Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Is This Actually a Love Story？ JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, the Nineties and Parliament Lights

00:00:00.000 Hey, y'all, Jo here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:11.060 For the past week, I have been binging all available episodes of the new Hulu series,

00:00:15.900 Love Story, which, by the way, and we're going to talk about this in today's episode,

00:00:20.800 shouldn't really be called a love story unless it's ironic or maybe sarcastic. But again,

00:00:28.000 Again, we're going to talk about all of that today. For those of you who haven't tuned in yet,

00:00:33.500 it's a dramatized version of the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette

00:00:38.260 that much like the movie with Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neill, ends incredibly tragically. And I got

00:00:44.980 to tell you, I am just I'm addicted to it. I love everything about it. So today to talk all things

00:00:51.720 love story I have on our under-the-influence resident 90s expert, Glynis McNichol.

00:01:06.160 Hey, Glynis. Hi, Jo. We are here today. We're here today to talk about love.

00:01:14.040 love such as it is such as it is with the world as it is right now we are talking about love story

00:01:23.780 the jfk jr and carolyn bassett show which you're kind of an expert on their romance on this time

00:01:34.340 period i'm only halfway through but i just i just want to devour halfway through they're releasing

00:01:41.600 this isn't they didn't release this uh actually i think between this and heated rivalry there's

00:01:46.920 like a cultural argument for weekly shows again right like to gin up this sort of like crazy

00:01:53.540 furor over it because neither of them dropped all their episodes at once so you've really

00:01:58.200 you know it's people holding on week after week after week um right right and and i think that

00:02:03.940 that gets it into the cultural conversation a little bit more yeah too right because you actually

00:02:10.520 have people watching things at the same time which we have not had for a very long time

00:02:14.760 um yeah and a couple people i ended up binging heated rivalry because i was so late to it

00:02:20.800 speaking of love stories um and people had said to me oh the first three episodes are slow which

00:02:27.520 is interesting because of course it's just a you know an old we don't consume so much to be like

00:02:32.140 that anymore can we just talk for a second about the name love story because i think the fact that

00:02:37.460 they named it Love Story is a testament to our shortened cultural memory. Because you and I both

00:02:45.160 know the famous Ali McGraw, Ryan O'Neill, right? Movie from the 70s called Love Story, which is

00:02:55.200 like the iconic, sort of soapy, tearjerker. So it's sort of weird to me that they've named this

00:03:06.960 love story because that wasn't actually the initial title for it and i think the show is

00:03:10.640 appealing i mean the show has gone viral to a degree that even i am surprised by but like the

00:03:16.480 part of half the audience for the show is gen xers who remember the original love story and half the

00:03:21.180 show audience for the show are people who probably never heard of it so it just sort of sticks in my

00:03:24.940 head as a funny decision on the part of whoever decided to go with that well who what what was

00:03:32.060 the original title i actually can't remember because this this show has been in the ether

00:03:38.220 since before covid and then i think it got put on hiatus because of covid and then only went

00:03:45.440 back into production less than a year ago because when those those costume stills came out of uh

00:03:53.340 sarah pigeon as carolyn beset kennedy there was an absolute riot uproar over how badly they'd been

00:04:01.380 done like the costumes were done badly her wig was terrible and especially with the clothes

00:04:08.660 so much of carolyn beset's kennedy's actual clothes the styles and the actual like available

00:04:15.060 it's not like they had to be recreated they're still floating around there on on vintage resale

00:04:20.940 sites and in fact they've gone to auction at christie's and one of her dresses just sold for

00:04:25.680 $150,000 this week. So like, then they, they corrected and brought on, as I understand it,

00:04:30.940 a new stylist. And then Sarah Pidgeon stopped wearing a wig and they gave her actual hair,

00:04:36.820 the buttery junk treatment, and it looks great. So anyways, we're off topic. What, what the show

00:04:42.460 has exploded. I've always been aware of this time period as you have. And I lived this in New York

00:04:48.500 at the time. So it was a few weeks before I figured out that it wasn't just my algorithm

00:04:53.320 them that was showing me this show 24 hours a day, that other people were seeing this 24 hours a day.

00:05:01.220 And a friend of mine who, you know, is a born and raised New Yorker said to me the other day,

00:05:06.020 I want people to know there were some of us who didn't care about Carol Bissette Kennedy. And I

00:05:11.500 was like, fair. It's very, you know, fair. I mean, we're both obsessed with this time period.

00:05:16.940 We've talked about this before. I think so much of the nostalgia for the 90s. I do actually now,

00:05:22.740 I think it's half I think it's half nostalgia for real life and half nostalgia for the clothes for

00:05:28.900 the smoking for the grunginess I mean I this show is making me want to smoke parliament lights

00:05:35.660 so bad yeah there's so much smoking yeah there's so and there's there's one line where JFK Jr. is

00:05:42.960 like I only smoke one cigarette a day and she talks about how he has so much restraint right

00:05:47.700 I have to say, as a person who has obviously written extensively about both this couple, particularly Carolyn Bessette, you know, I'm sure we've talked about this in the past, but I did a profile of her for Town and Country a decade ago that was so viral at the time.

00:06:04.240 I was sort of like early on her return because after she died, she sort of disappeared culturally for a solid at least 15 or more years before her style sort of started reemerging as an inspiration for the row.

00:06:18.880 And she sort of got picked up by Instagram style focused people.

00:06:23.940 But like somebody was sort of like an encyclopedic knowledge of this era.

00:06:31.080 And part of that, as I'm sure you've experienced, too, is that we just weren't so inundated with information that information sticks to my I have a better memory of 1997 through 1999 than I do of last week.

00:06:44.680 But I recognize I can literally pinpoint the page six reports that they are referencing in this show.

00:06:52.080 To me, it feels like a Wikipedia entry dramatized. But I'm actually like, oh, that was that page six report. That was this article they're referencing. That was this gossip item. He apparently only did have one cigarette a day. Like that's that's been knowledge for years. That was not made up. So much of the show is just literally pulling lines out of, you know, page six and Vogue.

00:07:15.280 and i think that i see a couple references to that town and country piece i did that it's sort

00:07:19.940 of just like someone did their research and then has also embellished like i can pinpoint with the

00:07:25.760 clothes are chronologically out of order like they just did a scene today of her walking out

00:07:29.940 of the calvin klein office for the very last time in a product coat and i was like oh but only people

00:07:34.140 with my level of knowledge which at this point a lot of the internet is focused on the minutiae

00:07:39.820 of stuff to a degree that's a little alarming but anyway i love this level yeah no it is i mean

00:07:47.180 it's a bit much um like what's true and what's not true and what's gossip and like the depiction

00:07:54.800 you know right before we got on we were talking about um daryl hannah has just written an op-ed

00:08:00.240 for the times about how atrocious the depiction of her is in this show and it's truly egregious

00:08:06.160 It's really it's really bad. I mean, let's I mean, I'm sure that most of our listeners know the true story. And I mean, probably 80% of them are watching right now. But John John and Daryl Hannah dated before he met Carolyn. Jackie Kennedy did not approve of this because she thought acting was kind of tawdry. I love the line where John John's like, oh, and this from the woman whose second marriage was what by the Pope?

00:08:34.980 like condemned by the Pope? She was excommunicated when she married. I don't know if she was

00:08:39.300 excommunicated. It was condemned by the Pope when she married Onassis. And this isn't in the show,

00:08:46.120 but when Jackie Kennedy died in 1994, which I'm sure you remember, it was such a huge deal. It

00:08:51.300 was wall-to-wall funeral coverage of her funeral in Washington. I remember it was either Dan Rather

00:08:58.220 or Peter Jennings came on and said, for the purposes of this funeral, we will be referring

00:09:04.420 to her as Mrs. Kennedy and not Mrs. Kennedy Onassis because it was such like a still a stigma

00:09:11.240 on that on that marriage which who can blame her with all the Kennedy assassinations she like 1.00

00:09:16.500 married the wealthiest person in the world and whisked the kids off to a Greek island to keep

00:09:20.380 them you know out of the out of the eye of the storm but anyway um yeah so Daryl Hannah Daryl

00:09:28.040 Hannah I mean the depiction just makes her she looks like I mean she looks like she's mentally

00:09:32.680 not all there in the show, the way the actress plays her. I mean, she really does look incredibly

00:09:37.360 off. So what did Daryl Hannah say in this op-ed? She's played by Dree, one of the Hemingway

00:09:43.440 granddaughters, which is interesting too, because the actress is like shouldering her own weird

00:09:48.700 famous name legacy. In the op-ed, well, in the show, the show is, in real life, they dated for

00:09:55.160 like five years. And it's useful to remember that John was like in his 20s at this point, right?

00:09:59.860 the most if you think about how famous brad pitt was at his height john was even bigger deal like

00:10:06.540 he was the biggest deal i don't think we even have a comparison today for the oh i don't think

00:10:10.580 we do that's what i keep thinking as i'm watching the show i'm like we do not have a comparison to

00:10:14.020 this level of fame and thirst and also just like the weird space he occupied in the iconography

00:10:21.220 of kennedy and he was you know reason like he was well behaved right he was a well-behaved

00:10:28.800 privileged dude who would ride his bike around Manhattan. And now we associate Tribeca with

00:10:35.480 this very wealthy downtown neighborhood. But when he moved to Tribeca in the early 90s, it was

00:10:40.360 long before it was sort of established as he and Robert De Niro sort of established it as the cool

00:10:46.260 downtown. But prior to that, it was very, a bit of a no man's land. So anyway, they did it for

00:10:51.820 five years. There was always rumors that Jackie didn't think Daryl Hannah was appropriate and

00:10:57.780 she didn't want john to become an actor i mean we love to demonize jackie too so who's to say

00:11:03.460 she didn't raise two well-behaved kids by accident right like she didn't come up with two

00:11:07.900 responsible children by luck i think she was a very clearly an engaged good mother for however

00:11:16.560 we want to interpret that term but um also he's john f kennedy and as he's dating daryl hannah

00:11:25.660 He also reportedly had a fling with Madonna. He also dated Sarah Jessica Parker. He also dated

00:11:31.260 Carolyn Bissette and then broke up with her and got back with Daryl and then broke up with Daryl.

00:11:35.360 And she, you know, in this op-ed, she was like, I have been criticized as being disrespectful to 0.72

00:11:43.900 the funeral, comparing it to the funeral of my dog, having cocaine parties. I've never done drugs in

00:11:48.520 my life as being selfish. And I was told that they needed to do that to me to offset Carolyn's

00:11:54.980 character and you know the cruelty of this depiction is so widely off base and she's never

00:12:01.820 spoken about a relationship before right like she's never gone public with anything to do with

00:12:06.100 dating John for five years and she's just like how is this allowed to exist right how are they allowed

00:12:12.440 to character assassinate me and so many other people involved in this depiction to the degree

00:12:19.940 that they're doing it. And I would just say, Joe, I don't actually follow the Kennedys outside of

00:12:26.140 Carolyn Bessette, who was such a big deal when I came to New York. I think that's part of it. But

00:12:30.540 the only person being done justice to in this show is Carolyn Bessette, right? Like everyone else

00:12:37.000 is sort of a cartoon, is flat, a bit of a caricature, and somehow they're doing justice

00:12:46.080 to her. And I think the reason is she was like a blank slate. She didn't speak. She didn't give

00:12:51.120 interviews. At the time she married him, she was just like so castigated in the press. Like she, 1.00

00:12:59.820 at the time of that marriage, they were so cruel to her that she's getting the sort of post,

00:13:04.700 you know, me to treatment in this show in a way she probably deserves. But the flip side is no

00:13:10.420 else in the show is is getting the benefit of the doubt or of complicated experiences or in any way

00:13:17.200 nuanced characters like the character of john is ludicrous and the actor is kind of two-dimensional

00:13:23.980 oh no everyone else in the show is a caricature but you just brought up something that i really

00:13:28.580 want to talk about which is how poorly carolyn was treated by the press um and again this is

00:13:35.340 around the same time as the Bill Clinton scandal and Monica Lewinsky was treated so badly.

00:13:41.020 Let's take a quick break and talk about that when we get back.

00:13:50.180 Okay, we are back. This is a time period, the 90s, again, a time when I'm totally nostalgic for,

00:13:56.460 you know what, I'm going to go buy a pack of parliaments. I might not smoke them. I just

00:13:59.300 kind of want them on my desk. I kind of want to look at them.

00:14:01.660 Kids, kids, here's this archaic thing.

00:14:03.940 yeah well no you know my kids talk about smoking a lot because we watch so many movies from the

00:14:08.980 80s and the 90s and like we're really honest with them they're like did you smoke and I'm like 100

00:14:13.320 it's terrible for you I'm like but you know what I think is worse vaping so if you'd like to try

00:14:17.640 one when you're 18 we could smoke a cigarette together and they're like what I do wonder if

00:14:24.960 this show is going to bring back cigarettes I mean cigarettes are so but of course in that era

00:14:30.240 cigarettes were like that. You smoked inside people's apartments. You smoked inside bars.

00:14:34.900 Like I would come home from waitressing and just be a smokestack.

00:14:40.520 I miss smoking. And I've heard so many people say that recently. Just, you know, also the

00:14:45.520 communal nature of smoking. It's like you would smoke in bars, but then you would also leave

00:14:50.400 spaces to go smoke. And then you'd have to bum a cigarette off someone and talk to a stranger.

00:14:54.560 And yeah, I just, it was great. It was great. I mean, terrible, terrible for us. But you know

00:15:00.200 what else is probably killing us? Everything. Everything. So what is going to take us out?

00:15:06.920 Is it going to be microplastics, which are so boring? Or just our screens, or just not talking

00:15:12.940 to people, or just AI. It's a long list. Probably cigarettes are your best bet right now for

00:15:18.200 enjoyment. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So this is the 90s. And even though I'm nostalgic for certain

00:15:24.460 parts of the 90s. It was a shit ass time, like most periods in the world to be a woman. The 0.99

00:15:31.320 press treated women even worse than they do now, which is saying a lot. I think what's interesting,

00:15:39.000 yeah, as you said before the break, you know, they got they got married in 96. And the Bill

00:15:46.840 Clinton scandal with his 23 year old intern, I think was 1998. And, you know, tabloid journalism,

00:15:57.400 like video journalism, like Inside Edition and stuff, and sort of that whole OJ era obviously

00:16:02.580 arrived 95. So they're right in the center of all of this. But what I think is useful to point out

00:16:07.340 is if you go back and read George magazine, John F. Kennedy's political magazine, which was ahead

00:16:13.360 if it's time, truly. It was like an early Politico meets TMZ, right? Like he wasn't wrong. He was

00:16:18.300 just a little ahead of it. But if you read that, their coverage of Monica Lewinsky was relentless

00:16:27.560 and very much in keeping with the time. So on the one hand, while he's married to a woman who's

00:16:34.640 suffering from the cruelty of coverage, he himself with George is absolutely supporting

00:16:42.900 the coverage of Monica Lewinsky that in hindsight we see as so grotesque. So I think there's,

00:16:49.360 you know, he both, you know, he was not immune to, and I actually think he said this in the

00:16:57.380 introductory speech he gave to George where he said, if you can't beat him, join him. Like he

00:17:01.000 really, he was, he, he participated in this also. And very famously, I think after the marriage,

00:17:10.760 the editor's letter the cover of George was Kate Moss as Eve naked with a snake around her a big

00:17:17.680 python and in the Garden of Eden and it was shortly after his cousin Michael had been arrested for

00:17:23.980 sleeping with his 15 year old babysitter and oh my gosh I totally forgot about that particular

00:17:29.400 Kennedy scandal and then this is before the same Michael died in a ski accident like a year later

00:17:34.880 But he. He, John, in the editor's letter, there's a photo of him sitting naked underneath an apple and he the editor's letter is about like, don't cast stones.

00:17:49.980 And so he was absolutely fine with playing the game.

00:17:53.360 I think it's Carolyn who. Ironically, she was the publicist for the like the top publicist for the biggest fashion brand in New York at the time,

00:18:03.960 And she didn't know how, she clearly didn't know how to navigate the other side of that.

00:18:09.000 Like it was so overwhelming to her that when she got married, which again, I really take

00:18:14.420 issue with the framing of this as a great romance.

00:18:16.980 She gets married, she basically disappears into her Tribeca apartment for three years

00:18:21.980 with what I think in hindsight, we would say some sort of, you know, anxiety, depression,

00:18:30.060 you know you can't diagnose someone from afar but like she locks herself in that tribeca apartment

00:18:35.280 for three years they never move they never get a doorman they never go somewhere she might be

00:18:39.600 more protective and then john flies a plane he shouldn't be flying and they all die like i'm not

00:18:44.480 sure how this is supposed to be a love story or a great romance it just seems like a lesson and

00:18:48.440 don't get married just a lesson and how about you just don't even cohabitate right like her life

00:18:58.000 before marriage is pretty dreamy and actually seems really nice right and i think you know 0.97

00:19:04.040 the bringing in candace bushnell and sex in the city into the mix here because sex in the city

00:19:10.000 premiered in 1998 the plane crash happened in 99 but candace bushnell was writing for the new york

00:19:15.620 observer she's very aware of carolyn beset she dated michael bergen and wrote a whole piece

00:19:20.840 about it comparing like after he dated carolyn beset candace bushnell had this column in an old

00:19:27.980 magazine called Manhattan File, which was like a very nasty fictionalized version of Carolyn

00:19:32.680 Bessette's life after marriage. Like she was so there's a real argument to be made here that

00:19:37.460 Carrie Bradshaw, CB, Candace Bushnell, CB, Carolyn Bessette, CB are all variations on this 1.00

00:19:43.860 sort of downtown blonde out and about woman, you know, and that sex in the city was

00:19:49.800 a fictionalized, a kinder, glossier, fictionalized version of Carolyn Bessette's 0.96

00:19:56.780 pre-marriage life which was fucking dreamy right like she's she's traipsing around she's got a 0.96

00:20:03.620 great job she's successful she's got access to amazing clothes she's in all these parties 0.94

00:20:07.800 she's in all the downtown clubs she's having so much fun and that's the that's the fairy tale that 1.00

00:20:17.480 I lust after with cheap rent and no internet maybe that's the love story maybe they don't say 0.69

00:20:25.980 that the love story is her and John John maybe we're maybe the love story is with her single

00:20:31.000 life before she gets married I mean it's interesting to me at the time her pre-John

00:20:37.900 life was really like condescended to in the press it was like oh she was a celebrity shopper oh she 0.99

00:20:44.960 made this nasty comment about Calvin Klein and oh look what she did to her eyebrows and her hair dye

00:20:49.460 and what I appreciate about this show is that it's nine episodes and five of them have been devoted

00:20:54.600 to her pre-marriage life and like the her career at Calvin Klein and how successful she was and

00:20:59.580 what her life looked like before marriage and I think that is a really a new and interesting

00:21:04.080 narrative to throw in here because that to me is the fairy tale we all want not I have to marry

00:21:11.960 this very famous person and I'm hounded and I just sit in my Tribeca loft smoking cigarettes

00:21:17.580 and have no job right because I mean she truly again I mean she was she was just denigrated in

00:21:25.940 the press to such an extent you know almost as if she was she like was was just like a fluff

00:21:34.900 accessory during her job at Calvin Klein when I think what we're finally seeing is that she really

00:21:39.840 truly had to work her way up that she fought for that job because she wasn't a person with a trust

00:21:43.800 fund no and she you know she was found uh she went to boston university worked worked you know

00:21:54.280 while she was at school she i mean she came from the greenwich suburbs her dad was a doctor her

00:21:57.820 mom was a school teacher so not like true greenwich money but obviously she's like upper 0.61

00:22:01.240 middle like middle class goes to college and gets a job after college working at the calvin 1.00

00:22:07.960 Klein at the mall. And as Calvin Klein exec spots her on the floor of the mall store and

00:22:14.100 whisks her off to New York for an interview with the executives at Calvin Klein, and she's hired

00:22:19.020 on the spot. I'm like, that's the fairy tale, right? That's the love story. Right. The shoe

00:22:25.120 fitting the foot and you get to go to Manhattan and you're working at Calvin Klein in this great

00:22:31.400 moment. And, you know, she was the story gives her more credit than I think she deserves

00:22:35.680 necessarily, but she was definitely part of the team that spotted, that convinced Calvin to

00:22:40.640 cast Kate Moss in that campaign that put both Calvin Klein and Kate Moss on the map, the

00:22:46.160 Marky Mark obsession campaign. You know, and she was a muse of Calvin Klein's. And I think

00:22:53.000 something we also forget is that like New York, New York was more sealed off, right? Before 9-11,

00:23:02.220 it was his own place and we didn't have access to all of these so one of the images and the

00:23:06.960 knowledge of what downtown culture meant versus uptown culture necessarily and like the images

00:23:11.820 of her when they got married she seemed so radical you know now she seems like it it makes sense

00:23:18.400 those outfits 25 years later they still look great but at the time you know that prada outfit

00:23:22.600 she walked the wedding dress forget about the wedding dresses permanently changed the wedding 0.99

00:23:26.020 industry but like the prada boots and skirts she walked out with and her hair slicked back like 0.83

00:23:30.220 that was a very downtown New York look, in a moment where the world didn't have access to 0.96

00:23:34.580 downtown New York as a sort of cultural vernacular. And she was really shocking. Her appearance was

00:23:40.140 completely shocking in that moment. And then, you know, she switched to yoji clothes for the next 0.75

00:23:45.240 three years, because I, I don't know, I think she was terrified. It's like she put on a suit of

00:23:49.200 armor. Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I want and I want to talk more about that, too. Because

00:23:54.340 I my love story, I think, in addition to the 90s and the smoking, my love story with this is the

00:24:00.780 clothes. Like I just and I think a lot of people are right. I just like I cannot stop looking at

00:24:08.600 the outfits and wanting to covet all the outfits. I mean, I went to the Audi Awards, the Oscars for

00:24:15.220 audiobooks the other night and was shopping 24 hours before because I had nothing to wear. And

00:24:20.500 I wore a slip dress. And it just, I mean, it felt so 90s chic to me. And then last night I wore the

00:24:29.180 same slip dress, but with a leather jacket. And I'm like, I am Carolyn Bessette. Where are my

00:24:33.200 cigarettes? Or Gwyneth or Kate. Like there's a real true line here. Yes. Yes. I mean, the clothes

00:24:40.940 are just delicious and they bring me so much joy. And I think it's, you know, worth it to know.

00:24:46.440 absolutely i mean we both we're all seeing it of course taking over instagram and all of the style

00:24:51.000 section this the style section did a review of the calvin klein show in new york fashion week a few

00:24:56.260 weeks ago and they framed it like would carolyn beset like this show or what would carolyn beset

00:25:00.520 thought of the show and i thought who knows she never gave an interview but the clothes

00:25:04.860 we're all craving are pre-wedding clothes right they're 90s calvin klein minimalism and i'm

00:25:12.380 very, very quickly after that wedding, her formal attire became Japanese avant-garde in a way that's

00:25:19.860 very hard to mimic. And so we're craving sort of the street style of her. And she was a street

00:25:25.840 style star. I mean, Jackie was in a sense because she was followed around by Ron Galella for a

00:25:31.600 while, but like Carolyn was really one of the earliest against her, you know, wishes, a real

00:25:39.000 street style star, you know, the leopard coats, the sandals, the 501 boot cut jeans. Like she 0.97

00:25:46.540 really, there's a style there that what people would see in those tabloid photos and just

00:25:51.000 still literally there are Instagram accounts devoted to sourcing her outfits from the sidewalk

00:25:57.300 on eBay. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And I love the idea of the grungy downtown street style,

00:26:04.940 the jeans, the tank tops with no bras.

00:26:07.180 I mean, also all outfits that, you know,

00:26:10.060 the impossible skinniness and the fact that this show

00:26:14.020 is coming out in the age of GLPs is also not lost on me.

00:26:17.660 Yeah.

00:26:18.260 But yeah, because we didn't see that look on Instagram.

00:26:22.660 We didn't see it on social media.

00:26:24.240 We didn't really have access to that kind of grungy.

00:26:28.200 You didn't see it in Vogue either.

00:26:28.980 Right.

00:26:29.120 Like you didn't, you know,

00:26:31.020 it's useful to remember that a fashion show

00:26:32.720 it happened in September and you wouldn't even see photos from it until the January or February

00:26:39.400 issue of Vogue. Like the delay of us consuming fashion from a runway was months. It was literal

00:26:48.820 months. And so I think with Carolyn, she was tapped in and maybe driving even before the marriage

00:26:56.000 some element of fashion. She was very influential even in Calvin Klein and she was sort of

00:27:02.400 influential in downtown New York. And what happened was we got that first, she was sort of

00:27:07.200 the first person that gave you an immediate sense of what fashion was, as opposed to waiting four

00:27:11.780 to five months for Vogue to interpret it for you. And I think the electricity of that is hard to

00:27:18.100 understate. You know, you didn't have to wait to see Kate Moss, a photo of Kate Moss on her runway

00:27:22.860 in the opening pages of Vogue four months later, that you just saw Carolyn walk out of her

00:27:28.360 apartment in it. And the immediacy of that and the shock of that is something we're still

00:27:34.500 mesmerized by. And it's funny seeing all these, you know, not funny because we've all gone through

00:27:38.540 it. I mean, we became like this when Mad Men came out. But it's interesting seeing so many young

00:27:45.100 people in their 20s have a very similar reaction to her appearance that I recall everyone having

00:27:50.660 in 1996 and 1997 you know that that that impact doesn't diminish with time

00:27:57.400 yeah no it really it really doesn't it really I mean like I said I'm now all slip dresses

00:28:06.000 tank tops and jeans all the time I'm just I've gone full care limb set I even thought about going

00:28:11.860 back to blonde I'm never gonna do that it's so much work and I just like do not have the patience 0.94

00:28:15.740 but man like it's it's definitely having an impact yeah it's interesting too they really

00:28:22.240 nailed it with the hair they did so they're originally she was in a wig originally said

00:28:28.320 they had sarah pigeon in a wig and it looked terrible it was just like they just had done 0.56

00:28:31.780 like a platinum blonde wig and the and it it looked awful in addition to terrible clothes

00:28:38.300 that looked like they were sort of from zara but i don't know if they went and got um brad johns

00:28:44.580 who was the original sort of famous hairstylist who gave her the quote unquote buttery chunks or

00:28:49.740 who they've gotten to replicate it, but they've done a really good job. But they've also tied

00:28:53.760 into like Carolyn Bessette was a brunette, first of all. And when you see those early photos of her

00:28:58.520 in real life in the early nineties, when she started at Calvin, she had like brown and light

00:29:03.420 brown hair. And progressively as she gets more successful, she gets blonder. And then when she

00:29:09.020 marries John is when she gets like platinum blonde. You know, you can really track her 0.80

00:29:13.960 rise and the progression of that relationship by how blonde she is. She's just getting blonder and 1.00

00:29:21.900 thinner and blonder and thinner and her eyebrows disappear. I mean, I've written about before that

00:29:26.640 my eyebrows are in recovery from the late nineties to this day. And, and it's sort of alarming to

00:29:32.740 watch it. And it's, they're sort of nailing the progression of the show has caught onto that.

00:29:36.480 possibly from reading a piece I did a decade ago but exactly you know and then she's sort of you

00:29:44.520 know right before the plane crash you sort of see her calm down a bit in her appearance right she

00:29:49.620 sort of seems to relax a little bit they weren't living together at the plane crash right he was

00:29:53.460 in a hotel and she was he was in a hotel and she was having problems in the apartment yeah exactly

00:29:58.980 at the time Joe I was 20 when they died I think I was 24 and it was like oh they were having

00:30:03.500 like I still had a very understandably youthful and naive idea of marriage as like a happily ever

00:30:10.040 after and once you get married everything's fixed and as a grown-up now in hindsight you're like of 0.76

00:30:14.160 course they were fucking having problems he's a dude that has never been told no to she's a person 0.70

00:30:19.640 trying to navigate like walking outside of her house they're under so much pressure his best 0.98

00:30:24.640 friend's dying of cancer his magazine's falling apart like the whole thing you're like of course

00:30:28.960 he was living in a hotel I would have kicked him out too like it's just it all makes sense but

00:30:34.040 speaking of how she was demonized in the aftermath of the plane crash all the stories were like they

00:30:39.700 took off late because she was having her nails done like she made them late or she was shopping

00:30:44.880 at Barney's for a dress and she made them late when the truth of the matter is he shouldn't have

00:30:49.980 been flying the plane you know he was not experienced enough to be flying that plane

00:30:55.640 in those conditions and they shouldn't have taken off and he even almost caused a plane crash

00:31:01.300 like an American Airlines flight was landing I don't remember was it Newark or LaGuardia or JFK

00:31:06.340 but there was an American Airlines flight coming in to Newark for landing that had to like do an

00:31:11.160 emergency divergence from to not hit their little Piper plane because he wasn't playing paying 1.00

00:31:15.780 attention to you know flight paths or whatever so like the ways in which we still use these women as

00:31:25.340 you know excuses for men in terrible ways or take it out on them is really has not changed

00:31:35.560 well so much hasn't changed to be honest what am I saying right I mean come on like so much

00:31:43.880 so much hasn't changed it is you know different generation different decade same stories yeah 0.99

00:31:51.500 over and over again you know it is always like the woman is always going to get the blame

00:31:56.060 especially in the media uh for a male's shortcomings oh all right let's let's take

00:32:04.520 one more quick break here and when we get back i want to dig back into that daryl hannah op-ed

00:32:09.700 okay we're back so daryl hannah i just i i have so much to say it's not going to fit into one

00:32:23.800 episode we're probably going to have to do another episode right like yes yes yes and yes you'll come

00:32:28.680 back next week i want to go back to that daryl hannah op-ed because again just the way she got 1.00

00:32:35.140 demonized in their relationship 1.00

00:32:37.040 and 0.99

00:32:38.740 shit all over in the press when 0.99

00:32:40.900 you know she was an established 0.99

00:32:42.720 famous actress doing

00:32:45.180 very well for herself

00:32:46.360 and yet you know she

00:32:48.840 was the one that was diminished in their

00:32:51.100 relationship is just

00:32:52.360 amazing to me. Look at John

00:32:54.760 you've got Daryl Hannah who is a

00:32:57.040 very successful

00:32:57.840 actress and in real

00:33:01.080 life I believe Daryl Hannah's stepfather

00:33:03.380 was a director and he married he was like lee radswell's second husband like there's a family

00:33:11.880 connection there somehow that i that is along those lines um but like she's a successful actress

00:33:20.860 who's been nominated for oscars right like she's she's no she's she's established what has john

00:33:27.720 done other than be john f kennedy jr which to be fair was not an easy thing to be but he hasn't

00:33:32.720 actually done anything and he marries the vice president of public relations at calvin klein

00:33:37.900 who herself is very successful he still hasn't done anything and it's like it's still these

00:33:44.800 women in the press being um not just being blamed but being diminished like how you know

00:33:53.720 oh john is doing her a favor by paying attention to her or that daryl hannah is not the serious 0.99

00:33:58.900 one here. And it's like, I don't think so. You know, or Madonna, or Sarah Jessica Parker.

00:34:08.620 All of these women, wildly successful, wildly successful, independent women,

00:34:14.540 just not good enough for this man who hasn't actually done anything successfully in his life

00:34:20.340 yet. Yeah. And I mean, all credit to John for dating these strong, successful women, right?

00:34:26.860 like he's not going to he's clearly was not attracted to sort of wallflowers yeah or like

00:34:32.800 not at all women who were just interested in in being sort of mrs kennedy he absolutely was going

00:34:38.740 for the women who stand their ground so it's like the depiction in the press

00:34:42.540 says so much more about about us than um than much else but yeah well it is yeah and speaking of of

00:34:56.140 you know how the family how everyone is reacting to this we now have another famous kennedy

00:35:03.160 in the spotlight in the spotlight in your neighborhood actually oh jack jack jack

00:35:10.000 schlossberg jack schlossberg up and up and coming star with the democratic party i mean here's another

00:35:15.040 thing about this show just the depiction of caroline kennedy in this show is not cruel but

00:35:21.720 it's not entirely flattering and i don't think it's flattering i don't i do not think the

00:35:26.200 depiction of anyone is flattering in this show except for carolyn and that is at best vaguely

00:35:32.280 flattering right exactly they're just actually giving her personality um yeah the caroline

00:35:40.480 and i'm just like caroline kennedy has had so much loss in her life and she's still a functioning

00:35:48.740 person who like functioned as ambassador and whose daughter just i mean it's just the whole

00:35:53.900 thing is so her life is tragic and her ability to shoulder it is sort of superhuman and watching her

00:36:00.760 this framing just feels unnecessary like it actually feels like every other woman in this

00:36:08.780 show is being framed two-dimensionally or somewhat cruelly except for carolyn and it's like can't

00:36:14.340 both things be true can't all the people in this show be sort of functional and fully

00:36:18.480 you know complicated but anyway jack schlossberg um i

00:36:24.760 personally i saw him i you know because you know i go to all of the i love nothing more than a

00:36:32.600 community board meeting um me too me too yeah me too and anyone's anyone's community board

00:36:39.320 board meeting not even my own not even my own yeah remember when we watched that one on zoom

00:36:43.360 in the castle yes i was i was listening to a friend's co-op board meeting the other night

00:36:47.960 And I was like, this is like the time I got to listen to Joe's community.

00:36:50.860 Like there's so much drama there.

00:36:52.280 But I went to a because Jerry Nadler, the longtime congressman from New York, who represents both the east and the west side, the upper east, upper west, is retiring.

00:37:06.020 And so there's like a frenzy for his seat.

00:37:09.020 And Jack Schlossberg, age 34, who's older than John F. Kennedy was when he launched George.

00:37:15.800 Yeah. Like we have a much different understanding of age to Carolyn Bessette was only 30 when she got married.

00:37:20.600 And at the time, I remember that thinking that not that that was old, but that she was a full grown up.

00:37:26.160 And now at 30, I'm like, why is anyone getting married at 30?

00:37:28.980 But I went and saw him speak and I thought.

00:37:34.660 I feel like you should be running for like high school president.

00:37:37.600 president he's not he does not strike me as a serious person or candidate which isn't to say

00:37:46.220 he shouldn't be doing this because how do you get experience and it's more voices are fine but really

00:37:51.160 I was watching it being like I think you need more experience or to do like it just does not

00:37:58.780 feel like a serious thing but right you know that we're never getting rid of the Kennedys 0.81

00:38:03.320 we're never getting no matter how much the universe tries to be honest yeah yeah yeah it's

00:38:09.880 it's very i actually think this is just the opening you know that we've had like 7 000

00:38:15.420 interpretations of jackie kennedy certainly a few of ethel we've had like endless crown

00:38:20.780 interpretations of princess die i'm like is this just the opening bell on jfk jr late 90s you know

00:38:29.280 like it feels it I can't tell if this because the frenzy over this makes me think that it's still so

00:38:36.160 new it's not new to us but it's still so new to so many people that it's like I don't know what

00:38:42.620 did they do though they didn't really do that much is the truth like Jackie Kennedy was accomplished

00:38:46.860 in the first lady um you know we're working with two with a couple that really as nice as they are

00:38:55.160 to look at and as tragic as their lives were did not accomplish like I guess they were like

00:39:02.440 accomplished for like normal people yeah yeah totally but but I think it's just the opening

00:39:07.240 gambit maybe not for them but for the 90s right yeah like I want I want more 90s I want more

00:39:12.980 non-fiction 90s I want more fiction 90s I want it all to be honest yeah I said this in a piece that

00:39:18.840 is not yet published and as we both know until something's published never know if it's going

00:39:24.460 to get published. But I think that our fascination with sort of the second half of the 90s and the

00:39:31.060 show being evidence of it is that it both is very recognizable to us. You know, I wrote a

00:39:37.440 Times op-ed six months ago of like so many of the people that were famous in the late 90s remain

00:39:43.140 at the apex of culture right now. You know, Kate Moss, Gwyneth Paltrow, Donald Trump,

00:39:48.520 Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston, like it's all just, they're

00:39:54.480 all still on the covers of magazines and they're all still influencing our culture. So on the one

00:39:59.140 hand, you can go back to the late nineties and it seems so familiar. You're like, I recognize all

00:40:04.620 of these people because we're still living with them. It does, it's not introducing a new culture.

00:40:08.840 And on the other hand, the late nineties removes so much of what we hate of our current lifestyle,

00:40:14.940 which is social media, the internet, the constant news. So it's like, it's this fantasy

00:40:20.980 slice of time, where you actually get to do the thing that we're all trying to do,

00:40:26.260 which is just take away our access to the phone and social media. And I think that is why we're

00:40:31.900 so obsessed with it. Because you could also go back to the 80s, the 70s, the 60s, or whatever,

00:40:36.280 you'd still have antibiotics, phones, and birth control. But it looks very different. But the

00:40:42.760 late 90s looks very similar it's like a cultural what's that thing called the brick where we all

00:40:49.500 put our phones in and can't access yeah this is like a time travel brick right like you can put

00:40:55.980 the stuff we hate into the brick and in the late 90s have the rest of it that we like and i think

00:41:01.600 that is really the core of what is pulling us in this direction right now personally i mean that's

00:41:07.540 my mic drop moment goodbye the 90s is a brick the 90s is a brick for brick for your brain

00:41:13.160 brick for your brain I love it I love it oh thank you Glynis you are a genius on this topic I could

00:41:19.660 read everything you write about the 90s I'd like to read more about what you write about the 90s

00:41:24.300 thanks Jo I appreciate that we'll see what happens well go have a lovely day I'm about

00:41:31.000 to head to Park City, Utah. Oh yeah, I'm flying out tonight and I am indeed touring the Ballerina

00:41:38.440 Farm Dairy tomorrow. Oh my God, that's amazing. Wait, are you going skiing? I'm skiing alone for

00:41:44.520 two days. Oh, I love this. This is a great, that's another mic drop. I'm going to finish

00:41:49.900 the last ride, my new novel, and ski alone for two days. This is, it's the dream. I'm living

00:41:58.380 the dream and i'll also be shopping the entire ballerina farm au revoir and meeting her cows

00:42:04.560 oh my god this is great i know i don't think i knew i didn't think i knew she was near park city

00:42:09.440 but of course utah makes sense midway utah my friend midway utah more ways than one

00:42:15.240 in more ways than one so my friend how wonderful bonjourné bonjourné all the bones all the bone

00:42:26.160 all the bones

00:42:56.160 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 10, 2026

Is This Actually a Love Story？ JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, the Nineties and Parliament Lights

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