Carolyn Bessette Understood PR Better Than Most
TL;DR The best press rollouts aren’t the loudest ones. They’re the ones that understand what they have, protect the mystery long enough to let people want it, and then deliver something real. Love Story did all of that, and it worked because the subject earned it and the execution respected it. Your brand has a story worth telling. The question isn’t whether the media will care; it’s whether you’re releasing it in a way that gives them a reason to. Restraint is a strategy. Timing is a choice. The audience will always show up for something that feels genuinely worth their attention.
What Love Story Got Right
FX's Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette has become the cultural moment of early 2026. TV hasn't felt like this since the early Covid days when we were all watching the same things together and last night's episode was today's watercooler conversation. As someone who thinks about PR strategy the way most people think about gossip, I cannot stop analyzing how perfectly this rollout went down — because this show almost didn't work, and the fact that it's working this well? That's not luck.
They dropped a bomb, then went quiet.
The first photos from the set leaked months before the premiere, and the internet came for them. Wrong wig, wrong Birkin, cheap camel coat. Ryan Murphy clarified they were lighting test shots — and then they let it breathe. That early friction created investment. The same people who criticized the wardrobe showed up premiere night to see if they got it right.
The lesson: controversy isn't always a crisis. Sometimes it's an audience proving they're paying attention.
They picked a subject with built-in mystery.
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy is one of the most mythologized women of the last 30 years, and almost everything we know about her came through a paparazzi lens. She gave almost no interviews and controlled her image by giving the press almost nothing. The private wedding, the single photo, the tragedy — when Love Story positioned itself as the inside look at what really happened, they weren't selling a TV show. They were selling access to something people had wanted for 25 years.
The lesson: if your story has mystery baked in, don't over-explain it. Let people lean in.
The timing hit exactly right.
A show called Love Story dropped Valentine's Day weekend, when nostalgia and romance were already in the air. John and Carolyn represented a very specific kind of American optimism, and right now that nostalgia hits differently. People aren't just watching a show — it's an escape toward something that feels beautiful, familiar, and pre-chaos.
The lesson: timing isn't just about the calendar. It's about reading the room your audience is already sitting in.
They cast unknowns and made that the story.
They searched over 1,000 actors to find their JFK Jr. Paul Anthony Kelly was cast three weeks before filming started. Two unknowns carrying one of the most iconic love stories in American memory? That's a story journalists want to write — and the producers knew it.
The lesson: the "how we got here" story is often as compelling as the thing itself. Don't hide the process.
It delivered.
The part of PR that doesn't get talked about enough: you can build the most beautiful rollout in the world, but if the thing isn't good, it collapses under the weight of the expectations you created. Love Story has an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes. Gen Z is discovering the couple for the first time and falling completely in love. The rollout created the expectation — and the show exceeded it.
The lesson: a press campaign is a promise. Make sure what you're selling can keep it.