If the true narrative of Carolyn Bessette were depicted in Ryan Murphy’s “Love Story,” it’s likely nobody would aspire to mirror her life. The series, however, takes significant creative liberties, which raises eyebrows when even celebrities like Daryl Hannah openly criticize it in major publications like the New York Times.

Daryl Hannah, now 65, was famously involved with John F. Kennedy Jr. just before his relationship with Carolyn Bessette began. It is widely speculated that John was unfaithful to Hannah with Bessette during that period.

Having stepped away from the limelight, Hannah currently leads a peaceful life with her husband, musician Neil Young. She has distanced herself from the usual trappings of celebrity life, foregoing red carpet appearances and media interviews.

Thus, when she does speak out, it’s clear she’s deeply upset. Her outrage is palpable as she asserts in her New York Times piece that, “The character ‘Daryl Hannah’ portrayed in the series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct, or my relationship with John.” She firmly denies the series’ portrayal of her engaging in cocaine use, hosting wild parties, pressurizing John Kennedy into marriage, or any of the other inaccuracies depicted.

Hannah vehemently refutes any assertions that she desecrated family heirlooms, intruded on private memorials, or planted stories in the media. She also takes issue with the show suggesting she made insensitive comparisons regarding Jacqueline Onassis’ death. “It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show,” she states, emphasizing that these are not mere creative flourishes but false claims about her conduct.

‘The character ‘Daryl Hannah’ portrayed in the series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John,’ Hannah writes. ‘The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue. I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s. It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show. These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct – and they are false.’

So strident is Hannah’s defense of herself that one wonders if she’ll sue for defamation.

I, for one, think she should — in no small part because Love Story’s writers seem to have made the calculation that in order to make Bessette look great, so clearly the perfect wife for John Jr, that they had to destroy Hannah’s character.

Here’s the truth about Carolyn Bessette: She was the one with the cocaine problem. She was the one who pretended to have zero interest in marriage while plotting to work her way into JFK Jr’s circle, meet and marry him.

John F. Kennedy Jr. and his Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy leave a party in New York in 1996

Carolyn Bessette substance abuse is well documented. Kennedy also had a drug habit

And Carolyn Bessette was violent. She physically abused at least one boyfriend before JFK Jr, but this mini-series — still #1 on Hulu, six weeks in — depicts Bessette as near-perfect.

This is sick. It’s dangerous. Projects such as this, based on a hagiographic biography of Bessette, only further not just the myth of the Kennedys but a grave, fundamental misunderstanding of who these people were and what their place in history should be.

And so we saw, just this week, an online auction of Bessette’s clothes in which one of her Prada coats — camel, cloth — sold for $192,000.

If the truth about her were more widely told, more commonly known and accepted, no woman in her right mind would idolize her.

In his now out-of-print memoir, Carolyn’s ex-boyfriend, Calvin Klein model Michael Bergin, writes that Bessette had two abortions, both babies his, and confessed that she ‘lost’ a third pregnancy while dating JFK Jr.

She was selfish. She went after her close friends’ boyfriends. She told a CK colleague who worshipped her to dump an otherwise great boyfriend because he didn’t make enough money. Her mantra was ‘date them, train them, dump them.’

Bessette would invite one man she dated before JFK Jr — a working actor whose brother went on to television fame — to dinner with her friends, where she would proceed to mock him, to his face, for being so besotted with her.

In his now out-of-print memoir, Carolyn’s ex-boyfriend, Calvin Klein model Michael Bergin (pictured with her), writes that Bessette had two abortions, both babies his 

So when Bessette’s friends and former colleagues saw the photos and videos of her and JFK Jr brawling in a New York City park in 1996 — of Carolyn jumping on John from behind, screaming in his face, trying to yank their dog away — they said to themselves, as one told me: ‘That’s the real Carolyn.’

Not that Murphy’s Love Story treats the fight with the gravity — the alarm, frankly — it deserves.

The show goes so far as to romanticize this most public display of physical abuse: Bessette abusing John and John abusing Bessette, in real life ripping the engagement ring off her finger so violently that a stone fell out and shoving her away, by her face, with the palm of his hand.

In Murphy’s retelling, the fight was simply about Bessette’s reluctance to accept John’s marriage proposal — a crucible they had to endure to get to real love. True love. Marriage.

It’s such toxic messaging, especially to young women. And it’s thoroughly untrue.

Daryl Hannah, 65, famously dated John F Kennedy Jr (pictured together in 1993) right before Carolyn Bessette — in fact, John was likely cheating on Hannah with Bessette  

In real life, Bessette was enraged about John ‘flirting’ — likely much more — with at least one other woman.

That’s the other thing about JFK Jr — contrary to the myth peddled by friends and family, he was chronically unfaithful to his girlfriends, incapable of being alone, and in the sadistic habit of bullying them into potentially fatal stunts.

None of that is in Love Story, and what a shame. It would have made for much more compelling viewing. Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction.

As for the September wedding on Georgia’s Cumberland Island, it’s depicted by Murphy as the stuff of fairytales, a tiny affair on a near-private island, in a historic chapel, by candlelight.

In reality, the guests wound up sweating profusely through their clothes in the sweltering heat while bitten by chiggers — microscopic bugs that cause welts and bleeding — while the bride threw a fit over her wedding gown, the groom having neglected to notice that said chapel had no air-conditioning and that the windows were painted shut.

Murphy also has his lovers swimming naked, in the ocean, as the sky and water go grey — a harbinger of their violent, premature, wholly avoidable deaths fetishized into something romantic.

As Hannah wrote in the Times: ‘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.’

And a deeply disturbed, violent, unhappy woman with a drug problem becomes a fashion icon for the ages.

How sick is that?