Last month, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Super PAC promoted a 70th birthday fundraiser for the candidate, promising that it would feature celebrity guests Dionne Warwick, Martin Sheen, Mike Tyson, and Andrea Bocelli.
But the gathering hit a snag when the A-Listers declared that, no, they had not actually agreed to attend. “I certainly won’t be there,” Warwick scoffed in a post on X. In the end, even Kennedy himself skipped the event.
The candidate is hoping for redemption with a less prominent cohort of show-biz insiders, including several B-List comedians, at a “A Night of Laughter” emceed by his celebrity wife, Cheryl Hines, on Feb. 21.
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The event, scheduled to take place at the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles, will feature SNL alum Rob Schneider and comedians Tim Dillon, Adam Carolla, and Bobby Lee, among other announced and surprise guests.
Members of the media will not be permitted to record the event, the invitation says.
A spokesperson for Carolla confirmed that he will be performing, while a representative for Schneider said she “believed” the details were correct; representatives for the others did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Schneider, known for his supporting roles in Adam Sandler films, has previously parroted some of Kennedy’s skepticism about vaccines. As Rolling Stone reported last summer, he attended a rally in California in 2012 protesting strict vaccine requirements for children.
“The efficacy of these shots have not been proven,” he said. “And the toxicity of these things — we’re having more and more side effects. We’re having more and more autism.” (The Centers for Disease Control notes that “studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing [Autism Spectrum Disorder].”)
Schneider, like Kennedy, also assailed restrictions enacted by governments during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he cast doubt on the safety of vaccines. “Over Half of the US population is continuing to say no to this unapproved experimental gene therapy! ‘My body, my choice!'” he wrote on X, which was then known as Twitter.
Carolla, a radio host and podcaster, has made many appearances on Fox News. In 2022, he theorized to Sean Hannity that New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was successful because she was young and “beautiful.” He suggested that she would have little political impact if she were “fat and in her sixties.”
Dillon, who hosts an eponymous podcast, has political opinions “all over the map,” he told WNYC in 2016. “I lean conservative,” he continued, before expounding on his world view. “I was in the mortgage industry. I idolize hucksters, thieves, cons and cheats. My dream is to be a traveling salesman through America. And if comedy works, that's nice too."
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the “Night of Laughter” line-up is comedian Bobby Lee, a Mad TV alum not known for political punditry. Lee was once a guest actor on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which stars Hines. She also appeared on Lee’s podcast, Tiger Belly, alongside Kennedy late last year.
On the podcast, Lee asked the couple about their first encounter, at a ski fundraiser years ago when both were still married. “When you first met, did you want to smash?” he asked. No, Hines replied. “He wasn’t really my vibe.”
Kennedy has previously explained that the couple was introduced by Curb creator Larry David, though he hadn’t meant for them to date. All three know each other well. Kennedy said he once spent two summers living with David and that their families had vacationed together. Their daughters also attended the same Hebrew summer camp.
Kennedy and Hines spent more than an hour on the podcast, during which they regaled Lee with stories about an angry pet emu they once owned that had imprinted on Kennedy but despised Hines. Hines pushed him to give the animal away, which he did. It was then eaten by a mountain lion.
