Ryan Murphy has responded to critics who panned the first look images of his upcoming series American Love Story, which is set to dramatise the real-life romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
ICYMI, Murphy is helming a forthcoming show which will offer a fictionalised retelling of the It-couple’s whirlwind 90s relationship, with actors Paul Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon set to portray the famed socialite couple.
Last week, Murphy shared the first look images of the stars in character as the IRL doomed couple — and they did not go down well.
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy was a style icon, with her minimalist, elegant looks still poured over by fashion obsessives to this day. Murphy’s version was giving Temu. Or at the very least, Zara.
The Cut‘s fashion critic Danya Issawi described it as veering “toward recreation rather than authentic representation”, in a blistering article published under the headline, ‘These Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Costumes Don’t Fit the Bill’.
“These do not appear to be the understated, tailored, and soft-yet-structured Calvin Klein, Prada, and Yohji Yamamoto garments Bessette-Kennedy wore in the ’90s, nor are they reminiscent of them,” he wrote. “Instead, I feel like I’m looking at Mango and Zara.”
In the fashion world, that’s some Miranda Priestly-level shade.
Elsewhere, Bessette’s real-life former hairstylist, Brad Johns, told Vogue that Pidgeon’s hair in the images was “totally wrong [and] the opposite of what we were going for”.
Murphy has now responded to the non-stop backlash, insisting the wardrobe department hasn’t completely fumbled the bag on this one.
“There were comments like, ‘I hate that coat, Carolyn would never have worn that,’” he told Variety. “That was just a coat we threw on for colour. People were writing, ‘How dare you use the No. 35 Birkin bag? She wore a 40!’ Yes, we have a 40 but we just threw on a bag from another costume department because that was the sound stage we were on.”
He said he’s brought on a 10-person “style advisory board” (we’re yet to know details), and name dropped a list of designers and items they’ll apparently be dressing Pidgeon in — some of which originally belonged to Carolyn-Kennedy herself.
“We have multiple pairs of Manolo black heels and sandals from 1992 to 1999,” Murphy continued. “We have the Manolo boots she wore in black and brown. We have her Prada tall boots. We have her Prada bags. We have the Birkin No. 40 that we have taken to a specialist to scruff it up so it looks identical to the one she would wear half-open on the subway.”
Murphy also hit back at Vogue for their interview with Johns, saying he wasn’t contacted by the publication for comment.
“It’s interesting because Vogue called several times with interest in covering the show, but one of the first things they write is this without even checking with us?”, Murphy said.
Elsewhere, Murphy compared the backlash Pidgeon recieved to the way Bessette was hounded by the press back in the 90s, saying all the scrutiny is “not fair” on the actress.
It’s not the first stray Murphy has caught in the lead-up to American Love Story’s release.
Last week, Kennedy Jr.’s real-life nephew, Jack Schlossberg, responded to the same first look images of the show by asking Murphy to “consider DONATING PROFITS [from the series] TO THE KENNEDY LIBRARY”, which Murphy agreed to do in a comment reply.
Then, on Thursday, Schlossberg shared a video on social media claiming that the Kennedy family had not been contacted by the showrunners for input in the series.
“For those wondering whether [Kennedy’s] family was ever consulted, or has anything to do with the new show being made about him, the answer is no — and there’s not much we can do,” Schlossberg said.
“For the record, I think admiration for my Uncle John is great. What I don’t think is great is profiting off of it in a grotesque way.”
From the families of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims to the real-life Menendez brothers and now the members of the Kennedy dynasty, Murphy is at this point running out of people to piss off.
Still, I’ll be watching American Love Story with the precision of Miranda Priestly while confidently sporting tracksuit pants.
Lead image: Instagram and Evan Agostini/Liaison
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