TW: SA, SI

The last time we discussed Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s presidential campaign is when the New York Times suddenly revealed that RFK Jr. admitted, in a deposition, that a worm ate part of his brain and died in his skull, and the worm’s carcass is still in there, somewhere. It really does explain a lot. Recently, I read some stuff about how RFK Jr. treated his second wife Mary Richardson, how he screwed around on her, dumped her and then cut her off financially, and she died by suicide. Basically, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that RFK Jr’s past deserves more examination, especially given that there’s such a concerted effort to make his ratf–king campaign “happen.”

Well, now Vanity Fair has tried to do a deeper dive, but their framing is infuriating – VF’s main argument is “why hasn’t the Kennedy family exposed Robert publicly?” Because they’re the Kennedys and they don’t want family scandals to become THE story, especially when the rest of the family is loudly supporting Joe Biden. Very few Kennedys spoke to VF, but VF spoke to a lot of people who have been in RFK Jr’s orbit over the years, and there are some shocking stories. He’s a crass meathead (wormhead) who ate a dog and sexually assaulted his kids’ babysitter, among many other stories. You can read the full Vanity Fair piece here. Some highlights:

Kerry Kennedy on trying to convince Robert to drop out: “I’ve spoken to Bobby about this race, about what’s at stake, about the importance of supporting Joe Biden, of the impact of the Trump presidency on our country and on the world… and I was clearly unpersuasive.” Asked to share insight into her brother’s motives and psychology, she begs off: “Well, you need to have a degree, which I don’t have.”

The barbecued dog: Last year Robert Kennedy Jr. texted a photograph to a friend. In the photo RFK Jr. was posing, alongside an unidentified woman, with the barbecued remains of what appears to be a dog. Kennedy told the person, who was traveling to Asia, that he might enjoy a restaurant in Korea that served dog on the menu, suggesting Kennedy had sampled dog. The photo was taken in 2010, according to the digital file’s metadata—the same year he was diagnosed with a dead tapeworm in his brain. The picture’s intent seems to have been comedic—Kennedy and his companion are pantomiming—but for the recipient it was disturbing evidence of Kennedy’s poor judgment and thoughtlessness, simultaneously mocking Korean culture, reveling in animal cruelty, and needlessly risking his reputation and that of his family.

He used to text photos of his mistresses/conquests to friends: When Kennedy was married to his second wife, Mary Richardson, he was known to text other damning images to friends as well—of nude women. Those friends assumed Kennedy himself had taken the pictures, but they didn’t know whether the subjects had consented to having their genitalia photographed, let alone shared with other people.

His brain fog isn’t just about the brain-eating worm: But more often his family points to Kennedy’s 14 years as a heroin user, which began when Kennedy was 15 and didn’t end until he was 29. Kennedy has made his history of addiction part of his campaign narrative, arguing that he is more equipped to fix America’s addiction problem. Critics in his family feel otherwise. One Kennedy has circulated a report from the National Institutes of Health on the impact of long-term heroin abuse, which surmises that the damage can alter the physiology of the brain, “creating long-term imbalances in neuronal and hormonal systems that are not easily reversed” and “which may affect decision-making abilities, the ability to regulate behavior, and responses to stressful situations.”

He sexually assaulted a babysitter: In the fall of 1998, the Kennedys hired a 23-year-old woman, Eliza Cooney, as their part-time babysitter….One night Cooney attended a meeting in the family kitchen with Kennedy and another young Riverkeeper volunteer named Murray Fisher to discuss business when she felt Kennedy’s hand moving up and down her leg under the table. A few months later, Cooney says, she was rifling through the kitchen pantry for lunch after a yoga class, still in her sports bra and leggings, when Kennedy came up behind her, blocked her inside the room, and began groping her, putting his hands on her hips and sliding them up along her rib cage and breasts. “My back was to the door of the pantry, and he came up behind me,” she says, describing the alleged sexual assault. “I was frozen. Shocked.”

[From Vanity Fair]

Kennedy was asked about Cooney’s accusation of sexual assault this week, and I’m including his response below, which is sickening. Basically, VF is accusing the Kennedy family of not doing enough to fully expose the extent of what they know about RFK Jr and how absolutely awful he is. It really isn’t just the dead worm which ate part of his brain. It’s also the more than a decade of heroin and cocaine abuse, plus a lifetime of pathological lying, decades of infidelity and predatory behavior and yeah, the dog thing. My god.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.