tatiana Schlossberg – launched a scathing attack on the controversial showrunner.
Appearing on CBS Sunday Morning, the 33-year-old said: ‘If you want to know someone who’s never met anyone in my family, knows nothing about us, talk to Ryan Murphy.
‘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.’
‘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 slammed.
He then urged the Glee creator to ‘donate some of the millions of dollars of profit that he’s making to some of the causes that John championed’ and ‘to help keep President JFK’s memory alive’.
‘This is not a documentary,’ he said.
Later in the interview, he concluded: ‘If Ryan Murphy really cares so much about the Kennedy family, my uncle John, maybe he would try to do something about getting Trump out of power.’
This is not the first time he has criticised the series.
Last summer, ahead of the show airing, he reiterated his displeasure on his Instagram story, writing: ‘For those wondering whether his family was ever consulted, or has anything to do with, the new shows being made about him, the answer is no.’
This was confirmed by executive producer Nina Jacbson, who said the Kennedy family were not approached in order to keep the ‘multiplicities of view’.
Beauty creator Ryan Murphy responded to Schlossberg in a podcast at the time: ‘I thought it was an odd choice to be mad about your relative that you really don’t remember,’ although this led to Schlossberg later listing several memories he had of his late relative.
Love Story executive producer Brad Simpson told Hollywood Reporter of the backlash: ‘What I hope is that when people watch the show, they will see our sincerity. They will see that we’ve approached this with love, and that we were trying to celebrate the life of Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr.’
Meanwhile, chatting to Bustle, The Wilds star Pidgeon said Schlossberg has ‘every right to share how he feels about it’ but hoped that the ‘integrity and respect’ with which they approached the story shone through.
Their legacies were ‘always part of my consciousness,’ she said.
Then added: ‘I hope that if they do watch it, they feel that we led with respect and honour for John and Carolyn — that’s my hope.’
This is not the first time a Murphy show has come under fire from the real-life people connected to the story he is portraying.
His Netflix show, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, was heavily slammed by the families of the surviving victims of serial killer Dahmer.
In response to the growing criticism, which extended to the viewers, he said at the time: ‘We weren’t really interested in Dahmer the monster,’ he said.
‘It was [about] who was complicit in making the monster. There were many, many different things involved in that. It was a complicated human story.’It tackled systemic racism, homophobia. We were always thinking of the victims.’
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette is streaming on Disney Plus now, with episodes releasing weekly.
Metro has reached out to Ryan Murphy for comment.
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