Early in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign, as he embroiled himself in controversies and gaffes, his celebrity wife, Cheryl Hines, signaled that she wouldn’t be weighing in with much frequency.
Her strategy seems to have changed. On Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter published a wide-ranging interview with Kennedy and Hines on their relationship, his contentious views, and her thoughts on potentially becoming first lady—though Kennedy will need to attract substantially more support for that to happen.
The couple met in 2004 through Hines’ Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Larry David, at the time when they were both married. Years later, after they had each divorced, they quickly found a spark. “Oh, you’re actually handsome,” Hines remembered thinking.
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Bizarrely, Kennedy told the outlet, he sought David’s blessing before things got serious. “I met him around 10 o’clock at night and asked him permission,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “And he was amazing. He said he was so excited about it. And he said, ‘She’s the best person that I’ve ever met.’”
Meanwhile, the curmudgeonly comedian told Hines to temper her expectations, Kennedy said: “He went, ‘Ah, it’ll never work.’” The actress once revealed to Alec Baldwin on his podcast Here’s the Thing that David told her at the time, “That’s a terrible idea. No, no, no, don’t get involved.”
But Hines previously explained to The New York Times that David was only kidding. “It’s part of the fun of Larry. You just know no matter what you say to him, he’s going to say, ‘Why would you do that? Are you crazy?’” Still, she noted, David had not expected them to date. “Poor Larry,” she told the Times.
Hines said she realized Kennedy had unusual opinions “a few years” into their relationship; Kennedy’s skepticism about vaccines and his belief that COVID-19 may have been “ethnically targeted” have since generated blowback. In 2022, after Kennedy likened coronavirus lockdowns to life in Nazi Germany, Hines posted a statement called his comments “reprehensible and insensitive.”
“He understood I needed to express myself. I’m sure it was hard on him. If I had to do it all over again, would I use such strong words? Probably not,” she said on Thursday.
Hines added that Kennedy’s world view has been colored by tragedy: “I often think about what his life has been like—to watch his uncle be assassinated and then watch his father be assassinated. I do find it mysterious and odd and all of it to be larger-than-life,” she said.
But she said she has trouble defining the term “conspiracy theorist.”
“I mean, people do conspire to do bad things. Watching him in the courtroom for the Monsanto trial, where they were suing over Roundup weed killer causing cancer, you see the emails that people share, people inside Monsanto who knew this was happening,” she said, referring to Kennedy’s work as an environmental lawyer. “Is that a conspiracy? Yes. But when people say he’s a conspiracy theorist, I really don’t know what to make of that,” she added.
Hines said that she would not be comfortable with Kennedy speaking with Steve Bannon or Alex Jones, despite his impulse “to connect with everybody.”
As for members of the Kennedy dynasty, several of whom have spoken out against the candidate, Hines claimed her husband holds “no hard feelings… Because he knows that at the end of the day, this is hard for them—for lots of reasons.”
Kennedy, for his part, also said his relationships remain strong; his family, he thinks, is mostly worried that he will help Donald Trump get reelected.
“I mean, listen, I grew up in a milieu where we were raised to argue passionately with each other and still love each other. I feel my family loves me. There’s 105 members of my family, and a lot of them are supporting my campaign strongly. And there’s a small number that has criticized me—and that’s OK,” he said.
Hines thinks her relationship with Kennedy has influenced her own thinking, making her more skeptical and seeking out the “whole story” on certain issues. She said she got vaccinated against COVID-19 because it was required for her to work. “If I wasn’t working, would things be different? Maybe. I’m not the kind of person that gets the flu shot.”
Her time in the spotlight has brought endless scrutiny, and has encouraged people close to her to leak unflattering information to the media, she said. “It brought out a dark side with some people. So some acquaintances sort of drifted. But my inner circle is still the same.”
She told The New York Times last summer that she hadn’t “lost any jobs because of my support for his candidacy, but there was a project I’m involved in where there was a pause for discussion about how his candidacy might affect what we are doing but it has been resolved.”
Kennedy told the outlet that he felt “a lot of support and love from most of her friends, including Larry [David].” (David said he offered the candidate his “love and support,” but didn’t actually support his campaign.)
Overall, Hines said to The Hollywood Reporter, the campaign has been an adventure: “It’s even more fascinating watching it from the hurricane’s eye.”
