- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is fending off claims that he once ate a barbecued hot dog.
- Responding to allegations in a Vanity Fair article, he said the carcass was that of a goat.
- The independent presidential candidate is running as an alternative to Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been linked to a number of strange headlines, including his admission that he once had a brain parasite, but things just got weirder.
A Vanity Fair article on Tuesday included the claim that the independent presidential candidate has eaten barbecued dog.
The article included a photo that Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, had sent to a friend in 2010, showing him with an unidentified woman holding a charred animal carcass.
Vanity Fair had a veterinarian examine the photo, who told the magazine that the number of ribs visible in the image made it likely to be a dead dog.
The outlet added that Kennedy had told a friend travelling in Asia that she might like a restaurant that had dog food on the menu.
Responding to Vanity Fair's allegations, Kennedy said on the political podcast “Breaking Point” on Tuesday that the article was “complete nonsense.”
“They're saying it's a photo of me eating a dog, but it's actually a photo of me eating a goat while whitewater rafting on the Futaleufu River in Patagonia many years ago,” Kennedy said.
He said statements by a veterinarian who identified the carcass as a dog were “completely unfounded”.
Kennedy made a separate statement on X on Tuesday, claiming the carcass was that of a goat, not a dog.
The Vanity Fair article states, Eliza Cooney said she worked as a babysitter for Kennedy in 1998 when she was 23. On one occasion, she told Vanity Fair, Kennedy groped her in the kitchen of his home, touching her waist and breasts.
Responding to these accusations on the podcast, he said he was “not a church-going kid” and had a “very tumultuous childhood.”
“I have a lot of secrets that I'm hiding,” Kennedy added. “If everyone could vote, I could run for king of the world.”
He said he would not comment on the details of the “30-year-old” article that Vanity Fair is reusing.
But before the dog, the insects arrived.
Kennedy said in 2012 that part of his brain had been eaten away by worms — a decade ago but republished by The New York Times this year — that the testimony was part of his divorce proceedings from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy.
Doctors found black spots on his brain, he said. Some said they were tumors, but one told him they were caused by bugs that had invaded his brain, eaten parts of it and died.
“Obviously, I have cognitive impairments,” he said at the time. “I have short-term memory impairments and long-term memory impairments and that's impacting me.”
Kennedy has also promoted public health conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination misinformation.
Vanity Fair's deeply damning report comes as the presidential election approaches, with Kennedy, an independent candidate, running as an alternative to Biden, who some Democrats fear is too old for the presidency, and Trump, who was convicted of a crime.
A representative for Kennedy did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment sent outside normal business hours.
