Robert Kennedy Jr. causes controversy among family for anti-vax comments

Robert Kennedy Jr. has become one of the most prominent voices in the movement against COVID-19 vaccines, to the chagrin of most of his famous family – who have called it ‘heartbreaking’ to see him devote such passion to advocating against measures aimed at combatting the coronavirus.

The son and namesake of the assassinated Democratic presidential candidate has been vocal against vaccinations for years, but the breaking point for many of his loved ones came after he argued that Anne Frank had it better than Americans under vaccine mandates. 

‘The minute they hand you that vaccine passport, every right that you have is transformed into a privilege contingent upon your obedience to arbitrary government dictates. It will make you a slave,’ he said at an anti-vax rally hosted by his group, The Children’s Health Defense, in Washington, D.C., last month.

In the same speech, he likened the Holocaust to COVID-19 safety measures and said ‘Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.’

‘Bobby’s lies and fear-mongering yesterday were both sickening and destructive. I strongly condemn him for his hateful rhetoric. He does not represent the views of @RFKHumanRights or our family,’ Kerry Kennedy, his sister, tweeted after he gave his speech. 

Robert Kennedy Jr. has drawn ire from family members after becoming one of the most prominent voices in the movement against COVID-19 vaccines. He is above at a rally opposed to vaccines in Washington, D.C., last month

 

The breaking point for many of his loved ones came after he argued that Anne Frank had it better than Americans under vaccine mandates, which his sister Kerry called ‘heartbreaking.’ The two are pictured above in 2015

Robert’s own wife Actress Cheryl Hines (right) has tried to distance herself from his comments, calling them ‘reprehensible and insensitive.’ The two are above in 2018 at the  24th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Robert, 68, the third of RFK’s eleven children, was nine years old when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963. Five years later, he was a pallbearer at his father’s funeral.

He went on to graduate from Harvard but faced numerous scandals later in life and has sparked controversy by pushing several conspiracy theories. 

Robert has spread vaccine conspiracy theories to his social media followers and has accused Anthony Fauci and Microsoft founder Bill Gates of working with Big Pharma to profit from the COVID vaccine rollout. He has also claimed that 5G towers are being installed across the nation ‘to harvest our data and control our behavior.’

His family has often dealt with such matters in private. Some have spoken out against his anti-vaccine views in the past, but are pushing back harder than before in the wake of his Anne Frank comments.

‘I love my brother but could not disagree with him more,’ Robert’s brother Christopher G. Kennedy said in a statement to the New York Times, published Saturday. 

Kerry told The Times that she will always treasure her memories of growing up with Robert. 

‘We have much more in common than our differences on vaccines, but on that subject we are diametrically opposed. I can’t say enough how much I love Bobby. It’s so heartbreaking. It’s so tough.’ 

Cheryl Hines (left), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kerry Kennedy were above together attending the ‘Wilson’ New York screening at the Whitby Hotel in 2017

Hines and Robert Kennedy Jr. were above at the Ripple of Hope Award Gala in 2019

‘He was an extraordinary older brother,’ she added, recalling how he used to bring her to play outside with his friends and stick up for her when they protested to having a little girl tag along.

‘He’s brilliant, he’s well read, he cares deeply, he is extremely charismatic. He has a childlike buoyancy and lightness to him. He’s a beautiful person in a million different ways. And then he has this.’

Robert expressed remorse for his Anne Frank comments in a January 25 tweet, saying: ‘I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank, especially to families that suffered the Holocaust horrors,’ Kennedy said in a tweet before doubling down on his anti-vax stance. 

‘My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control. To the extent my remarks caused hurt, I am truly and deeply sorry,’ he concluded. 

But his loved ones were quick to distance themselves from his comments.  

Cheryl Hines, Robert’s third wife and actress on HBO’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ called the reference to Anne Frank ‘reprehensible and insensitive’ in a tweet that came about 20 minutes after Robert’s apology. 

The Kennedy family came together in 2019 to mourn 22-year-old Saoirse Kennedy Hill, who died of an accidental overdose at the Kennedy compound in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Ted Kennedy Jr. (left), Joe Kennedy Jr. and Joe Kennedy lll attended the funeral services for Saoirse Roisin Kennedy Hill at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville

Robert, 68, the third of RFK’s 11 children, was nine years old when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963. Five years later, he was a pallbearer at his father’s funeral 

Kerry (left) and Robert were pictured above in 1974 with Lemoyne Billings (right) 

‘The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own,’ Hines tweeted. 

Friends have also spoken out against Robert’s rhetoric, including writer Blake Fleetwood, who called Robert an ‘inspiration’ and asked why he was ‘risking his whole life’ of activism by ‘taking on this crusade.’

‘Why is he blowing his whole life’s work?’ Fleetwood asked, as quoted by the New York Times. 

And Mike Papantonio, another friend who is a lawyer and talk show host, told the news outlet that: ‘Sometimes you want to shake him and say, ‘Jesus Christ, Bobby, pay attention to something else.’  But at the end of the day he’s committed to it. The jaws are locked.’ 

While Douglas Kennedy, a correspondent at Fox News, didn’t condemn his brother specifically, he did speak out in favor of vaccinations. 

‘I am vaccinated. I got vaccinated as soon as I was able,’ he told the New York Times. 

Douglas added that Robert ‘probably has the most natural political talent of not only everybody in our family in this generation but anybody I have ever met. Most of the time he is motivated to use those talents for good purpose.’

Robert became an environmental advocate earlier in the 2010s, before devoting his passion to the anti-vaccine movement. He made his comments about the Holocaust during a Washington rally on Sunday that was organized by his anti-vaccine nonprofit group

His comments were widely condemned as offensive, outrageous and historically ignorant. Anne Frank is pictured in Amsterdam at age 12 in 1940

Robert didn’t only ruffle feathers with his Anne Frank comment, but drew the fury of White House top health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci when he published a book in November called ‘The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.’  

After the book was published, Fauci said in a Yahoo News interview that its statements would ‘hurt people’ and said: ‘It’s very unfortunate because I don’t think he is inherently malicious. I just think he’s a very disturbed individual.’ 

Robert has a past cloaked in adultery, according to the book ‘RFK Jr.: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream,’ written by author Jerry Oppenheimer.

He allegedly cheated on his first wife Emily Black multiple times and struggled with heroin abuse while the two were students at the University of Virginia, sources close to him told Oppenheimer.

The two married in 1982 and, less than two years later, Robert was on his way to rehab in Rapid City, South Dakota, when he reportedly suffered an almost fatal overdose of heroin on the flight there.

He was found with the drug on the flight and charged with heroin possession and sentenced to community service.

Emily stood by Robert while he eventually got sober and the couple. They had two children together but divorced after 12 years. Before they even finished finalizing their divorce, Robert allegedly proposed to his second wife, Mary Richardson.

The couple had four children during their 18-year marriage, but his philandering led to their divorce in 2010. Robert allegedly had an ‘astronomical number’ of affairs and kept track of some in a diary that was leaked to the New York Post in 2013, reportedly writing that his greatest flaw was his ‘lust demons.’

Mary committed suicide in 2012. Before she died, Mary allegedly told a close friend that she ‘feared for her life’ and claimed that Bobby ‘repeatedly told her that she would be ‘better off dead,’ and that it would be ‘so much easier’ if she killed herself,’ Oppenheimer wrote in his book.

The tragic American clan suffered another heartbreak in 2019 when Robert’s granddaughter, 22-year-old Saoirse Kennedy Hill, died of an accidental overdose at the Kennedy compound in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 

Robert moved past his drug demons to become an environmental advocate who led the charge to clean up the Hudson River in New York. 

He married Hines in 2014. 

Robert told the New York Times in an email that his vaccine hesitancy began when he was working to sue coal-burning plants emitting toxic mercury emissions linked to brain damage.

‘Women started attending my speeches — they were moms of intellectually disabled children who believed their kids were vaccine injured,’ Robert said.

He also said that the mother of a child with autism came to his Cape Cod home with pages of studies defending conspiracy theories about a link between vaccines and autism.