Actress Cheryl Hines said her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., suggested they pretend to be separated during the contentious 2024 presidential election, The Hill reported. Hines said Kennedy, who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services, worried that his wife would "take the heat" from the media and his opponents.
During the campaign, Kennedy initially ran to be the Democratic candidate beginning in April 2023. He was looking to unseat the incumbent then-President Joe Biden, but he received severe pushback from his own party.
By October 2023, Kennedy was running as an independent but would drop out of the race and join President Donald Trump's campaign with his agenda to make America healthy again. However, this pivot was not without its pitfalls, and one of them was how his wife would be treated.
"Some people were very upset that I was even married to Bobby. They were vocally coming at me because I’m married to Bobby. So Bobby felt like, ‘You shouldn’t be having to take that heat. So why don’t we just say we’re separated?’” Hines said in an interview with Fox News.
Hines was interviewed ahead of the November 11 release of her memoir Unscripted, where she shared about her marriage and the impact of the campaign. "What needed to happen — and what did happen — is we got closer together," Hines said.
"For a couple to say, ‘Maybe we should just say we’re not with each other anymore and our lives would be easier’ — it’s like, well, things have gotten to that point. That’s pretty dramatic and pretty extreme," the Curb Your Enthusiasm star later told Fox News.
"And that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book … experiences that are very once in a lifetime," she added. It wasn't just political jousting or bad press that the couple had to worry about. In September 2023, a man with a gun pretending to be a U.S. Marshall was arrested in Los Angeles rally for Kennedy.
Given what some have called a family curse after Kennedy's father and uncle were assassianted, Hines was particularly concerned. "I was very fearful for his safety. As most people know, his uncle, John Kennedy, was assassinated. His father, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated while he was running for president," Hines recalled.
"So when Bobby ran for president, it was very stressful. For good reason. I mean, I saw somebody breaking into our house — watching him walk into the backyard — and I see the security guy coming at him with his weapon out. It’s 10:00 in the morning," she added.
The physical threats were bad enough, but Hines has also been subjected to vicious media attacks because of her marriage. Perhaps RFK Jr.'s instincts to protect his wife were spot on, considering the treatment on a recent episode of ABC's The View last week.
Co-host Sunny Hostin attempted to paint Robert Kennedy Jr. as unqualified for his spot in the HHS because he isn't a doctor, though, as Hines pointed out, neither were many of the others who have held the job. "Bobby’s background, everything I have seen him do, he has dedicated his career to suing big corporations because of toxins that are — have been affecting people’s healthcare, people’s health, I should say," Hines said of her husband.
Robert Kennedy Jr. has been at the forefront of environmental lawsuits, particularly in cases where the harmful consequences have been particularly severe. Hostin attempted to criticize Robert Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine skepticism, but Hines countered that her husband merely wants to remove harmful substances from food and medicine. "Even baby formula, we’re finding out there’s arsenic. There’s lead," Hines noted.
Being married to Robert Kennedy Jr. is no easy feat, considering the amount of hatred leveled at him from the people supposedly in his own party. He's also a member of Trump's administration, and that combination makes him and his family a target, no matter what his past politics were.
