BAZAAR Magazine

The '90s golden couple had a tragically short-lived marriage

BY NAOMI GORDON
AUG 26, 2021

Ryan Murphy is expanding his American Crime Story universe to include singular stories of love that captivated the world, featuring his take on JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette's tragically short-lived marriage.

Murphy's acclaimed anthology series (The People vs OJ Simpson, The Assassination of Gianni Versace and soon, Impeachment) have explored seminal cultural moments in modern history and the icons they have belonged to, looking beyond the headlines and media coverage to distinguish fact from tabloid myth, to humanise his subjects. Though the exterior and aesthetic of his shows are often soapy, extravagant and glossy, his characters are anything but flimsy or superficial.

His series dedicated to John Kennedy Jr and the enigmatic Carolyn Bessette, whose courtship, relationship and marriage were shrouded in secrecy, will examine the tabloid's treatment of the famous couple they frivolously dubbed "the hunk and his honey".

"What started out as a beautiful union for the young couple, widely regarded as American royalty, began to fray under the stress of the relentless microscope and navel gaze of tabloid media," a press statement for the show read. "The pressures of their careers and rumoured family discord ended with their tragic deaths when his private plane crashed into the ocean on a hazy summer night off the coast of Massachusetts..."