Cheryl Hines Has Stuck With RFK Jr. Through Some Wild Controversies

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Countless controversies, cheating rumors, and questionable political decisions haven't been enough for Cheryl Hines to curb her enthusiasm for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the actor's 2025 memoir "Unscripted," she reminisced about falling head over heels for her future husband when they initially reconnected in 2011. "I was thunderstruck from the moment we started talking," the actor wrote. "I don't know how I missed before how blue his eyes are. I felt his magnetic energy. He has since told me he felt the same way." However, Hines' inner circle understandably didn't share the same enthusiasm. 

During an April 2024 chat with Graham Bensinger, the comedian admitted that her co-star and close friend, Larry David, had openly expressed skepticism about their relationship to her. And it seems that David's reservations were confirmed in September 2014, when the New York Post reported that RFK Jr. once had the contacts of 43(!) mistresses saved in his phone. All of the divisive politician's rumored lovers' names were organized alphabetically under the "G," which apparently stood for "goomar," a colloquial Italian term for mistress. 

Likewise, the Daily Mail also claimed just a few months prior that RFK Jr. had been cheating on Hines with a woman named Chelsea Chapman Kirwan. Even if that information raised alarm bells in the "RV" star's mind, it clearly wasn't enough to deter her from walking down the aisle in August 2014. Over the following years, Hines lost one of her closest friends due to RFK Jr.'s presidential run alongside repeatedly earning significant backlash for her husband's many controversies. However, she ultimately stuck with him through it all.

In September 2024, Olivia Nuzzi, the woman at the center of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. affair scandal, shared a statement with the New York Times to confirm simply that "some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal." The journalist also acknowledged that she should have made her then-employer, New York Magazine, aware of the changing nature of their relationship, even though it wasn't sexual. Notably, Nuzzi had extensively covered RFK Jr. for a New York Magazine profile back in September 2023. Although Cheryl Hines remained tight-lipped when the affair rumors initially surfaced, she did quietly step out without her wedding ring and reportedly spent her birthday weekend in Milan, far away from her hubby. 

The comedian delved into the controversy in her 2025 memoir, "Unscripted." Although Hines initially brushed off the scandal as a means to stain her husband's reputation amid his 2024 presidential campaign, it obviously still hurt her tremendously. "Of course, I hated all of it. The swirl of headlines, rumors, and insinuations was upsetting and overwhelming. I had hit a wall," Hines confessed. While she struggled to come to terms with the scandal, the "Suburgatory" star also had to accept that she felt incredibly distant from her husband. 

Fortunately, all it took were a few candid conversations about all the hardships they had endured throughout their years-long relationship to help the couple find their footing again. According to RFK Jr.'s alleged mistress, though, Hines' reaction to the affair was far more intense than we knew. In Nuzzi's own 2025 memoir "American Canto," she claimed that the comedian was "hysterical" after learning of her husband's alleged infidelity.

Notably, there was a time when Cheryl Hines had to publicly call Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s remarks at a rally "reprehensible." Speaking at an anti-vaccine event in January 2022, the vocal vaccine critic made one of the most bizarre remarks of his career thus far, comparing COVID-19 restrictions to the Holocaust. "Even in Hitler's Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did," RFK Jr. opined, before adding that there were no means to escape from vaccine mandates (via People). When the wave of backlash inevitably enveloped Hines as well, she took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to assert that her views on vaccines were vastly different from her husband's. However, that statement didn't do much to fend off critics, who believed that it didn't sufficiently address the controversy. 

And so, the "Waitress" star shared another since-deleted X post, deeming her husband's comments "reprehensible and insensitive." She added, "The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything." Notably, in "Unscripted," Hines admitted that she wished the outspoken environmental lawyer had tried to get his issues with vaccines across without using such inflammatory language. The comedian wanted to have a heart-to-heart with her husband about how his statements were negatively impacting their family. However, she ultimately decided against it because Hines worried that RFK Jr. would effectively steer the conversation on to all the so-called evidence that inspired him to be so vocal about his vaccine skepticism. It was yet another red flag in Hines and RFK Jr.'s relationship.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s relationship history before he met Cheryl Hines would have sent most potential partners packing. In May 2012, mere months after their romance began, the controversial politician made headlines because Mary Richardson, his estranged second wife, had died by suicide. Shortly after that tragedy occurred, Newsweek reported that RFK Jr. had claimed that she had physically and mentally abused him. In a 2011 affidavit, he also admitted that he had started cheating on his second wife to get her to leave him. However, Richardson's family vehemently denied his claims about her. 

A few days after her death, ABC News reported that RFK Jr. was embroiled in a strange feud with the family of his former wife, from whom he split in 2010, over her final resting place. While the divisive politician wanted Richardson to be buried with his family members, her family wanted her to be near their home instead. Ultimately, the environmental lawyer got his way after winning a legal battle. However, in July 2012, a gravedigger informed the New York Daily News that RFK Jr. had instructed him to dig up her coffin and bury it elsewhere on the estate because he believed her initial spot was too busy. 

Tragically, it wasn't until around October that someone finally put a headstone on Richardson's grave, per Radar Online. Moreover, an insider claimed that RFK Jr.'s second wife's gravestone did not have any personal inscriptions outside of her name and birthdate. They also disclosed that the grave was in an unkempt area that did not even have shrubs surrounding it, as the rest of the Kennedy family's graves notably did.

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In August 2024, RFK Jr. shared a post on X detailing how he had placed a black bear carcass in Central Park. According to the secretary of health and human services, he witnessed someone else running the bear over while he was driving around. For some reason, RFK Jr.'s first instinct was to put the dead animal in his car so that he could skin it and eat it after getting the go-ahead from the relevant authorities. However, a change of plans prevented him from being able to accomplish this strange vision. So, RFK Jr. thought it would be "amusing" to position the bear with a bicycle in Central Park to make it seem like someone had run it over. 

Although the incident was widely reported back in 2014, it wasn't until 2024 that New York Magazine learned he was responsible for it. So, the divisive politician decided to post his side of the story before they could. Notably, the disturbing incident happened shortly after he tied the knot with Cheryl Hines. When he was a year into dating the actor, RFK Jr.'s daughter, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, gave some insight into her childhood with a disturbing story about a whale. 

In a December 2012 interview with Town & Country Magazine, she looked back on how her dad had found a dead whale on a beach and decided to transport it back to their home in their car. Needless to say, the stench of a dead animal got pretty overwhelming on the 5-hour journey. For her part, in Hines' "Unscripted," she admitted that she distinctly remembered how her future husband's car smelled like roadkill on one of their initial dates. But it didn't put her off.

Cheryl Hines made her feelings on a potential Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign crystal clear when she spoke to Variety in January 2024. When asked to share her thoughts on her husband joining the controversial politician's 2024 ticket, Hines candidly replied, "I don't think that my marriage would survive it." As it turns out, her marriage did indeed survive RFK Jr. endorsing Trump in the 2024 elections, following his own exit, and even subsequently proceeding to work in his administration. While speaking to TMZ, in August 2024, the HHS secretary acknowledged that although his wife, who was once a proud Democrat, wasn't thrilled when he brought up the idea of him endorsing the Republican politician, she ultimately respected his decision out of a desire to be a supportive spouse. 

Meanwhile, when the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" star was interviewed by Page Six, in November 2025, she revealed that the stress from meeting the former "Apprentice" host for the first time had physically manifested into hives on her body. Hines' predicament got a whole lot worse when her husband floated the idea of endorsing Trump shortly afterward. "The stress of all of it was a lot," the comedian confirmed, recalling her reaction to the idea. "And then my lips started swelling and I was worried that my throat might start closing up and I had to go to urgent care." 

Despite everything, Hines still recognized that her husband's goals for the country were aligned with Trump's. Although her decision to remain silent about RFK Jr.'s controversial move earned her plenty of backlash as well, as with seemingly everything else, Hines ultimately decided to ride out the storm with him.