Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent a day at sea with a vaccine skeptic influencer who once alleged the actress Amber Heard participated in “Satanic-themed” lesbian orgies.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, who is preparing to face a confirmation hearing where he will almost certainly be challenged over his own conspiratorial views, was also joined by a former American Idol contestant who previously believed he is a psychic capable of speaking to the dead.
Also there was The Sopranos actress Drea de Matteo, who runs an OnlyFans account for which she said her teenage son helps edit some non-explicit content.
According to social media posts, Kennedy discussed health policies with the group.
The day out at sea raises questions about whether Kennedy—who has a lengthy history of crusading against vaccines and AIDS denialism—will ditch some of his views in government.
Jessica Reed Kraus, the influencer who joined the outing, boasts well over a million followers on Instagram, where on Wednesday she posted images of herself and Kennedy socializing as part of a group on a yacht.
After this article was published, Kraus said in an Instagram story that the photos were taken “months ago” though did not specify the exact date.
She claimed it was a “lie” to say the Daily Beast reached out to her for comment—however, a request was sent via e-mail to a contact address listed on her website before publication.
Kraus rose to online fame first as a Southern California mommy blogger, sharing family and home improvement content that made her a fixture of lifestyle publications.
But during the pandemic, her output shifted radically as she began doubting the COVID vaccine and said her children wouldn’t get inoculated.
She also turned to gossip blogging focused on high profile court cases, raising tens of thousands of dollars from followers to cover the 2021 New York City trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, later writing sympathetically about the convicted child sex trafficker and bemoaning that journalists didn’t share her views.
“It was the first time I was confronted with a very conflicting perspective in comparison to mainstream media,” she told Elle last year. “We would all talk at lunch tables about what we thought about Ghislaine, but then when we went to print, they all printed what their outlets wanted—that she was always the evil monster—and I would print that I didn’t agree with that."
Kraus went on to become a staunch ally and defender of Heard’s ex Johnny Depp during a 2022 defamation trial over claims he physically abused her.
Depp phoned Kraus personally during the case after noticing her skepticism of Heard in her writing. Kraus would go on to claim the actress participated in drug-fueled lesbian orgies at parties with “satanic themes” run by a cabal of powerful interests.
“Just as she was strongly, disturbingly sympathetic to Ghislaine Maxwell, she was a chief instigator of the anti-Heard story line,” wrote New York magazine editor-at-large Choire Sicha.
As Kraus embraced vaccine skepticism and celebrity gossip, she also began articulating a MAGA-friendly political worldview and spoke favorably of right-wing fixtures such as Laura Loomer, who she dubbed “funny and fearless.”
Given Kraus’ wide online reach, both Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign and Trump’s GOP bid lobbied for her support during the 2024 race.
In a caption on her Wednesday Instagram post, Kraus wrote that Kennedy told her and their seafaring pals during their day on the water of “how he’s going to get the chemicals out of our food and eliminate red dye No. 3.”
The Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it was banning the synthetic dye due to evidence that it can cause cancer in animals.
On top of advocacy against lightly regulated food additives that experts say can cause negative health impacts, Kennedy has launched attacks on seed oils, calling them “poison,” and fluoride in water, which experts point to as one of the greatest public health achievements in modern history.
In addition to mommy blogger Kraus, Kennedy apparently laid out his agenda to Jimmy Levy, a former American Idol contestant who, on the show’s 18th season in 2018, told the singing competition’s judges of how he was part of a family of psychics and that his gift was being able to communicate with the spirits of the deceased.
“I see dead people,” he said on the show. “I don’t want to follow in the psychic footsteps, even though I have the gift and it’s probably going to be there forever. I want to do full-time music.”
Levy staked out his music career dreams alongside a full MAGA tilt.
In an interview with Fox News, he described abandoning the “occult” after his turn on American Idol and becoming an evangelical Christian in 2021 after realizing “that Satan was real.”
In 2023, he guested on alt-right rapper Forgiato Blow’s anti-LGBT song “Boycott Target,” singing that the retail chain offering Pride-themed merchandise amounted to teaming “with a Satanist.”
Levy celebrated his time on the boat with Kennedy, writing in a comment on Kraus’ post: “That was such a chill day 🔥”
In a notable tribute to Kennedy, he had “MAHA”—the acronym for the Trump-inspired Make America Healthy Again slogan—shaved into the hair on the right side of his head.
Finally, there was de Matteo, best known for playing Adriana La Cerva on HBO’s The Sopranos, for which she won an Emmy in 2004.
She also became a vaccine skeptic during the COVID pandemic, which she said led to her blacklisting in Hollywood.
To make up for the lack of work, she turned to OnlyFans, where she posts images of herself modeling lingerie swimwear.
Her account does not feature explicit nudity, and she said last year that her 13-year-old son sometimes helps her edit the racy images she does post.
De Matteo, who was previously not especially political, became a vocal Trump supporter during the election.
“There are a lot of Trump supporters, there are a lot of Kennedy supporters,” she told Fox News last year, of the allegedly substantial number of secret MAGA and MAHA fans in Hollywood.
