Robert F. Kennedy Jr is often described a black sheep amid the sprawling Kennedy family, but he has one thing in common with the men who made the Kennedy name: his reputation as a womanizer.
That characterization rang true yet again Thursday when a report alleged that New York magazine’s star reporter, Olivia Nuzzi, engaged in a “personal relationship” with Kennedy after she penned a splashy profile of him in November, when his presidential run still had a glimmer of hope.
Nuzzi, 31, has been emphatic that she and Kennedy, 70, never got physical with each other. She’s stopped short of detailing what their relationship entailed, but sources have told multiple outlets—including the New York Post—that it was “digital cheating.”
That bombshell revelation came a little over a month after Kennedy and Cheryl Hines, 58, celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary on Aug. 2.
Kennedy’s anti-vax beliefs and bizarre stories—like having a brain worm and dumping a dead bear’s carcass in Central Park—have in recent months drawn the focus away from his serial philandering.
Now, however, his alleged penchant for infidelity is once again in the limelight, despite his assertion on Friday—through a spokesperson—that he’s only met Nuzzi once.
A busy 2001 in the bedroom
Robert F. Kennedy Jr photographed during a kayaking event in New York City in 2001.
George De Sota/Reuters
The Post previously reported that it obtained a pair of diaries from 2001 that Kennedy used to document the dozens of women he took to bed that year.
The journals were complete with creepily specific details, including the first names of his sexual partners and their occupations. He was in his seventh year of marriage to his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, at the time, but the then-environmental lawyer appeared to be on the road a lot, the Post reported, citing the self-reported locations of his diary entries.
Perhaps the cringiest detail to emerge about the journals was that Kennedy would award each women he bedded with a number between 1 to 10, with a “10” designation meaning they had intercourse.
He painted himself as the victim of seductresses, using the term “mugged” as if he was an unwilling participant, and “victory” when he did not succumb to their temptations. He was entirely an innocent party, in his version.
Of the 37 women named in the ledger, 16 reportedly received the highest number. The Post’s report was published a year after Mary Richardson took her own life amid a messy divorce. He never outright denied that the two journals belonged to him. On Friday he told The Post that he did not have a 2001 diary, hardly a denial.
That apology text to his sexual assault accuser
Robert F. Kennedy Jr called off his campaign in late August and threw his support behind Donald Trump.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
More recently, in the dying days of his White House bid, Kennedy texted a somewhat partial apology to a former family babysitter who accused him of sexual assault, The Washington Post reported.
The woman, Eliza Cooney, had accused Kennedy of groping her in the 1990s when she was 23 and Kennedy was in his mid-forties. Kennedy claimed to have no memory of the groping, but he still took the time to fire off a message to Cooney saying he was sorry—just in case he actually did.
“I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings,” he wrote, reportedly adding, “I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so.”
Red flags before the wedding bells
Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wedded in 2014. Hines, an actress famous for her role on Curb Your Enthusiasm, has not spoken publicly since her husband was accused of infidelity on Thursday night.
Getty Images
There’s likely some old pals of Hines thinking “I told you so” to themselves this week.
That’s because the author Jerry Oppenheimer, a close friend of Kennedy who wrote a biography about him, previously wrote that Hines had been given fair warning about Kennedy’s past of infidelity.
In his book, he wrote that “any woman who gets involved with Bobby does so with her eyes open, or their brains lopped off.” He added, “Any woman who thinks they’re going to change Bobby is misguided and purposefully ignorant.”
Oppenheimer was at Kennedy and Hines’ wedding in 2014, where rumors had been swirling that Kennedy had been cheating on his fiancée with the socialite Chelsea Chapman Kirwan.
Kennedy was married to Richardson when he first met Hines in 2006, although it appears they did not become a couple until 2011.
