Why Isn’t Carole Radziwill in “Love Story”? Inside the Producers' Choice to Not Include the “RHONY” Alum

Emily BlackwoodThu, March 19, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC

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Carole Radziwill visits SiriusXM Studios on September 15, 2025 in New York City ; Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette and Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. in 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'.Credit: Gary Gershoff/Getty ; FX -

Carole Radziwill was married to John F. Kennedy Jr.'s cousin and best man when he wed Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in 1996

Though she previously said she was "unbelievably close" to the late couple, The Real Housewives of New York City alum wasn't featured in the FX series Love Story: John F. Kennedy & Carolyn Bessette

The show's producer cited creative reasons for her absence, while Radziwill wrote that she was "at peace" with any misrepresentations in the series

Though Carole Radziwill was a part of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's real-life love story, she was not featured in FX's limited series about their romance.

The former Real Housewives of New York City star was married to Anthony Radziwill when he served as best man during the couple's secret 1996 nuptials. They were together until he died in August 1999 from cancer, just three weeks after his cousin, JFK Jr., died in a plane crash along with Carolyn and her sister, Lauren.

"[Anthony] sat at the kitchen table and folded his arms to support his head, and then dropped it down and cried," Carole wrote in her 2005 memoir What Remains of the night they learned their loved ones had died. "It was the first time I'd seen him like that."

Though her husband was portrayed in the 2026 limited series Love Story: JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette and played by Erich Bergen, Carole was noticeably absent from the show.

Here's everything to know about why Carole Radziwill wasn't in Love Story — and what she thinks about the show's portrayal of the couple's relationship.

Carole was married to JFK Jr.’s cousin and best man

Carole Radziwill and husband Anthony Radziwill.Credit: Carole Radziwill/Instagram

Four years after they met while working at ABC, Carole and Anthony tied the knot. Prior to their August 1994 wedding, he was diagnosed with fibrosarcoma, a potentially fatal form of bone cancer.

The couple were married for five years until Anthony died from cancer at the age of 40 on Aug. 10, 1999. His death occurred just three weeks after JFK Jr. and Carolyn had died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999.

Carole wrote about that tragic time in an essay for the Daily Mail on the 20th anniversary of their death in 2019: “For all the time I'd had to brace myself, prepare for it, Anthony's death, too, still seemed so abrupt and unfair, just like the others. Because ... we just weren't done.”

She said she was “unbelievably close” to the couple

John Kennedy Jr. and Carole Radziwill at American Ballet Theatre's Spring Gala.Credit: Tom Wargacki/WireImage

The RHONY alum first met JFK Jr. and Carolyn during a 1992 trip to the Hamptons, where the two couples rented a house together. Though Anthony had always been close to his cousin, Carole said she also became instant friends with Carolyn.

"She was very friendly," Carole recalled in a 2005 interview with PEOPLE. "She came right over to me as though she knew me and put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I had an extra toothbrush."

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JFK Jr. and Carolyn were there for Carole and Anthony as he dealt with his cancer and subsequent treatments. In June 2017, the former reality star and author told PEOPLE that Carolyn "was really there" during the last year of her late husband's life.

"We were all unbelievably close," she told The Telegraph in October 2005 of her relationships with JFK Jr., Carolyn and Anthony. "Their deaths brought me to my knees."

Love Story producer Brad Simpson said there were “tons of people” they couldn’t include

Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Paul Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. in 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette'.Credit: FX

Though Love Story chronicled many moments in JFK Jr. and Carolyn's relationship, some of the couple's closest friends weren't mentioned in the series.

In a March 2026 interview with TV Insider, the show's executive producer, Brad Simpson, said that not including Carole in the limited drama was simply a creative decision so that they could focus more on Carolyn's relationship with her sister.

“People’s lives are full and rich," Simpson told the outlet. "There’s tons of people in them, and you have to make decisions. And a decision we made was to really focus on creating Lauren, her sister, as a character because she was often an afterthought in all of this."

He added that "there were tons of people" who they weren't able to include, saying "we’re trying to pack a lot into 43 minutes.”

Radziwill wrote that she’s “at peace” with any misrepresentations

Carole Radziwill attends "The Morning Show" Season 4 Premiere on September 09, 2025 in New York City.Credit: Dia Dipasupil/WireImage

Though she hasn't publicly commented on her absence from the show, Carole did write about what it's been like to experience the private lives of two of her friends continually dissected and retold in projects like Love Story.

"Sitting here now, we know how it ended," she wrote in a February 2026 post on her Substack. "And yet the story keeps being told. Reinvented. Embroidered. Filled with details no one could possibly know, by people who weren’t there and don’t care about the truth."

Carole added that while she's "at peace with it all now" and no longer worries "about misrepresentations, false narratives, or bent truths," the reality star would not be watching the FX series.

However, Carole encouraged others to watch and "fall in love with them the way we all did back then."

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”