Podcast Summary:

Diabolical Lies – Episode: How 'Love Story'—and the Kennedys—Fooled America
Hosts: Katie Gatti Tassin & Caro Claire Burke
Date: March 22, 2026

Episode Overview

In this incisive and irreverent episode, hosts Katie and Caro explore America’s ongoing obsession with the Kennedy family—focusing on the recent surge of fascination surrounding the FX series "Love Story," which dramatizes the relationship between JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. Rather than delving into political histories or policy legacies, they interrogate the mythmaking, cultural nostalgia, and the way celebrity, gender norms, and American yearning for royalty shape how we remember (and re-invent) these figures. The tone is sharp, funny, and frank, with both hosts questioning received wisdom and pop culture’s “soulless” take on iconic couples.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Kennedy Mythos and Our “Royal Family”

• Americans & Dynasties:
  Katie opens by riffing on America’s “weird fucking relationship with the closest thing we have to a dynastic royal family,” comparing adult Kennedy superfans to “Disney adults.” (00:01-01:15)
• The Camelot Legacy:
  The hosts note that the Kennedy family is mythologized to a unique degree, with even minor members spawning books, compared to other presidential families. The Camelot branding—the Kennedy as aristocracy—still endures. (04:17-05:19)
• The Kennedy Curse:
  Both hosts review the infamous string of family tragedies—plane crashes, assassinations—that deepen the mystique and sense of tragic glamour (“erotic combination of glamour and tragedy”). (07:00-08:40)

2. “Love Story” & Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s Cultural Revival

• The Show’s Narrative & Popularity:
  Katie explains that “Love Story” sparked intense interest despite being “soulless,” with over 25 million hours streamed after only 5 episodes (compared to 10 million for the previously covered “Heated Rivalry”). (08:49)
• Caro’s Critique:
  Caro finds the show slick but absurd, highlighting the ways Carolyn has always been defined by her silence and mystique:

  “First and foremost, I think that she has always been a style icon...but all of that was defined by her relative silence...So creating a persona for her was really like...this kind of ruins it.” (03:00-03:45)

• Media & Consumerism:
  The show has incited a cottage industry around Carolyn’s minimalist style: her $192,000 Prada coat, surging headband sales, and online “CBK-inspired” looks. TikTok and Pinterest are awash with attempts to emulate her look and image. (12:29-13:33)

3. Three Genres of TikTok/Internet Content around the Kennedys

Katie and Caro review representative video trends:

• 1. Romantic Fan Edits: Couples playfully loving, feeding loneliness and a longing for authenticity. (15:00)
• 2. Revisionist/Speculative Takes:
  Users assert what Carolyn or JFK Jr. “really” liked/hated, often projecting contemporary values backward (e.g., “JFK Jr. hated clingy girls, wanted a ‘feisty queen’” leading into a critique of tired sexist tropes). (16:30-17:58)
• 3. “Mystique” Appreciation:
  Videos consisting of every known clip of CBK speaking—totaling just 40 seconds—highlighting how little is actually known, yet how much is projected. (19:12)

4. The Carolyn Bessette Kennedy Obsession: Projection & Myth

• Gen Z’s Fervor:
  Media sources observe Gen Z’s “crazy” for the Kennedys, especially the 90s New York aesthetic and pre-internet mystique. (WSJ excerpt at 19:32)
• Nostalgia vs. Reality:
  Caro points out the cyclical rechristening of “Bessette blonde,” and Katie notes how influencers and consumer brands are capitalizing on the simplified, stylized memory of Carolyn. (21:52-22:51)
• Style Analysis:
  Caro:

  “I'm not even saying this to be mean. It's like as basic as it comes...It was boilerplate Calvin Klein. It was like khakis and whites, blue jeans, simple long blond hair...” (26:35)

5. The Problem of Public Ciphers & Fictive Histories

• The Enigma of CBK:
  The hosts explore how Carolyn’s allure is largely a function of ambiguity—her silence allows endless projection:

  “She becomes a cipher. She becomes a blueprint for how a woman should look and behave if she wants the ultimate prize to be chosen by a powerful, rich and hard doing man.” (31:39-32:21)

• Media Narratives:
  Coverage oscillates between lauding her mystical femininity and accusing her of calculated manipulation—both based on hearsay and almost no firsthand information. (Excerpts: New York Magazine 28:42, Vanity Fair 35:35)
• Beauty and Chosenness:
  Caro bluntly deconstructs the “Why her?” myth: “You have to be a 10. And then, of course, some of these women are smart, some of them are funny...I feel like we're always like, why her? I'm like, well, she was gorgeous.” (45:43-46:26)

6. “Love Story” as Cultural Product: Soulless Yet Addictive

• Critique of the Show's Construction:
  The hosts find the show narratively hollow, its imagined private conversations unrealistic (“their interior lives are basically like a press kit for how they would speak publicly”). (24:01-26:00)
• Vulture Review Excerpt:

  “This is a vision of a relationship as a hermetically sealed unit, a dollhouse of beautiful people...By the final stretch, we've spent so much time watching them fight, reconcile, fall back in love...the whole exercise begins to feel like being cornered at a dinner party...” (24:01)

• Gendered Tropes:
  Caro rails against the “cool girl” trope (Gone Girl effect) and tired binaries between “clingy” and “independent” beautiful women. (17:10)

7. The Machinery of Myth: Camelot to Kardashians

• Kennedys & Pop Culture:
  The hosts argue the Kennedys constructed, and then benefited from, their royal/fairytale image—a deliberate PR strategy, not happenstance.

  “Them being private? Bullshit. They were like the most publicly photographed and like presenting family in American history.” (41:20)

• JFK Jr. as Himbo—The Irony of George Magazine:
  George attempted to meld political analysis with pop culture, an irony since the Kennedys triggered that merger in the first place—“The jump from John F. Kennedy and the Camelot period to Donald Trump...is a straight line.” (40:19-40:51)
• Competence & Gender:
  Maureen Callahan excerpt:

  “John Kennedy was a middle-aged man with no real accomplishments. Carolyn...was Calvin Klein's most trusted advisor...yet her primary value in the storyline is her proximity to JFK Jr.” (42:03)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I have been workshopping this theory that adults who are Kennedy Stans are kind of like the—"
  —"Like Disney adults."
  (01:00-01:06, Caro lobs the perfect pop culture analogy.)

• “We have this almost necrophilic obsession with reviving the reputations of disgraced predatory men and elevating them into this like, deity status.”
  (01:52, Caro, direct quote from earlier episode)

• “If the narrative goes that her whole strategy was playing hard to get and being ungettable...that’s not a good strategy...when you finally do get got, he gets bored.”
  (47:36, Caro)

• "You get the sense that, like, were this not JFK's son, he would just be some guy. Right?"
  (39:51, Katie)

• On Carolyn's mystique:
  "She becomes a cipher. She becomes a blueprint for how a woman should look and behave if she wants the ultimate prize..."
  (32:21, Katie)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Kennedy family myth vs. reality: 00:29-05:19
• Cultural obsession with “Love Story” and CBK: 08:49-13:33
• TikTok “genres” dissected: 14:17-19:12
• Media’s coverage, Gen Z nostalgia: 19:32-22:25
• Analysis of CBK’s style and myth: 26:35-28:30
• New York Magazine “Rules” article dissection: 28:42-31:39
• Show’s gendered tropes and soullessness: 24:01-26:00
• Role reversal—CBK’s own accomplishments vs. JFK Jr.’s: 42:03-43:15
• Mythmaking after marriage: 44:34-46:26

Conclusion

"How 'Love Story'—and the Kennedys—Fooled America" is less about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy as people and more about America’s appetite for myth, royalty, and manufactured nostalgia. Katie and Caro incisively unpack how empty signifiers, selective memory, and soulless retellings shape both pop culture and social attitudes—especially around glamour, gender, and celebrity. With their trademark candor and humor, they reveal that what appears mysterious or aspirational is, more often than not, a measure of our projections and our need for fairy tales, not any transcendent quality in its subjects.

Stay tuned for Part Two: Who indeed are the Kennedys? (48:53)