What You Might Not Know About RFK Jr.

It's Not Pretty

I was talking to one of my neighbors about RFK Jr.’s second wife Mary. Mary and Bobby lived one town over, in Bedford, NY and their story, actually her story, was one of the saddest things I had ever heard. One that also made me furious. My neighbor, being a recent transplant from California, didn’t know anything about it- and suggested I do a Substack about them. So here I am.

Mary Richardson Kennedy (1959-2012) was an interior designer and co-founder of the Food Allergy Initiative, the largest fund for food allergy research in the United States. She was beautiful, smart, accomplished. In 1994 she married Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the brother of her close friend Kerry. The two of them had four children together (Bobby also had two children with his first wife). I used to see him at our local diner, the gym, etc. and I was always struck by how much he looked like his father.

Kennedy was not faithful- far from it. He had one affair after another. According to Wikipedia he was known among his friends for “sending explicit nude photos of women that they assumed he had taken.” Then there were the allegations that he had sexually assaulted the family babysitter. Before her death, Mary had discovered Kennedy’s personal journal from 2001 in which he recorded sexual encounters with 37 different women.

After Kennedy filed for divorce, he became ruthless. He tried to get custody of their kids. He asked Mary’s therapist to declare her mentally ill- the therapist refused saying, “Your wife isn’t mentally ill. She is angry and depressed, but she is not ill.” Who wouldn’t be angry and depressed in her situation?

Bobby cut off Mary’s credit card which was court-approved for $20,000 a month in living expenses. She was no longer allowed at the Kennedy compound. According to People magazine Mary was reduced to asking other moms at her kids’ school for gas and grocery money. I believe at this point he was seeing the actress Cheryl Hines.

On the morning of May 16, 2012, Mary went out to her barn and hung herself.

After the funeral, Bobby had a fight with Mary’s brother about where she should be buried. Kennedy won and she was buried beside his aunt Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her husband, Sargent Shriver. A week later, in the middle of the night and without legal permitting, Bobby had her dug up and moved away from the family plot. When the media got wind of what he had done, he said he didn’t realize how “crowded” the area was until after the funeral. He threw her away in life and death.

Conspiracy theorist, former heroin addict, anti-vaxxer, - his siblings and cousins spoke out against his nomination for United State Secretary of Health and Human Services. Caroline Kennedy called him a predator. But as you know, he was confirmed and sworn in yesterday.

I can’t imagine a worse person for the job. I can’t imagine a worse person. Par for the course and a perfect fit for the Trump administration.

I suppose this was an odd tale to tell on Valentine’s Day. But not every love story has a happy ending. Some have villains and sometimes those villains win.

I thought you should know.