“Isn’t it textbook misogyny to tear down one woman in order to build up another?” Hannah wrote in an op-ed for “The New York Times.”

Daryl Hannah slams Love Story portrayal of her JFK Jr. romance, coke use: ‘Lies live online forever’

"Isn't it textbook misogyny to tear down one woman in order to build up another?" Hannah wrote in an op-ed for "The New York Times."

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on *Entertainment Tonight* and Popsugar.

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March 6, 2026 11:05 a.m. ET

Daryl Hannah; Dree Hemingway as Hannah on 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'. Credit:

Daryl Hannah is breaking her silence on Ryan Murphy's new anthology series *Love Story*, the first season of which dramatizes the high-profile marriage and untimely deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.

In a scathing guest essay published to *The New York Times* Friday, Hannah calls out the series for its depiction of her yearslong, on-and-off romance with the political scion amid his burgeoning relationship with Bessette. The Grammy-nominated actress, who is portrayed by Dree Hemingway on the series, calls out the FX show for its deliberate depiction of her as the villainous "adversary" to the couple, specifically denying many elements of her characterization, including the coke-consuming and funeral-crashing.

"I have generally chosen not to respond to media coverage of me. I have long believed that engaging with distortion often amplifies it," Hannah writes. "But a recent tragedy-exploiting television series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette features a character using my name and presents her as me. The choice to portray her as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident."

Daryl Hannah at SXSW in 2018.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty

The *Kill Bill* star decries the series' portrayal of her as "not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John."

"The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue," she asserts. "I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone's private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis' death to a dog's... These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false."

Although Hannah laments that she even has to defend her character in response to a TV show, she says that the choice to depict her as an "adversary" threatening the romantic narrative between JFK Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) and Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) has resulted in "real-life consequences."

"In the weeks since the series aired, I have received many hostile and even threatening messages from viewers who seem to believe the portrayal is factual," she writes. "Many people believe what they see on TV and do not distinguish between dramatization and documented fact — and the impact is not abstract. In a digital era, entertainment often becomes collective memory. Real names are not fictional tools. They belong to real lives."

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Hannah adds that her silence "should not be mistaken for agreement with lies," and in a direct message to readers, states: "Know that most (if not all) of those claiming to have any intimate knowledge of our personal lives are self-serving sensationalists trading in gossip, innuendo and speculation."****"In the digital age, stories do not disappear, yesterday’s news isn’t tossed out with the morning paper, and lies live online forever," Hannah writes. "They are archived, streamed, clipped, memed and resurfaced endlessly. A dramatized portrayal can become, for millions of viewers, the definitive version of a real person’s life."

She concludes, "Bird cage liners biodegrade. Online lies endure. May love and truth prevail."

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*Love Story*, as with any other title in Murphy's "based on a true story" serials, didn't solicit the input of the real people that are being depicted, producer Nina Jacobson revealed to Gold Derby ahead of the show's Feb. 12 premiere. Instead, production relied on Elizabeth Beller's 2024 book, *Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy*, as its source material. But Jacobson added that the show's crew "tried to be very mindful of giving people the dimension and complexity that they deserve as human beings."

"We always try to come from a place of compassion," Jacobson said specifically of the show's portrayal of Hannah. "Given how much we're rooting for John and Carolyn, Daryl Hannah occupies a space where she's an adversary to what you want narratively in the story. But we still try to really show respect to the fact that she does have a fluency with this world that Carolyn doesn't have. She is able to swim in his tank in a way that is much more difficult for Carolyn."

Paul Anthony Kelly and Dree Hemingway at the 'Love Story' premiere on Feb. 3, 2026.

Frank Micelotta/Getty

Despite claims of care applied to the story, Hannah's discontent is only the latest bit of negative press the series has gotten from a real-life relation.

Jack Schlossberg, JFK Jr.'s nephew, has been openly critical of the FX series, calling it a "grotesque display of someone else's life." He also urged fans to watch the show "with one letter in mind, and that's a capital F for fiction."

"I would hope that Mr. Murphy would donate some of the millions of dollars of profits that he's making to some of the causes that John championed throughout his life," Schlossberg added. "Maybe he would donate some of that money to the JFK library to help keep President Kennedy's memory alive, but he's not. He's making money. This is not a documentary. And I'll leave it at that."

Meanwhile, FX announced earlier this week that *Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette* had become the network's most-watched limited series ever on streaming, raking in more than 25 million hours viewed across the first five episodes on Disney+ and Hulu.

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