{"id":67929,"date":"2024-11-29T17:38:53","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T17:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/2024\/11\/29\/kennedys-inheritance-how-addiction-and-trauma-shaped-a-turbulent-life\/"},"modified":"2024-11-29T17:50:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T17:50:03","slug":"kennedys-inheritance-how-addiction-and-trauma-shaped-a-turbulent-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/2024\/11\/29\/kennedys-inheritance-how-addiction-and-trauma-shaped-a-turbulent-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy\u2019s inheritance: How addiction and trauma shaped a turbulent life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-8864793242727901\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<header class=\"m-article-header m-article-header--standard\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span id=\"article-header-primary-term\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"a-term a-term--primary\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/tag\/politics\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPolitics\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"m-article-header__sub-headline\">Donald Trump\u2019s pick to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reached a pinnacle of power after a life of fame and addictions and a career intertwined with conspiracy theories.<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"a-photo m-article-header__photo\"><figcaption class=\"a-photo__caption\">\n\tFriends and close associates say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s choices are best understood as a quest to live up to the legacy of his father, who was assassinated while running for president in 1968.<em> Kenny Holston \/ The New York Times<\/em>\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"m-article-header__meta\">\n<div class=\"m-article-header__byline\">\n<p class=\"m-article-header__author\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Susanne Craig and Rebecca Davis O\u2019Brien, New York Times Service\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<time class=\"m-article-header__date\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNovember 29, 2024 | 12:38 PM\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/time><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<p>In September 1983, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fell ill on a flight to Rapid City, South Dakota. The pilot radioed ahead for medics. By dint of his famous name, Kennedy, then 29 and fresh out of law school, was taken to a VIP room at the airport, where investigators found heroin in his luggage.<\/p>\n<p>By his own account, Kennedy, who later pleaded guilty to a felony charge of possessing heroin, had become addicted to the drug in his teens, as he struggled to cope with the assassination of his father. Two days after the airplane episode, he checked himself into a New Jersey drug treatment center. He says he has been sober ever since.<\/p>\n<p>Now Kennedy is President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s pick to be health secretary, a nomination he landed after a renegade presidential campaign in which he cast his life as a redemption story. He told a conservative Christian radio host this year that as an addicted and troubled young man he had undergone a \u201cspiritual awakening\u201d and \u201cknew he had to change at a deep, fundamental way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet Kennedy\u2019s early fight for sobriety was far from the end of his battles with demons and self-destructive impulses. An examination of his life, gleaned through interviews with more than a dozen people, court filings and his own statements, reveals his distinct pattern of cycling through extremes \u2014 including his early drug addiction, compulsive sexual behavior and deep dives into conspiracy theories \u2014 all while under the microscope of fame.<\/p>\n<p>At midlife, Kennedy won public acclaim as a crusading environmental lawyer who sued corporate polluters, cleaned up rivers and lobbied to protect New York\u2019s drinking water. But he was also a serial philanderer who <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2013\/09\/08\/rfk-jr-s-sex-diary-of-adultery\/\">kept a journal chronicling his encounters<\/a> and assigned numerical scores to women, even as he berated himself for his inability to control his actions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/09\/20\/business\/media\/olivia-nuzzi-rfk-jr.html\">His infidelities<\/a> contributed to the breakup of his second marriage, according to interviews with people who knew the couple. A former nanny who worked for his family during this time also has accused Kennedy of making sexual overtures toward her and touching her without consent.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32423606\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-6749fadc18435-scaled.jpg?width=900 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mr. Kennedy began his presidential bid in April 2023 as a \u201cKennedy Democrat\u201d \u2014 and initially notched double-digit polling numbers \u2014 but later left the party to run as an independent.<i> \u2013 Sophie Park for The New York Times<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As an anti-vaccine advocate, Kennedy has plunged into dark and conspiratorial views of government, the press, scientific institutions and especially the drug industry. He has promoted wild and debunked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/rfk-conspiracy-theories-fact-check.html\">theories<\/a>, suggesting AIDS could be caused by \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/patriottakes\/status\/1671161500495646724\">poppers<\/a>,\u201d an inhaled drug popularized by gay men in the 1970s, rather than HIV. He backed a documentary asserting that the 2020 pandemic was a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/patriottakes\/status\/1859282403262415068?t=9ClBWvnhh5uMKhDFeOpcPg&#038;s=19\">plandemic<\/a>\u201d \u2014 an event orchestrated by the government as part of an effort to undermine American liberties.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy declined a request for an interview. Friends and close associates say his choices are best understood as a quest to live up to the legacy of his father and namesake, Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general, senator and liberal icon who was assassinated while running for president in 1968.<\/p>\n<p>One friend, who like many others interviewed for this article declined to be named, said Kennedy\u2019s self-aggrandizing drive to emulate his father was a \u201ctragic flaw\u201d that gave rise to \u201cthe need for adulation, the need for recognition, the need for followers.\u201d The younger Kennedy has long embraced his family mythology and imagined himself as a new hero.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything that has happened in my life,\u201d Kennedy said in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=guw1fLJs5EY\">a campaign video<\/a>, \u201chas led me to where I am right now \u2014 the deaths, the tragedies, the addiction, the recovery, finding a deep belief in God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the road Kennedy has traveled led him to an alliance with a man his family and fellow Democrats regard as anathema. Trump brought him into his fold to consolidate his base, and Kennedy entered, telling uneasy allies it was his best chance of effecting real change.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1700\" src=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32423612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb1db122b-scaled.jpg?width=900 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at home in Los Angeles, June 10, 2024. Kennedy, Donald Trump\u00d5s pick to be health secretary, has reached a pinnacle of power after a life of fame and addictions and a career intertwined with conspiracy theories. <i> \u2013 Ruth Fremson\/The New York Times<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Other Kennedys have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2024-election\/kennedy-family-members-denounce-rfk-jr-trump-endorsement-rcna168024\">repeatedly denounced him<\/a>. His sister Kerry Kennedy says her brother has \u201cset fire\u201d to their father\u2019s legacy and called the decision to back Trump \u201ca sad ending to a sad story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Close friends and supporters bristle at media portrayals of Kennedy as crazy or a crank \u2014 they see him as a revolutionary, speaking truth to power. They also say he should not be defined by addiction, but by recovery: They note he is disciplined and focused. He has thrown himself into exercise and adheres to a strict diet known as intermittent fasting. More than 40 years after the flight to South Dakota, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/robertfkennedyjr\/reel\/C8PwEpMPYiW\/\">still attends<\/a> daily 12-step meetings, he says.<\/p>\n<p>Del Bigtree, his former communications director, described Kennedy as deeply spiritual, and said he feels \u201ccalled to make a difference.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/02\/07\/business\/de-becker-bezos.html\">Gavin de Becker<\/a>, Kennedy\u2019s security consultant and close adviser, said Kennedy\u2019s sobriety is a source of his \u201cstamina and commitment and resilience\u201d \u2014 \u201can absolute golden qualification,\u201d he said, for a health secretary.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy himself leans into his troubled past. \u201cI got so many skeletons in my closet,\u201d he said while campaigning for president, \u201cthat if they could vote, I could be king of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-a-complex-inheritance\"><b>A Complex Inheritance<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>Bobby Kennedy was 9 years old when an uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas. The third of his parents\u2019 11 children, Bobby wanted to be a scientist or a veterinarian.<\/p>\n<p>Five years later, in June 1968, his father was killed. He was 14. That fall, he entered ninth grade at Millbrook, a boys\u2019 boarding school in New York\u2019s Hudson Valley. The school was isolated and bucolic; Kennedy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/19\/us\/politics\/rfk-jr-ravens.html\">fascinated by animals<\/a>, was attracted to its small zoo.<\/p>\n<p>His classmates remember him as a falconer, and a troublemaker who sometimes veered into cruelty. Allen Low, now a retired airline pilot in San Francisco, recalled how one evening, when it was Low\u2019s turn to clean the table, Kennedy took his cigarette lighter and heated the handle of his fork, so that whomever picked it up would get burned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI picked up the fork and of course burned my hand,\u201d Low said. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget his laugh when he saw my pain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1970, when he was 16, Kennedy was expelled from Millbrook for drug use, according to his memoir \u201cAmerican Values: Lessons I Learned From My Family.\u201d That summer, he was arrested for marijuana possession in Massachusetts. The following summer he was arrested again, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1971\/08\/24\/archives\/robert-kennedy-17-fined-for-loitering-pleads-no-contest.html?searchResultPosition=8\">accused of spitting ice cream in a police officer\u2019s face<\/a>. He denied the accusation but paid a fine.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy cycled through two more high schools before graduating, and despite his troubles, was able to follow in his father\u2019s footsteps to Harvard.<\/p>\n<p>He continued to battle a growing drug addiction \u2014 a problem that plagued other family members, including a younger brother, David, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1984\/05\/17\/us\/3-drugs-are-blamed-in-david-kennedy-case.html\">died in 1984 after ingesting cocaine and other drugs<\/a>, and his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/05\/26\/kennedy-addiction-mental-health-00160036\">cousin Patrick<\/a>, who served in Congress and is today an advocate for people with mental illness and drug addiction.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2024\/08\/rfk-jr-endorse-trump-execute-drug-dealers\/679597\/\">One Harvard classmate remembers buying cocaine<\/a> from Kennedy when they were in college. At some point Kennedy contracted hepatitis C by sharing needles, he said in a 2023 interview with<em> The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>After graduating with honors in American history from Harvard, he went on to law school at the University of Virginia \u2014 again, as his father had done. \u201cWhen he died, I felt kind of an obligation to pick up the torch that he had dropped,\u201d Kennedy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=guw1fLJs5EY\">said in a video<\/a> produced for his presidential campaign, \u201cand so I changed my career trajectory to align it more with his.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1982, Kennedy, then 28, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1982\/03\/28\/nyregion\/robert-f-kennedy-jr-hired-by-morgenthau.html?searchResultPosition=1\">landed a plum job<\/a> in the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office, but had to resign when he failed the bar exam. Then came his arrest and conviction for heroin possession. He was sentenced to two years\u2019 probation and community service.<\/p>\n<p>By the time Kennedy arrived at the Open Space Institute, a land preservation organization, to complete his service work, he was visibly unhealthy, according to one person who knew him then. He was missing at least one front tooth. He chewed tobacco and left cups of tobacco juice everywhere, this person said.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201cAmerican Values,\u201d Kennedy recalls apologizing to his mother, during a swim in Nantucket Sound, for the anguish his drug use had caused her and \u201cfor falling short of my father\u2019s ideals, of hers, and of my own.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-being-the-kennedy-who-matters\"><b>Being \u2018the Kennedy Who Matters\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1720\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32423619\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fb6f32a98-scaled.jpg?width=900 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1720px) 100vw, 1720px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mr. Kennedy in 1995, while he was a professor at Pace University.<i> \u2013 Suzanne DeChillo \/ The New York Times<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The institute put Kennedy to work, helping renovate an old farmhouse in Garrison, New York. The house was later rented by the Hudson Riverkeeper, a group dedicated to cleaning up the polluted Hudson River. Kennedy became passionate about its cause and soon signed on.<\/p>\n<p>Once he was admitted to the bar, in 1985, he got a master\u2019s of law in environmental studies. He kept a low profile at first, but by the early 1990s, he was back in the spotlight, his name a magnet for reporters. He seemed to embrace it.<\/p>\n<p>In 1995, New York Magazine crowned him \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/jenniferrobin.gallery\/the-kennedy-who-matters\/\">The Kennedy Who Matters<\/a>.\u201d He circulated the article widely, according to someone who knew him at the time. In 1997, he was a contestant on \u201cCelebrity Jeopardy!\u201d Rumors began to swirl that he might run for a U.S. Senate seat.<\/p>\n<p>At his office at Pace University, where he got his master\u2019s and ran the environmental litigation clinic, the wall was covered with photos of him posing with celebrities. He would eventually marry one, actress Cheryl Hines, his third wife.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy became a nationally recognized environmental lawyer. In 1999, he was named a hero of the planet by Time magazine for his work with the Riverkeeper organization.<\/p>\n<p>He worked alongside other lawyers on a number of high-profile cases. In 2007, he delivered the closing arguments in a case that resulted in a $382 million judgment against DuPont. A jury ruled the company deliberately exposed thousands of people who lived near its zinc-smelting plant in Spelter, West Virginia, to toxic levels of arsenic, cadmium and lead.<\/p>\n<p>He parlayed his successes and the resulting attention into a perch on the speaking circuit. He was earning about $25,000 a speech, but could charge as much as $250,000 for a talk overseas, according to confidential court records reviewed by the Times.<\/p>\n<p>He also created discord at Riverkeeper. Kennedy became the dominant force \u2014 and face \u2014 of the group. He dug in on controversial and odd choices, once insisting on hiring a man who had been convicted of smuggling rare bird eggs from Australia. The decision tore apart the organization, triggering the resignation of much of the board, including Robert Boyle, the association\u2019s founder and president.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought he was thinking of himself and not the cause of the river,\u201d Boyle said at the time. \u201cIt all became his own greater glory.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-wild-impulses\"><b>\u2018Wild Impulses\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32423629\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/rfk-6749fbac901cb-scaled.jpg?width=900 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mr. Kennedy was also a serial philanderer who reportedly kept a journal chronicling his encounters.<i> \u2013 Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the mid-1990s, his first marriage, to Emily Black, a law school classmate, fell apart. And soon after the divorce was official, Kennedy married Mary Richardson, a close friend of his sister Kerry.<\/p>\n<p>The tensions in his second marriage were apparent immediately to Eliza Cooney, who in 1998, at 23, moved to New York to work with Kennedy at Pace \u2014 an offer that included room and board, commuting to the office with Kennedy and working as his children\u2019s weekend nanny.<\/p>\n<p>She has since described \u2014 in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/story\/robert-kennedy-jr-shocking-history?srsltid=AfmBOoqVbqRdWmacy6eXPTgwzdCiZyJ9f4qeFzmwq6lJOE9HWTs2msjs\">an article in Vanity Fair<\/a>, and in interviews with <em>The New York Times<\/em> \u2014 several instances in which Kennedy, then in his mid-40s, made physical passes at her: During a meeting with a Pace colleague in the family kitchen, he moved his hand up and down her leg, she has said. Once, he came into her room, shirtless, and asked her to rub lotion on his back. And once, he stepped into the kitchen pantry behind her and moved his hands up and down the sides of her torso, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy declined to comment on the claims. When her allegations first surfaced this summer, he sent an apologetic text message to Cooney, saying he had no memory of the episodes.<\/p>\n<p>Cooney said she was repulsed by the behavior, and left the household by the end of one year, though she continued her work at Pace and stayed in touch with the family. She says she was troubled by the entitlement and carelessness of his behavior.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember thinking, in the beginning of my tenure there \u2014 Wow, it\u2019s as if he\u2019s up on the bow of a large, fast boat, and the rest of us are on board,\u201d she said. \u201cHe gets to be in the front, look ahead, think big, holler commands, jump off, do what he wants, without concern for details or implications, while everybody else is there to deal with the wake.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As part of his 12-step recovery programs, Kennedy kept a journal. In it, he chronicled sexual encounters with more than three dozen women in a one-year period in around 2001, assigning them rankings, 1 to 10, that corresponded with different sexual acts, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2013\/09\/08\/rfk-jr-s-sex-diary-of-adultery\/\">The New York Post reported<\/a>. The journal reportedly includes entries suggesting his behavior filled him with self-loathing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter daddy died I struggled to be a grown-up,\u201d Kennedy wrote, adding, \u201cI felt he was watching me from heaven. Every time I was afflicted with sexual thoughts, I felt a failure. I hated myself. I began to lie \u2014 to make up a character who was the hero and leader that I wished I was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy filed for divorce nine years later. Richardson, who struggled with depression and alcohol abuse, died by suicide in 2012, at age 52. She hanged herself in a barn on the family property in Westchester County, New York. Her death, and Kennedy\u2019s public falling out with Richardson\u2019s family, brought a stream of negative press attention to Kennedy.<\/p>\n<p>By then, he was taking his activism in a new direction.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-battling-the-public-health-establishment\"><b>Battling the Public Health Establishment<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>One summer in the early 2000s, Sarah Bridges, a Minnesota psychologist who had gone to college with a sister-in-law of Kennedy, showed up unannounced at his home at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Bridges said her son had suffered a brain injury and received an autism diagnosis, after being vaccinated with a pertussis vaccine that is no longer in use in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy had been working on getting mercury out of waterways; Bridges wanted him to investigate thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that has been largely removed from childhood vaccines in the United States. When Kennedy resisted, she brought a stack of scientific studies to his door.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018I have no interest, none\u2019 \u2014 he was very adamant, and he said, \u2018Furthermore, I have houseguests and I need to go sailing,\u2019\u201d she recalled. She waited until he returned; he finally agreed to look at the research if she would agree to leave.<\/p>\n<p>Once he dived in, there was no stopping him. Using \u201cmy name and my family\u2019s relationships,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/freedomlibrary.hillsdale.edu\/programs\/cca-iv-big-pharma\/anthony-fauci-and-the-public-health-establishment\">he said in a speech<\/a> at Hillsdale College, he secured meetings with Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the government\u2019s top infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Francis Collins, then the director of the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n<p>Their answers, he has said, left him convinced that the NIH was little more than \u201can incubator\u201d for the drug industry. \u201cIt was regulatory capture on steroids,\u201d he has said.<\/p>\n<p>In 2005, Kennedy wrote an article, published in Rolling Stone and Salon, that blamed thimerosal for a rise in autism in children. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2011\/01\/16\/dangerous_immunity\/\">Both news outlets later withdrew<\/a> the article after finding that some of its claims were wrong or dubious, and Kennedy was widely criticized by the scientific community. The theory <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC2831678\/\">that vaccines cause autism<\/a> has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S1090379821002312\">widely debunked<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, Kennedy only saw this as more evidence of the stranglehold the pharmaceutical industry had on the government and on the mainstream media.<\/p>\n<p>He churned out books and founded a nonprofit, Children\u2019s Health Defense, turning it into an anti-vaccine behemoth that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/11\/16\/us\/rfk-jr-finances.html\">raked in millions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It was the beginning of a new public persona for Kennedy: the hostile anti-media, anti-establishment warrior. In the eyes of his supporters, Kennedy was taking on the powerful, as his father had done.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that he really thinks that things are wrong, that there\u2019s this deep-seated corruption, which is very much the way his father and his uncle viewed the world,\u201d said Tony Lyons, Kennedy\u2019s publisher.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-finding-an-audience\"><b>Finding an Audience<\/b><\/h3>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" src=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32423637\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/bdc2020.o0bc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/robert-f-kennedy-6749fbf67375d-scaled.jpg?width=900 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mr. Kennedy speaking to a Trump campaign rally in October at Madison Square Garden in New York.<i> \u2013 Hiroko Masuike\/The New York Times<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The coronavirus pandemic gave Kennedy the following that he had long sought. The core of his message \u2014 that the federal government was bent on restricting personal liberties, and that pharmaceutical companies were seeking to profit off a crisis \u2014 suddenly appealed to a new audience of Americans frustrated by lockdowns and skeptical about a vaccine that was developed and marketed at an extraordinarily fast pace \u2014 albeit for a virus that was killing thousands of Americans each day.<\/p>\n<p>Traffic to the Children\u2019s Health Defense website exploded. Kennedy sold books. He was welcomed at events filled with Trump supporters and appeared with election deniers and Christian nationalists.<\/p>\n<p>When the Center for Countering Digital Hate labeled him a member of \u201cThe Disinformation Dozen,\u201d he was suspended from Instagram \u2014 a move that reaffirmed his conviction that Big Tech was conspiring with the Biden administration to suppress free speech.<\/p>\n<p>His rhetoric turned darker.<\/p>\n<p>He invoked Holocaust imagery, drawing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/07\/15\/us\/politics\/rfk-jr-remarks-covid.html\">accusations of antisemitism<\/a>. He railed against Fauci and Bill Gates, the philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, whose work bringing vaccines to the developing world has made him a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/04\/17\/technology\/bill-gates-virus-conspiracy-theories.html\">target of conspiracy theories<\/a>. He warned against the demise of democracy and \u201cturnkey totalitarianism\u201d imposed by a mysterious and ill-defined \u201cthey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re putting in 5G to harvest our data and control our behavior, digital currency that will allow them to punish us from a distance and cut off our food supply,\u201d Kennedy warned during a \u201cDefeat the Mandates\u201d rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in January 2022.<\/p>\n<p>People close to Kennedy said he believed he had finally, at nearly 70, found his moment.<\/p>\n<p>Last spring, when he was considering challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for president, he told his closest advisers that he heard the echoes of history in the decision: His father, disillusioned with Democrats over the Vietnam War, defied party leaders in 1968 to mount a primary against an incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson. His life appeared to have come full circle, he suggested.<\/p>\n<p>He began his presidential bid as a \u201cKennedy Democrat\u201d \u2014 and initially notched double-digit polling numbers \u2014 but later left the party to run as an independent, accusing Democratic leadership of corruptly stifling his primary challenge.<\/p>\n<p>By this past summer, with his poll numbers in the single digits and his campaign coffers running dry, Kennedy was faced with a choice: continue his quixotic effort, or bow out of the race and endorse Trump. The former president\u2019s allies, concerned that Kennedy would pull support from their ranks, had long been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/09\/02\/us\/politics\/donald-trump-robert-kennedy-jr-partnership.html\">interested in an alliance<\/a>, the Times has reported.<\/p>\n<p>Conversations between the two camps began in earnest after an assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, an event whose echoes in Kennedy\u2019s own life seemed to open the door to unity. Several people involved with or briefed on the talks said Trump was impressed by Kennedy\u2019s framing of a crisis in America\u2019s health care system and his interest in chronic disease. And Kennedy felt assured that he would get a powerful seat at the table.<\/p>\n<p>His power is now poised to grow. Some of Kennedy\u2019s allies believe he will run for president again.<\/p>\n<p>Bigtree, his former communications director, runs his own nonprofit, Informed Consent Action Network, and is a kindred spirit to Kennedy in the fight against vaccine mandates and their larger battle against the public health establishment. Despite the denunciations of many relatives, Kennedy had already made himself a worthy inheritor of the family mantle, Bigtree said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRobert Kennedy Jr.,\u201d he said, \u201cis the perfect representation of his father, his legacy and what his father would have dreamed he would be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/29\/us\/politics\/kennedy-rfk-profile-trump.html\">The New York Times<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"m-block m-generic-cta\t m-generic-cta--post-content\t m-generic-cta--dark\t m-generic-cta--homepage\t m-generic-cta--email-signup\t\t m-generic-cta-block-style--default \tt-amp__generic-cta\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"m-generic-cta__wrap\">\n<div class=\"m-generic-cta__content\">\n<h3 class=\"m-generic-cta__title\">Boston.com Today<\/h3>\n<p class=\"m-generic-cta__subtitle\">Sign up to receive the latest headlines in your inbox each morning.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><script>\n\t\tvar consent=\"grant\";\n\t\t\/* The above code is parsing the JSON data from the local storage and storing it in a variable. *\/\n\t\t\t\t\tconst onetrustStorageConsent = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem( 'consent_one_trust_bdc' ) );\n\t\t\tif ( ( onetrustStorageConsent !== null ) ) {\n\t\t\t\t\/* Checking to see if the user has consented to the use of cookies.\n\t\t\t\t* If they have not, it is deleting the cookie.\n\t\t\t\t* This will comment for now, until further notice.\n\t\t\t\t*\/\n\t\t\t\t\/\/if ( onetrustStorageConsent.C0002 === false ) {\n\t\t\t\t\/\/\tdocument.cookie=\"_fbp=;expires=Thu, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 UTC; path=\/; domain=.boston.com\";\n\t\t\t\t\/\/}\n\t\t\t\t\/* Checking if the user has given consent for the cookie C0002.\n\t\t\t\t* If the user has given consent, the variable consent will be set to 'grant'.\n\t\t\t\t* If the user has not given consent,the variable consent will be set to 'revoke'.\n\t\t\t\t* Documentation https:\/\/developers.facebook.com\/docs\/meta-pixel\/implementation\/gdpr\n\t\t\t\t*\/\n\t\t\t\tif ( onetrustStorageConsent.C0002 !== true ) {\n\t\t\t\t\tconsent=\"revoke\";\n\t\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n\t\t{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n\t\tif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n\t\tn.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n\t\t'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('consent', consent);\n\t\tfbq('init', '989222871864976');\n\t\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n\t<\/script><script type=\"module\">\n\t\tvar consent=\"grant\";\n\t\t\/* The above code is parsing the JSON data from the local storage and storing it in a variable. *\/\n\t\t\tconst onetrustStorageConsent = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem( 'consent_one_trust_bdc' ) );\n\t\t\t\/* Checking to see if the user has consented to the use of cookies.\n\t\t\t* If they have not, it is deleting the cookie.\n\t\t\t* This will comment for now, until further notice.\n\t\t\t*\/\n\t\t\t\/\/if ( onetrustStorageConsent.C0002 === false ) {\n\t\t\t\/\/\tdocument.cookie=\"_fbp=;expires=Thu, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 UTC; path=\/; domain=.boston.com\";\n\t\t\t\/\/}\n\t\t\t\/* Checking if the user has given consent for the cookie C0002.\n\t\t\t* If the user has given consent, the variable consent will be set to 'grant'.\n\t\t\t* If the user has not given consent,the variable consent will be set to 'revoke'.\n\t\t\t* Documentation https:\/\/developers.facebook.com\/docs\/meta-pixel\/implementation\/gdpr\n\t\t\t*\/\n\t\t\tif ( ( onetrustStorageConsent !== null ) && (onetrustStorageConsent.C0002 !== true ) ) {\n\t\t\t\tconsent=\"revoke\";\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()\n\t\t{n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}\n\t\t;if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\n\t\tn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\n\t\tdocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('consent', consent);\n\t\tfbq('init', '813236348753005');\n\t\tfbq('track', \"PageView\");\n\t<\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/politics\/2024\/11\/29\/kennedys-inheritance-how-addiction-and-trauma-shaped-a-turbulent-life\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politics Donald Trump\u2019s pick to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reached a pinnacle of power after a life of fame and addictions and a career intertwined with&hellip;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67931,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67929\/revisions\/67931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}