Jerry Oppenheimer is a bestselling biographer of the Clintons, Kennedys and other iconic American families. He is the author of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream.
(Daily Mail) Drug addiction, womanizing, a wife’s suicide, and ‘lust demons’ – they would be enough to prevent most people from ever thinking of running for public office.
But on Wednesday Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce that he is throwing his hat in the ring in a quixotic bid for the highest position in the nation.
Nearly six decades after his uncle John F. Kennedy became president and then his father was gunned down on the road to the presidency – RFK Jr. has decided that he too should try to win the White House following in his forebears’ fatal political footsteps.
Few think he has a chance and the skeletons in his closet will be enough to defeat his bid for the Democratic nomination in 2024.
Nicknamed ‘The Toxic Avenger,’ Kennedy has long been involved in environmental crusades, most notably the clean-up of the Hudson River.
But in recent years he has turned against vaccinations and has been highly critical of efforts to curb Covid, to such an extent that he’s now considered by some to be a conspiracy theorist.
Still Kennedy, 69, has decided the time is right to challenge Joe Biden, 80, who has yet to formally announce he’ll run for a second term.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has faced criticism for his anti-vax views, is set to announce he is officially challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination
RFK Jr. is the son of Robert F. Kennedy (left), the late attorney general and U.S. senator who was assassinated in 1968 during a presidential run. He’s the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963
RFK Jr. has blamed his father’s assassination for many of his problems. RFK’s casket is pictured being carried to the grave site at Arlington National Cemetery. The pallbearers are led by Kennedy’s oldest son Joseph
Kennedy filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on April 5 and established an online presence to generate donations and volunteers and is expected to announce his candidacy in Boston today.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream highlights Bobby’s long history of ‘compulsions and addictions’ that he’d like to hide from voters
But insiders say he has too much baggage to have a realistic chance of winning.
‘Bobby Kennedy is a long shot at ever winning any election, let alone the presidency,’ one insider told DailyMail.com.
‘His own powerful family are unlikely to support his campaign,’ they added. ‘Many members won’t even vote for him.’
As detailed in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream, Bobby has a long history of ‘compulsions and addictions’ that he would like to hide from voters. It’s a history that goes back to his adolescence.
In the wake of RFK’s 1968 assassination, his widow Ethel, then 40, was so devastated that she all but abandoned Bobby, the third of her 11 children, and he was virtually left to fend for himself.
At just 14, he began burying his anger and sadness in marijuana and psychedelics, and soon turned to hard drugs, including heroin.
His early schooling in three high-priced boarding schools was a disaster – with him essentially being asked to leave or being booted out because of bad behavior.
But with the Kennedy name and influence, he easily got into Harvard, and later earned a law degree at the University of Virginia.
At home – the Kennedy family’s sprawling estate, Hickory Hill, in McLean, Virginia – Bobby’s drug-related behavior exploded, friends recalled. He fed the drug LSD to a pet parakeet and allegedly forced his brother, David, to take mescaline, a frightening psychedelic.
Looking wild-eyed at Bobby, David screamed: ‘You’re dying just like Daddy.’
But it was David who would die of a drug overdose at the tragically young age of 28.
Ethel Kennedy was so devastated after her husband’s death that she all but abandoned Bobby, the third of her 11 children, and he was virtually left to fend for himself
At just 14, Bobby began burying his anger and sadness in marijuana and psychedelics, and soon turned to hard drugs, including heroin
Despite his bad behavior in school, with the Kennedy name and influence, Bobby easily got into Harvard and later earned a law degree at the University of Virginia
One prep school friend recalled how Bobby had once popped an unknown pill found on a dorm room floor, not caring what it was or what it would do to him.
The friend told me: ‘I think his goal was just to get stoned at any cost. He was interested in acting out for shock value.’
During this important period, Ethel placed Bobby in the hands of New York advertising agency executive ‘Lem’ Billings, a closeted homosexual who had idolized JFK, to the extent that he was said to have been in love with him.
Close sources believed Billings had felt the same about Bobby. The elderly former aide would later even participate in getting high with him and Kennedy cousins.
Ethel chased Bobby out of the house after he was arrested for drug possession
At the Kennedy clan’s storied Cape Cod summer getaway, Bobby became the leader of a teen gang known as the Hyannis Port Terrors.
One of the strangest and most frightening of their escapades was when Bobby, about 16 years old, ordered one of the other gang members to hit the fender of a passing car, fall on the street near the front wheels, pretend to be dead, and then Bobby screamed: ‘You’ve killed a Kennedy! You’ve killed a Kennedy!’
His first, but not his last, arrest involving drugs came a couple of months after he was expelled from one of his prep schools for drug involvement.
Decades before marijuana became legal in many states across the country, he was arrested on the Cape in August 1970 on a charge of marijuana possession, along with the son of JFK’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
After the cops served the warrant for Bobby, Ethel chased him out of the house, pushed him into some bushes and ranted: ‘You’ve dragged your family’s name through the mud.’
The story of the pot bust – one of the now future presidential candidate’s earliest scandals – made the front pages around the world.
At a private hearing, Bobby and Robert Sargent Shriver denied ever possessing pot, and both were placed on a year’s probation.
Back at home, his furious mother told him: ‘I’m throwing you out of the family.’
Fast forward to September 11, 1983.
At age 29, following a nightclub drinking binge in New York City, Bobby had hit bottom.
He was en route to Rapid City, South Dakota, where he hoped to get help for his addiction.
This was just 17 months after he had married his first wife – shy, pretty Emily Black, from Indiana. It was a turbulent union, beginning with a big Kennedy wedding and ending in divorce, with two children, RFK III, and daughter, Kick, who were under 10 when Bobby split from their mother.
During that period, Bobby had failed the New York bar exam, after graduating with a law degree from the University of Virginia.
High on the Republic Airlines flight from Minneapolis, he cried out for help from the restroom.
The end of Bobby’s first marriage with Emily Ruth Black was a result of his philandering. They had two children together
‘Bobby was womanizing and Emily knew what was going on,’ a close source said. ‘Whatever relationships Bobby had, he had, and people were aware of it. Emily definitely knew’
