FX’s JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette drama falls short at Emmys

FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette drew fewer Emmy nominations than the pre-race buzz had predicted, leaving Ryan Murphy’s latest true-story drama short of the breakout many expected. Variety’s final forecast had put the series at as many as 19 nods, including acting attention for Sarah Pidgeon and Alessandro Nivola.

The series premiered on FX and Hulu on February 12 and finished on March 19 as the first installment in Murphy’s Love Story anthology. Paul Anthony Kelly plays John F. Kennedy Jr. and Sarah Pidgeon plays Carolyn Bessette in a retelling drawn in part from Elizabeth Beller’s 2024 bestseller Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, which aimed to present Carolyn in a more balanced and empathetic light than older tabloid accounts.

That setup did not produce the kind of Emmy momentum Murphy found with The People v. O.J. Simpson and The Assassination of Gianni Versace, two earlier limited series that turned him into one of television’s most potent awards players. Before the nominations were announced, attention also clustered around possible supporting-actress bids for Grace Gummer, Naomi Watts and Constance Zimmer, but the final result landed below the expectations that had built around the project.

The story’s hold on viewers still rests on one of the most enduring celebrity tragedies of the tabloid era. John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren Bessette died on July 16, 1999, when the single-engine plane Kennedy was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Official investigators later attributed the loss of control to spatial disorientation in haze and darkness.

The Television Academy announced the 78th Primetime Emmy nominations on July 8, with the ceremony set for September 14 on NBC and Peacock. For a series built around one of America’s most photographed couples, the muted Emmy showing suggests that cultural fascination and awards strength remain very different forms of attention.