Though his profile may have risen during his recent presidential bid, Robert Kennedy Jr. has always been in the public eye—which means the world has gotten a front row seat to many of his personal tragedies.
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00:00Though his profile may have risen during his recent presidential bid, Robert Kennedy Jr.
00:05has always been in the public eye, which means the world has gotten a front-row seat to many
00:10of his personal tragedies.
00:12Just five years after JFK's assassination, former U.S. Attorney General and New York
00:17State Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed at age 42.
00:22He had just won the California presidential primary and decided to give a speech in the
00:27ballroom of Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel.
00:30After thanking supporters, he exited through the hotel's kitchen, where he was fatally
00:34shot.
00:35RFK Jr. was just 14 at the time and shared a strong bond with his dad.
00:40Rather than grieving openly, he told Sky News Australia that he was taught to never complain
00:45and he internalized the heartbreak.
00:47As he revealed to Oprah Winfrey in 2007, that may have triggered his downward spiral into
00:53addiction, explaining,
00:54"...Pretty soon after my dad died, I started taking drugs."
00:58Just months after his father's death, 15-year-old Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began using heroin.
01:04As he wrote in his 2018 memoir, American Values, Lessons I Learned From My Family, he would
01:10experiment with different drugs and also turn to alcohol over the next 14 years.
01:15While he made a conscious effort to quit, nothing seemed to work.
01:19As he revealed,
01:20"...I believe that I am genetically hardwired to drink and drug myself to death."
01:24"...I feel like I was born an addict, that I was born with an empty space inside of me."
01:33His last option was a 12-step program, but he was hesitant to expose his struggle and
01:38tarnish his family's name, sharing,
01:40"...It would have seemed insane to go into a group of strangers and start talking about
01:44anything private.
01:45The consequences for doing something like that in my position seemed cataclysmic."
01:50It wasn't until he was 28 that he finally pushed aside those worries and made his health
01:55a priority, getting sober thanks to a 12-step program.
01:58R.F.K.
01:59Jr. married his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, in 1994.
02:04The couple had four children together, but the whirlwind romance soon turned dark.
02:09Mary reportedly struggled with mental health and addiction, and R.F.K.
02:12Jr. filed for divorce in 2010, accusing her of often being intoxicated and threatening
02:18suicide in front of their kids.
02:20Their split was still pending in 2012, when Mary died by suicide.
02:25Friends soon blamed R.F.K.
02:27Jr. for the tragedy, with one telling the New York Post that Mary turned to prescription
02:32drugs and alcohol to cope with her husband's infidelity and eventual divorce.
02:37Another source claimed to Radar Online,
02:39She was concerned that Robert was about to substantially reduce the amount of financial
02:43support he gave her, and she was terrified she would have to file for bankruptcy and
02:47lose her home.
02:48For his part, R.F.K.
02:50Jr. boldly addressed the claims in a eulogy at Mary's funeral, saying,
02:54When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Larry King Live in 2008, viewers had one pressing
03:03question, what happened to R.F.K.
03:05Jr.'s voice?
03:06While he didn't initially respond to ABC News' request for comment, he eventually confirmed
03:11that he was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia.
03:14As explained by Mount Sinai, spasmodic dysphonia is a rare neurological disorder that causes
03:20spasms in the muscles used to generate the voice, thus affecting a person's ability to
03:25speak.
03:26In addition to struggling with the physical aspects of the disorder, R.F.K.
03:30Jr. believes it has impacted his career.
03:32I think it makes it problematical for people to listen to me.
03:36I cannot listen to myself on TV.
03:38That pushed him to try various experimental treatments, including a novel procedure in
03:43Japan, which he said made a huge difference.
03:46When J.F.K. was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, it rocked the
03:52nation and the world and left his family shattered.
03:56Speaking at a 2013 event marking the 50th anniversary of the president's death, R.F.K.
04:01Jr. opened up about the impact that day had on his father.
04:05He told listeners that his dad spent an entire year reading books by various philosophers,
04:09poets, and scholars as he tried to come to terms with J.F.K.'s tragic death, saying,
04:14"...he was trying to figure out kind of the existential implications of why a just God
04:20would allow injustice to happen of the magnitude he was seeing."
04:23R.F.K.
04:24Jr. soon became obsessed with figuring out what really happened that day.
04:28While Lee Harvey Oswald was sentenced for the crime, R.F.K. was convinced the CIA was
04:33involved, and he claimed that his father had the same notion.
04:36It was my father's first instinct that the agency had killed his brother.
04:42Despite R.F.K.'s many headline-making controversies, his third wife, actor Cheryl Hines, has stood
04:48by him.
04:49She has been mocked and ridiculed by fans because of it, yet she told The Hollywood
04:53Reporter in 2024 that anyone calling her husband a conspiracy theorist was missing
04:58the point, arguing,
04:59"...I would think that you would see the world through a different lens if you saw your uncle
05:04be assassinated than your father."
05:06During a 2022 anti-vaccine rally in Washington, D.C., R.F.K.
05:10Jr. suggested that America had become more restrictive than Nazi-occupied Europe due
05:15to its COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates.
05:19The backlash was swift, and the aspiring politician came up with a bold plan to spare
05:24his wife, telling The New York Times,
05:26"...I saw how it was affecting her life, and I said to her, we should just announce that
05:31we are separated, so that you can have some distance from me.
05:33I felt so desperate about protecting her at a time where my statements and my decisions
05:38were impacting her."
05:39He went as far as writing a press release announcing the split, but Hines shut down
05:44the idea.
05:46In addition to losing his father and uncle at such a young age, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
05:50has lived through the tragic deaths of a long list of family members, including two of his
05:55siblings.
05:56R.F.K.
05:57Jr. was dealt another painful blow in 1984, when his brother David Kennedy died of a drug
06:03overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida, hotel room.
06:06Then in 1997, his other brother, Michael Kennedy, died in a skiing accident on a slope in Aspen,
06:12Colorado, at the age of 39.
06:14In 2019, his niece Saoirse died of an overdose at age 22.
06:20The following year, another niece, Maeve, died in a canoeing accident with her 8-year-old
06:25son.
06:26If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues or is in crisis, contact
06:31the relevant resources below.
06:33Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact
06:38SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, 4357.
06:44Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.