How Love Story Flips The Viral "Curly Hair Theory" On Its Head

Ever since the Love Story finale dropped last Thursday, the outfit recreations, fact checks, and fan theories about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy haven’t let up. If anything, people are looking even closer — especially at CBK, played by Sarah Pidgeon, whose internal conflict becomes the real focus in the final few episodes.

At the core of her story arc is a push-pull between her desire for privacy and desire to be with John, and the slow acceptance that she can’t have both. The paparazzi frenzy has relegated her to their apartment, her day-to-day shrinking in an almost agoraphobic way that feels completely at odds with the character that viewers met at the beginning — an up-and-coming Calvin Klein publicist who could work a room with just a hair flip.

In turn, her hair has its own narrative trajectory. When Carolyn first meets JFK Jr., it falls in looser waves. But post-marriage in Episode 6, it turns a few shades blonder and blown-out. Maybe it’s a reach, but that tiny shift feels impossible not read into alongside the rest of the relationship — especially if you’ve seen the curly hair theory floating around social media.

What Is The “Curly Hair Theory”?

First popping up in 2024, the “theory” posits that how you style your strands can say a lot about how you’re feeling about a partner. If you’re in a healthy relationship, you feel comfortable enough to be yourself — which usually means leaning into your natural texture. On the flip side, straight hair feels more controlled, almost like a protective armor for when you’re on the fence about opening up with someone (or in Carolyn’s case, shutting down).

The whole thing basically comes down to this: how you look when you’re in love is different from how you look when you’re not. Not exactly groundbreaking science — but once you hear it, it forever changes how you watch rom-coms. Just look at How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days: Andie Anderson’s hair is straight for most of the movie while she’s “researching” her article, aka actively trying to sabotage her relationship with Ben Barry. But once the jig is up and she gets vulnerable, she wears it curly, and the two end up happily ever after. (Kate Hudson even confirmed the curly hair theory re: the movie on TikTok.)

CBK’s Hair Story

In Love Story, the curly hair theory runs in reverse. As Carolyn’s relationship with John starts to unravel, everything about her image tightens. She pulls her hair into a sleek updo if she’s not wearing it straight down; she chooses a nude manicure instead of a red one. It speaks to how aware she is of being watched — and how much she’s trying to reclaim a sense of agency, even within her marriage.

In the finale, there’s that line from their therapist about them “white-knuckling” the relationship — you won’t come together and you won’t let go — and it’s hard not to see that tension in how put-together Carolyn ultimately becomes. TikTok can’t decide where the two leave off — or whether there was any hope for reconciliation — but either way, her hair ends up as evidence.

Then again, her wavy-to-straight transformation might not be about relationship status at all. The show, of course, tracks Carolyn and John through the ’90s, from when they first meet in 1992 to their passing in 1999. So is her wavy hair simply a matter of late ’80s and early ’90s texture, and her sleek hair a symptom of the Rachel Green-era blowout?

Possibly. The curly hair theory might not be proven flat-out, but it does suggest one thing: in Love Story, beauty isn’t just background noise. It’s another way of understanding the central relationship: what Carolyn is holding onto — and what she’s quietly losing.