BBQ-ed ‘dog’, brain worms and texting nudes to friends: RFK Jr’s back story is even wilder than you thought

America’s most famous political family dynasty has rejected the presidential campaign of one of their own – and it’s not just because of a BBQ-ed dog (or goat). Gustaf Kilander writes

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Libertarian National Convention on May 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. His own family endorsed Joe Biden (Getty Images)

In April, the Kennedy family made clear who they prefer in the 2024 presidential race. And it wasn’t one of their own.

The storied political family has produced one president, two senators, several House members, and one Robert F Kennedy Jr.

At least 15 members of the family officially endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and not RFK Jr, their environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist relative who is now running for president.

Kerry Kennedy, the niece of President John F Kennedy and the sister of RFK Jr, said as she introduced the president at the Martin Luther King Jr Recreation Centre in Philadelphia: “We want to make crystal clear our feeling that the best way forward for America is to reelect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to four more years.”

Saying that it would be a vote for “our democracy and decency,” she added: “Nearly every single grandchild of Joe and Rose Kennedy supports Joe Biden. That’s right, the Kennedy family endorses Joe Biden for president.”

Even as she rejected her brother and his fledgling campaign for president, she made no mention of him by name.

Last week, Kennedy was left out of that infamous debate between Biden and Trump.

But the 70-year-old independent political candidate made the best of things, taking part in an interview with TV personality Phil McGraw broadcast that same night.

“Yeah, I have a perception problem, particularly in the mainstream media,” he told Dr Phil in the interview, noting that some voters may see him as a “lunatic.”

But how was that perception created? Another sister of Kennedy’s once admitted decades ago that her brother sometimes says “some crazy s***.”

‘He can say some crazy s***’

Kennedy appeared in an HBO documentary 20 years ago regarding the dangers of building a nuclear plant on the Hudson River. Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable was directed by his sister Rory Kennedy, who warned her production team that her brother would need to be heavily fact-checked after appearing in the film, “even though he might come across as an expert,” according to Vanity Fair. 

“He can say some crazy s***,” she told her crew.

The film was already edited when producers found that Kennedy’s interviews were filled with false claims, which had to be removed. HBO had asked for more of Kennedy to be included in the film, not less. After he gave a speech at the film’s premiere, some in the audience asked Rory Kennedy why she hadn’t included more of his points in the film – she couldn’t say that it was because they were inaccurate.

83 dead in Samoa

In 2019, a measles outbreak in Samoa caused the deaths of 83 people – most of whom were children. Kennedy visited the island nation a few months before the outbreak.

“I’m aware there was a measles outbreak … I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa,” he said in the 2023 documentary Shot in the Arm.

“I never told anybody not to vaccinate. I didn’t go there with any reason to do with that.”

But the anti-vax nonprofit Kennedy led until joining the presidential race, Children’s Health Defense, had helped to spread misinformation which reportedly increased the number of people choosing not to vaccinate just before the deadly outbreak, according to Mother Jones. 

The Independent has contacted Children’s Health Defense for comment.

During his trip, he also publicly backed anti-vax figures in Samoa, and in 2021 had called one of the vaccination opponents a “hero.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. attends The Nautica-Riverkeeper Challenge benefit April 4, 2001 at Pier 60 in New York City. He has rejected claims he’s against vaccines (Getty Images)

In the interview with Dr Phil, he claimed that he’s fully vaccinated apart from Covid-19, adding that his children are also fully vaccinated.

“I’ve always said I’m not anti-vaccine,” he said.

He added: “I’m never going to take anybody’s vaccine. If vaccines are working for you, God bless you. I believe in choice and liberty, that government shouldn’t be ordering people to take a product, particularly one that is protected from liability.”

BBQ-ed dog

Kennedy texted an image of himself to a friend last year, seemingly showing himself with a woman and the barbecued remains of what appeared to be a dog, according to Vanity Fair.

The presidential candidate told the person, who was set to go to Asia, that he may enjoy a restaurant in Korea that served dog, possibly suggesting that Kennedy had eaten dog in the past. The file’s metadata shows that the image was taken in 2010 – the year that Kennedy was found to have a dead tapeworm in his brain.

The picture appeared to have been an attempt at a joke, but for the person who received it, it was interpreted as lacking in judgment as it mocked Korean culture, appeared to celebrate animal cruelty, and pointlessly created a major risk to his and his family’s reputation, Vanity Fair noted.

Kennedy has since denied the suggestion that he ate a dog, insisting that it was actually a goat. “It’s me in a campfire in Patagonia on the Futaleufu River eating a goat, which is what we eat down there,” he told Fox News.

Texting nudes to friends

During his marriage to Mary Richardson, his second wife, Kennedy was known to send photos to friends of nude women. The recipients assumed that Kennedy had been behind the camera but they were unaware if the women had given their consent to be photographed, or for the images to be shared with others, the magazine reported.

The Independent has contacted the Kennedy campaign for comment.

Richardson died by suicide in 2012, two years after Kennedy filed for divorce.

Kennedy announced that he’s running for president as an independent on October 9 2023 (Getty Images)

Tapeworm and heroin

There are many ideas and theories regarding Kennedy’s at times careless behavior. His family was aware of the tapeworm for quite some time before it was reported by The New York Times. In court testimony, Kennedy said he had gotten it from the food he had while in South Asia, adding that the tapeworm ate part of his brain which led to long-lasting “brain fog.”

But the Kennedy family has instead cited his 14-year-long use of heroin from the age of 15, Vanity Fair noted. Kennedy has used his addiction as part of his campaign message, saying that he’s the man to fix Americans’ problems with drugs. But one member of his family has instead sent around a National Institutes of Health report stating that longtime heroin use may change the physiology of the brain and create “long-term imbalances in neuronal and hormonal systems that are not easily reversed.”

“Studies have shown some deterioration of the brain’s white matter due to heroin use, which may affect decision-making abilities, the ability to regulate behavior, and responses to stressful situations,” it adds.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. addresses delegates during the Democratic National Convention July 28, 2004 at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts. Six years later, a tapeworm would enter his brain in South Asia (Getty Images)

‘I’m not a church boy’: Ex-nanny alleges sexual assault

Kennedy succinctly summarised the many stories from his past when he responded to allegations that he sexually assaulted a nanny at his home in 1998.

“Listen, I have said this from the beginning. I am not a church boy. I am not running like that,” he said on the Breaking Points podcast. “I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”

The candidate made the comments after former babysitter Eliza Cooney claimed that he assaulted her, according to Vanity Fair.

Cooney, now 48, was 23 when she was hired by Kennedy and his then-wife as a live-in nanny at their home in Mount Kisco, New York. She told the magazine that she kept the alleged assault a secret until the start of the MeToo movement in 2017 when she told her mother about her time with the Kennedys.

After Kennedy announced his campaign, Cooney also told a couple of friends and an attorney.

She claimed that Kennedy touched her leg during a business meeting and that he went into her room shirtless and asked her to rub lotion on his back.

“I thought, ‘isn’t Mary home?’” she said. “Doesn’t she do this for you?”

She put the lotion on, reluctantly, saying that it was “totally inappropriate.”

Cooney also said that Kennedy once came up behind her, blocked her inside the room, and put his hands on her hips before sliding them up.

“My back was to the door of the pantry and he came up behind me,” Cooney told the magazine. “I was frozen. Shocked.”

“The article is a lot of garbage,” Kennedy said on the podcast before accusing the magazine of “recycling 30-year-old stories.”

When asked if he was rejecting Cooney’s claims, he said: “I’m not going to comment on it.”

On May 1 this year, Kennedy called on Biden to drop out of the race, claiming that he himself is the best candidate to beat Trump.

“We only have one chance to beat Donald Trump, and we need a nominee who can get the job done. And that would be me,” he said at the time.

In FiveThirtyEight’s polling average of the national polls, Kennedy stands at just under 10 per cent.

Yet, even if Biden does choose to leave the race after his debate debacle, the chance that the Democrats would pick Kennedy remains less than minuscule.