Actor Daryl Hannah is going public about what she said was a "dramatized portrayal" of her in Ryan Murphy's latest limited FX series, "Love Story."
Hannah penned an essay, published Friday in The New York Times, titled "Daryl Hannah: How Can ‘Love Story’ Get Away With This?" that tackles her frustrations with the way she has been portrayed in the show, which follows the lives and tragic deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.
Hannah and Kennedy dated for years before he eventually married Bessette. The pair were killed in a plane crash in 1999.
"A dramatized portrayal can become, for millions of viewers, the definitive version of a real person’s life," Hannah wrote. She noted that she has, for years, chosen not to respond to media coverage of herself out of fear of amplifying it, until "a recent tragedy-exploiting television series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette features a character using my name and presents her as me."
"The choice to portray her as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident," Hannah said.
As Hannah pointed out, one of the producers of the show, Nina Jacobson, told Gold Derby that production did not reach out to Hannah while creating the show to discuss how she would be portrayed.
Jacobson also told the outlet that Hannah "occupies a space where she’s an adversary to what you want narratively in the story," as viewers root for Kennedy and Bessette to get together.
"Storytelling requires tension. It often requires an obstacle. But a real, living person is not a narrative device," Hannah wrote. "Isn’t it textbook misogyny to tear down one woman in order to build up another?"
Hannah said the version of her in the show isn't "even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John" and said many of the behaviors the character engages in on screen are untrue.
She said she's never used cocaine or hosted parties fueled by the drug. Hannah said she has never pressured anyone into marriage, or desecrated a Kennedy family heirloom, or intruded on any private memorials. She said she never planted stories in the media and she never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s.
All things the show portrays her character as doing.
"It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show," Hannah wrote. "These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false."
Since the show started airing on Feb. 12, Hannah said she has gotten hostile and threatening messages from viewers "who seem to believe the portrayal is factual."
"When entertainment borrows a real person’s name, it can permanently impact her reputation," she said in the essay.
But there's much more to her reputation than simply being an ex of Kennedy's, Hannah wrote. She said she has worked on environmental advocacy, documentary filmmaking, and animal-assisted therapy for older adults living with dementia and Alzheimer’s for decades.
"My professional life is built on compassion and responsibility. Reputation is not about ego; it is about the ability to continue doing the meaningful work I love," she said. "Like any career, doing good work requires an intact reputation. This is why I am choosing to stand up for myself now."
"Many people believe what they see on TV and do not distinguish between dramatization and documented fact — and the impact is not abstract. In a digital era, entertainment often becomes collective memory," Hannah said. "Real names are not fictional tools. They belong to real lives."
