Encore: Who Was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Really?
episodePreviously titled “Who Was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Really?” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 5, 2026
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Who was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and why is she significant?
Campsite Media.
Welcome back to Infamous, a Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment production. As you may recall, we had Glynis McNichol, a wonderful author and journalist, come on to talk about Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and JFK Jr. around the 25th anniversary of their plane crash. But now, if you are paying some attention to what's out there on the internet or if you watch Hulu, you may have noticed that Ryan Murphy has out a new multi-part series about their love story. John, I want to introduce you to Carolyn Bissett. Carolyn, this is John Kennedy. It's actually called Love Story. And I wouldn't say it's been tearing up the airwaves. Like people are interested in it, but not loving it entirely due to some of the writing, some of the sort of canned characters.
But what is totally undeniable is love. I believe the actress, Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, does a fabulous job and really looks like her. I actually think the JFK Jr. actor, who people have been saying is not great, is gorgeous and looks just like JFK Jr. I'm loving him. And the entire thing is like some wonderful rose-flavored spray of the 1990s, from the sets to the costumes. Everybody is smoking all throughout the entire thing. Carolyn Bessette Kennedy is wearing, you know, a sort of olive green slip dress and going to the Roxy nightclub in New York and flirting with an underwear model and then getting into a cab and saying, you know, you can come with me if you want. It's just this incredible experience of love.
luxuriating in the time before Sex and the City, like right before Sex and the City, right before Y2K, right before 9-11. So we're going to replay the episode that we originally recorded with Glynis, but she is also here to tell us what she thinks of the Ryan Murphy love story TV miniseries. So Glynis, Glynis, tell us all your thoughts.
I wish we could time travel back through the screen to some of those places. I think it's funny because some of the reviews have been kind of harsh, but my sense is from people watching it that they're really enjoying it. And there has developed such a cult of Carolyn following, you know, in the last few years that the expectation was it was going to be terrible because initially those, those shots from set of her outfits and her hair were so terrible. But, Apparently, Ryan Murphy took all that criticism. They fired the costume designer, got a new one, sourced all the actual clothes, and then Sarah Pigeon got rid of her wig, and they've done a really good job with her hair.
Oh my gosh, she was wearing a wig originally?
How does Hulu's 'Love Story' depict JFK Jr. and Carolyn's romance?
Yeah, yeah. And I think for people who follow this, it has allowed people who are interested in her to just become... like obsessive, almost like true crime, but for her appearance. And so they've really done a good job of replicating that on the screen. They've really got the transition from before she meets him, she was much more casual. Her hair was close to brunette and she wore it very wavy and unkempt. And there's sort of this march in her appearance that I've always been fascinated by of her getting you know, thinner and blonder until her hair's like white blonde and her eyebrows basically disappear. And she stopped speaking entirely. At the time when, after they got married, Carolyn was, you know, highly criticized in the press.
Like they were brutal on her. So sexist. It was so critical. She was treated as sort of a money digger who was not a serious person and maybe stupid, you know? And I think the reality of it which people who lived at the time or people have paid attention was that she was, you know, a highly successful career girl who landed in New York from working at a mall and a pretty middle-class upbringing with a single mom who got remarried and sort of had this incredible dreamy New York downtown life. Like the, the media and sort of the world at large didn't have a vernacular for that version of Manhattan. Cause you know, Manhattan was still a little, sealed off that sort of downtown Manhattan culturally from sort of the world's perception of it.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Who was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and why is she significant?
0:00–3:33
2
How does Hulu's 'Love Story' depict JFK Jr. and Carolyn's romance?
3:33–13:13
3
What are the criticisms of the 'Love Story' miniseries?
13:13–14:51
4
How did Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's style influence the 90s fashion?
14:51–25:58
5
What challenges did Carolyn face in her marriage to JFK Jr.?
25:58–28:11
6
How did media portrayal affect Carolyn Bessette Kennedy?
28:11–49:59