If Cheryl Hines doesn’t realize it already, playing the role of loyal but put-upon wife to a controversial spouse like Robert F. Kennedy Jr can only last so long.
The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star already exhausted many people’s sympathy when she stood by her husband after he suspended his independent presidential campaign in August and endorsed the even more polarizing Donald Trump. It finally took Kennedy being implicated in a “sexting” scandal with political journalist Olivia Nuzzi in September to spur reports that Hines was considering divorce.
Actress Cheryl Hines and her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Now Kennedy’s cheating scandal has grown even more sordid, with Nuzzi’s ex-fiance alleging in court documents that the 70-year-old anti-vaccine campaigner vowed to “possess” and “impregnate” Nuzzi, 39 years his junior, during a nearly year-long affair, according to the Daily Beast.
Politico reporter Ryan Lizza wrote in an Oct. 14 court filing that he learned about Nuzzi’s affair with Kennedy in mid-August, the Daily Beast reported. After Nuzzi admitted to editors at New York magazine that she had a “personal relationship” with Kennedy while covering the 2024 presidential race, she was put on leave from her job as the magazine’s Washington, D.C., correspondent.
“She admitted the affair and over the course of weeks of conversations she confided how she fell into what she described as a ‘toxic,’ ‘unhealthy,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘psychotic,’ ‘crazy,’ ‘indefensible’ relationship with a 70-year-old ‘sex addict’ who told her he wanted to ‘possess,’ ‘control,’ and ‘impregnate” her,’” Lizza wrote, according to the Daily Beast.
News about Lizza’s court filing came a day after Hines, 59, surprised some by putting on “a show of unity” as she and her embattled husband attended the funeral of his mother, Ethel Kennedy. As the New York Post reported, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy died last week at age 96 following a stroke and was the “last link to the Kennedy family’s days of “Camelot” in the White House.
As “somber church bells” rang out outside a church near the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Ethel Kennedy’s second son was spotted holding hands with his TV star wife, “amid reports about trouble in their marriage” over his endorsement of Trump and claims about his affair with Nuzzi, the Post continued.
In some ways, it’s understandable that Hines would want to put on “a show of unity” as her husband and his family are grieving the loss of their beloved matriarch. Hines also paid tribute to her late mother-in-law on social media last week. In one Facebook post, which drew scores of sympathetic responses, Hines wrote, “Bobby and I spent many warm nights in Hyannis Port having dinner with her and hearing stories from her extraordinary life. She always made me laugh.”
In a second Facebook post, Hines shared a video of her sitting with Ethel Kennedy on the night that singer Melissa Etheridge visited Hyannis Port and serenaded them with “Me and Bobby McGee.”
LOS ANGELES, CA – FEBRUARY 21: Cheryl Hines (L) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attend Keep It Clean Live Comedy To Benefit Waterkeeper Alliance on February 21, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Joshua Blanchard/Getty Images for Waterkeeper Alliance)
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But in this second post, a number of people didn’t express condolences but commented on the state of her marriage to Kennedy amid his sexting scandal. Earlier this month, Mediaite reported that three more women, who are affiliated with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization, claimed that they, too, had affairs with the former environmental lawyer over the past year.
“Leave your husband,” one person said. “Don’t follow in the tradition of the Kennedy women putting up with their husbands’ infidelities. You are stronger!!!!!”
Commenters also denounced Hines for political reasons — specifically her decision to stand by a husband who is “basically supporting the American Hitler.” This person continued: “There is no veil you can hide behind. You support it, married to it: you are culpable.”
“You don’t even understand why you are so disliked now, Cheryl,” another person wrote. “You will be remembered for being on the wrong side of history because of your choice of a marriage partner.”
Earlier this month, Page Six reported that Hines, a lifelong Democrat, had indeed grown increasingly concerned about being “on the wrong side of history.” Source told Page Six that Hines knew her husband was “a serial philanderer” when she married him and was considering leaving him because of his endorsement of Trump and his newfound place in the inner circle of Trump’s MAGA universe.
But other reports say that Kennedy’s “bizarre” sexting relationship with Nuzzi had finally gotten to Hines, even Nuzzi said the relationship never became “physical.”
According to Jerry Oppenheimer, the author of the 2015 book, “RFK Jr.: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream,” the Nuzzi scandal made it clear to Hines that her husband has not brought his “sex demons” under control as he promised.
In a column in the Daily Mail, Oppenheimer quoted a confidante who said that Hines, Kennedy’s third wife, was “blindsided” by news about his “personal relationship” with Nuzzi.
“Cheryl was always very aware that Bobby had a long history of womanizing,” the friend told Oppenheimer. “She herself had become very publicly involved with him when he was still married to his second wife, so his playing around wasn’t anything new to her.”
“However, she firmly believed Bobby, in his seventh decade and with political aspirations, finally had his sex demons under control, and appeared settled down in their seemingly bucolic southern California domestic life,” the friend continued.
“She adored being a member of America’s royal family, and having the famous Kennedy name attached to hers, but now she’s thoroughly embarrassed and furious about his adulterous actions and (friends) believe she wants out,” the friend also told Oppenheimer.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s sexting scandal with Nuzzi has become even more complicated and messy because of her bitter and litigious breakup from Lizza.
In early October, Nuzzi went to court in Washington, D.C., to seek a restraining order against Lizza, accusing him of harassing and blackmailing her. In her request for no-contact order, Nuzzi alleged that Lizza’s “harassment and blackmail campaign” culminated in news about her relationship with Kennedy going public, a disclosure that could potentially “destroy” her “life, career and reputation.”
Lizza has denied the blackmail allegations in his court filing, and has said he didn’t alert New York magazine editors or leak news of the affair to the media, the Daily Beast said. Meanwhile, his response includes more salacious details about Nuzzi’s relationship with Kennedy.
“She told me that there was a huge power disparity between them and that he manipulated her,” Lizza said, according to the Daily Beast. Lizza said he discovered the affair on Aug. 17, two days before the start of the Democratic National Convention, at which point he asked Nuzzi to move out of their home.
Lizza said that Nuzzi spent the next several weeks trying to convince him to stay with her, according to the Daily Beast. He said she “pleaded with me to consider returning to the relationship, telling me ‘her affair wasn’t real’ and that ‘I don’t want to give up’ on our relationship.”
According to the Daily Beast, Lizza’s claims contradict the narrative that Nuzzi has told — that Lizza sought to blackmail her into staying with him.
Meanwhile, the ex-couple’s legal feud is likely to continue past Election Day, as the D.C. court granted Nuzzi a month-long extension to her restraining order. With this feud continuing, it’s possible there will be more revelations about Kennedy, which could continue to make things uncomfortable for his beleaguered wife.
Then again, Oppenheimer, who attended the couple’s 2014 wedding, has written that Hines should have known what she was getting into. “Any woman who gets involved with Bobby does so with her eyes open, or their brains lopped off. Any woman who thinks they’re going to change Bobby is misguided and purposefully ignorant,” he wrote.