The Fascinating Story Behind Love Story: JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette

The phrase “highly anticipated” gets thrown around a lot, but in the case of Love Story: JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, it couldn’t be a more apt description for the anthology series centered on America’s version of royalty: John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette.

The FX/Ryan Murphy-produced series, which is now streaming the first three episodes on Hulu/Disney+ and FX, is the first in the Love Story anthology, which charts the complex and heartbreaking journey of a couple whose private love became a national obsession. And ironically, while it was Murphy’s idea to create the series, it was a young writer by the name of Connor Hines—who was all of 10 when John, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren, died tragically in a small plane crash—who brought the series to life and wrote six out of the nine episodes.

“I had been an avid reader about the Kennedy family,” Hines tells Glamour over Zoom from New York. “I’d just always been fascinated by them as a rare political dynasty and unrivaled in terms of their role in our society. They are really our closest thing to American royalty.”

But no matter how passionate Hines was about the Kennedy family, there was one small issue: the writer (on Apple TV’s upcoming limited series, Wild Things, about Siegfried & Roy) and actor (Hulu’s Dollface, among others)—didn’t know Ryan Murphy. Getting a meeting with one of the most prolific producers of the 21st century was going to be hard enough, but actually securing a job spearheading his newest anthology series? Well, good luck.

Hines called his manager after doing a deep dive on Kennedy and Bessette, and said, “This would be an unbelievable limited series, but there’s no way anybody would allow me to do it.” Then, when it was announced that a series about the couple was actually in the works, Hines knew he had to strike while the iron was hot. “I virtually stalked everyone Ryan worked with for a meeting. I said, ‘I will bring coffee to a writers room. I will work crafty on the stages. I just know that I am meant to be a part of this.’”

It worked.

“I walked him through my vision for the series and fortunately he liked it,” Hines says, recounting the story some five years later. “I’ve never pursued a project like this, ever. I felt possessed by [John and Carolyn], so I’m very lucky to be here.”