Molly Ringwald Says Johnny Carson's Ex-Wife Joanne Was Like a Social 'Outcast' After They Divorced (Exclusive)

The actress portrays Joanne Carson in 'Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans' and tells PEOPLE "she and Truman were kind of outcasts together"

Times have changed in many ways since the era depicted in Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans, one of them being how society views divorce.

Molly Ringwald stars as Joanne Carson in the FX limited series, playing TV personality Johnny Carson’s second wife after they split.

Truman Capote, portrayed by Tom Hollander, considered Joanne one of his closest confidantes after he alienated his best friends in Manhattan’s elite by sharing intimate details of their personal lives in "La Côte Basque, 1965,” a chapter from his book Answered Prayers.

Related: Diane Lane Recalls Meeting Truman Capote’s Ex-Friend Lee Radziwill: 'Still an Aura of Betrayal' (Exclusive)

“She and Truman were kind of outcasts together,” Ringwald, 55, tells PEOPLE. “After she divorces Johnny Carson, my character is kind of thrown out of this sort of inset in Los Angeles.”

Johnny and Joanne Carson tied the knot in 1963, but split seven years later. They officially divorced in 1972. Joanne maintained a friendship with Capote despite his reputation in New York City. He had a writing room in her home and died there in 1985.

“Joanne was really his last friend and kind of the only person that really seemed to love him unconditionally and really supported his writing, even though he had written some things about her,” Ringwald says. “I think she was one of the few people that said, ‘Well, it doesn't really matter that much.’ He’s a writer and she just really seemed to understand that, as opposed to these other women who were really scandalized and so insulted.”

On Feud, Calista Flockhart, Diane Lane, Demi Moore, Chloë Sevigny and Naomi Watts play the “swans,” as Captoe called them, who ousted the author from their inner circle after Esquire published "La Côte Basque, 1965” in 1975.

"La Côte Basque, 1965” outed an affair Babe Paley’s (Watts) husband supposedly had with the wife of a New York governor and alleged that Ann Woodward (Moore) murdered her husband. (The 1955 shooting of Woodward’s husband, William Jr., had been deemed an accident.)

The swans found themselves constantly in the public eye and always sported the latest designer looks, dined at the poshest restaurants and attended New York City’s most exclusive parties. Joanne’s life in Los Angeles looked a little different.

“At a different time in her life, when she was married to one of the most famous men in America, I think there probably was a lot of pressure to be a certain way and to be a hostess,” Ringwald says. “All of these women's lives were controlled a bit by their husbands.”

The Pretty in Pink star likens the swans to “American royalty.”

“Because we don't really have one, we had to invent that,” she says. “And then I think it sort of became Hollywood.”

Related: Demi Moore Reveals If She Thinks Her Feud Character Ann Woodward Really Meant to Kill Her Husband (Exclusive)

Today, Ringwald thinks the kind of women the public looks up to serve as positive role models.

“I think we've come to a place where a lot of the women that people look up to are women that are creating their own destiny, like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé,” Ringwald says. “When I'm thinking about these women, it's not who they're married to, it's what they're doing. That's definitely an improvement.”

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Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX.

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