If you’ve been visiting this site over the last almost 20 years, you know about my obsession with Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. There have been times when it’s bordered on unhealthy. I’ve read everything, I’ve pored over every photo. I wonder often, too often, about what it would have been like if she and John F Kennedy Jr had lived.
Would Carolyn have ever worn low-rise jeans with the one-inch zipper? Would she be caught dead in an Herve Leger bandage dress? A velour track suit? Skinny jeans and ballet flats, yes. She was already heading in the skinny jean direction prior to her death. I also feel like she would have worn sneakers on a red carpet before anyone else. But I can’t see her ever doing the Charlotte Olympia platform heel that had a moment in the 2010s. Carolyn had a fashion eye that was appreciated in her time and ahead of her time. And her time was so relatively brief.
Back in 2021, it was announced that Ryan Murphy would be working on a series about John and Carolyn as part of his American … Story series – American Horror Story, American Crime Story, the currently airing American Sports Story. JFK Jr and Carolyn will be American Love Story. It’s been three years, though, and we haven’t heard much until yesterday, when in an interview with Variety, one of Ryan’s producing partners, Nina Jacobson, confirmed that:
“We’re very much intending to [tell that story]. We have great scripts on that. We’re trying to figure out when it’ll land. It is a story that really resonates right now. It’s amazing. A lot of younger women are looking to her as sort of a representational icon of a certain period of time that’s really fascinating, and hopefully, we’ll be able to bring that to the screen soon.”
Pop culture is all about 90s nostalgia right now – and John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette were THE couple of the 90s. They were beautiful, they were dramatic, they were volatile, everything about them was irresistible to the media and to the public and even in New York society. Of course we know now how devastatingly difficult that was for them, especially for her, and a series about their relationship could also be an opportunity to interrogate those times, the pressure and speculation and fixation that was closing in on them from the moment they started dating but… um… is Ryan Murphy the one to do it?
Ryan Murphy, like Nicole Kidman (as noted in my post about her today) works like going paycheque to paycheque. Unlike Nicole Kidman, the quality isn’t always there. Or the sensitivity. But then again, if there’s anyone who prioritises “want” over “need”, it’s Ryan Murphy. And…well… the basest part of me, and it’s a big part of me, I want that good sh-t. Like how Carolyn supposedly made John wait three weeks before she agreed to marry him? Show me. Give me a whole episode on the proposal and his mounting anxiousness. Shots of them kissing and fighting and kissing and crying and yelling and hugging again in the park? That’s my drug, Ryan Murphy can totally push that drug.
So now everyone’s wondering who will play this couple? Vogue (and everyone else online) is saying Elizabeth Debicki and Jacob Elordi for Carolyn and John. This, to me, is too obvious. And also, sorry, but I can’t with Jacob Elordi. So my pick for JFK Jr is…
Callum Turner. Here’s Callum in a NYC setting.
Don’t tell me you can’t see it!
As for Carolyn, my first thought was Vanessa Kirby who would be perfect but she and Callum used to date so if that doesn’t work for whatever awkwardness, Anya Taylor-Joy is slightly less obvious in this case than Elizabeth Debicki but also… Carolyn was a natural brunette. Light brown but definitely not naturally as blonde as we remember her. Elizabeth fits the vibe when she’s blonde, but I can’t see it when she’s brown. Vanessa and Anya, on the other hand, can go both for Carolyn.
Those are my choices. Now over to you. Meet me at The Squawk! (app link here)