Already under fire for his Olivia Nuzzi sexting scandal, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been hit with new allegations of cheating on his wife Cheryl Hines, with three women affiliated with his anti-vaccine organization saying they had affairs with him in the past 12 months.
The new claims are reported by Mediaite, which said it spoke to two sources with direct knowledge of the women’s accounts. The outlet said it had reviewed and obtained text messages from one of the women, in which she detailed her alleged relationship with 70-year-old Kennedy as he campaigned for president.
The three women know Kennedy through the Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group that he chairs and used as a springboard for his failed, long-shot presidential bid, as the Daily Beast also reported.
Mediaite said that people close to the Kennedy family fear the new cheating allegations could jeopardize his standing in Donald Trump’s campaign, as the former president and 2024 Republican nominee fights to win the support of suburban women.
In a statement to Mediaite, a spokesperson for Kennedy denied that he’s had any romantic relationships outside of his marriage to Hines. The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star is Kennedy’s third wife and is reportedly considering divorce in the wake of his alleged sexting relationship with political journalist Nuzzi.
“This story is untrue,” the spokesperson said regarding the women’s affair allegations. “Mr. Kennedy has had no romantic relationships with any woman other than his wife since their marriage.”
But Nuzzi and people close to her have told a different story.
Nuzzi, 31, last month acknowledged that she had a “personal” relationship with Kennedy while covering his campaign, after New York magazine announced that she had placed her on leave due to the relationship being “in violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures.”
The relationship allegedly began shortly after Nuzzi interviewed Kennedy for a New York magazine profile published in November 2023. While Nuzzi said the relationship never became “physical,” subsequent reports said the romance consisted of an exchange of pornographic images.
While sources close to Kennedy have claimed Nuzzi was the one who pursued him, other reports have offered a different view. Mediaite specifically mentioned Kennedy’s “love bombing” tendencies, saying that’s exactly what happened with the women he knew through the Children’s Health Defense.
“I don’t believe Nuzzi was the pursuer,” a source told Mediaite. “This would be completely contradictory to Bobby’s long-standing pattern of serial cheating.”
“There are a number of women in the ‘health freedom’ movement who thought of themselves as Bobby’s only one, and I’m quite sure they are angry and shocked to find out they weren’t,” the source continued. “After talking to some of these women, I think what he does is just love bombs them. He makes them feel important, even tells them he loves them, and so they all feel special and wanted.”
Olivia Nuzzi (left), Robert F. Kenndy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines. (Getty)
In addition to Kennedy reportedly jeopardizing his third marriage, his alleged philandering could wreck his political aspirations in a potential new Trump administration, according to Mediaite.
Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign in August and endorsed Trump in the hopes of securing a role in a new Trump White House. He and Trump spoke about the possibility of him serving as Secretary of Health and Human Services, a powerful cabinet-level position, Mediaite said.
But the scandal swirling around Kennedy over his relationship with Nuzzi is seen as “an issue” for Trump’s campaign and his top advisers and donors, particularly given the former reality TV star’s own history of womanizing, a campaign source told the outlet.
“Trump is concerned (about Kennedy),” the source told Mediaite. He’s “concerned that there are more women, and that more affairs will come out. Right now, they are waiting to see if the news cycle will blow over, but it won’t, which has Trump reconsidering Bobby’s value.”
Any extramarital relationship could also doom Kennedy’s ability to obtain a security clearance to serve in Trump’s cabinet because affairs “can be used as blackmail,” a top Republican political operative told Mediaite.
Kennedy has long been dogged by allegations of infidelity. He acknowledged in a 2023 podcast interview that he’s “not a church boy” and he has “many skeletons in my closet,” according to the Daily Beast.