Jack Schlossberg said he showed his mother, Caroline Kennedy, one clip from Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, and they laughed so hard it was hard to stop. The 33-year-old said the moment made the scene feel less like a dramatization and more like an imitation of the way his mother actually acts.
“I showed her a clip of her,” Schlossberg said on April 15, adding that “and we were laughing so hard.” He said, “The person was freaking out,” but that he and his mother were “just laughing so hard as if that’s how my mom acts.”
Schlossberg also said Ben Shenkman’s portrayal of his father, Edwin Schlossberg, amused him, especially because the show dressed him “up in some plaid outfit.” He called his father “the most stylish guy I’ve ever met,” saying, “so it’s funny.”
Still, Schlossberg did not pretend the family came off well. When Katie Couric noted that his parents were maybe not portrayed in a very positive way, he agreed. He described Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg as “the two nicest, most dignified, private people in the whole world,” and said they “do nothing but help others.”
The comments came in the context of Love Story, Murphy’s project about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and after Schlossberg had already been publicly pushing back on the way his family is discussed. In July, he posted on Instagram that his earliest memories of John F. Kennedy Jr. included being called “Jackolatern” and “the nudist,” getting picked up from school in a Pontiac convertible, being ring bearer at his wedding, and remembering the day he died, as well as Wyclef singing at his funeral.
He said he had no problem with anyone who liked the show or watched it. But he drew a line at how the story frames the family. “I’m glad my uncle John was so cool,” he said. “It’s not surprising that people—once they remember who he was—want to dress like him and be like him. He was awesome. He was a smart, attractive person who cared about politics and tried to blend politics and media in his time, just like I’m trying to do right now with social media and politics and our campaign.”
“My issue is—we have a lot of serious problems facing our country, and my family, we’re not just celebrities,” Schlossberg said. “We’re not just icons. These are public servants.” That is the point behind the schlossberg kennedy love story reaction: he could laugh at the casting, but he would not accept a version of the Kennedys that flattens them into spectacle while he is running for congress.
