Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally revealed a decade-old anecdote, in which he left a dead bear cub in Central Park and made it appear a bike had hit it, in an attempt to get ahead of a forthcoming profile in the New Yorker.
Kennedy recounted the incident in a three-minute video featuring actress Roseanne Barr, who could be seen listening intently to the story. The video was posted to social media on Sunday, directing a message to the magazine that read: “Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one.” The New Yorker published the story on Monday.
Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, @NewYorker… pic.twitter.com/G13taEGzba
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 4, 2024
In 2014, Kennedy was on his way to go hawking with a group of people in New York state when the van in front of him hit and killed a black-bear cub. He put the dead carcass in his van with the intent to skin it later.
“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear,” he said. “It was in very good condition, and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator.”
But Kennedy had to attend a dinner in New York City and then leave for the airport, meaning he had to dispose of the young bear. He decided to place it in Central Park alongside an old bicycle from his van. During this time, there were numerous bike accidents in New York that resulted in the deaths of several people. So he thought it would have been “amusing for whoever found it” in the park.
Although his acquaintances were drinking, Kennedy clarified he was sober at the time when he came up with the idea.
A day later, the bear carcass received so much attention from the local press that over 20 police cars and multiple helicopters arrived at the scene. “I was like, ‘Oh my God. What did I do?'” Kennedy remarked in the video, adding that he was worried about his fingerprints on the bike.
Fortunately for him, the story eventually died and didn’t resurface until the New Yorker pursued it as part of a larger article a decade later.
“The New Yorker somehow found out about it,” said Kennedy, who was notified of the story before publication. “It’s gonna be a bad story.” In a photo, he could be seen putting his fingers inside the bear’s bloody mouth. When asked to comment on the incident, he playfully responded, “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm.”
Kennedy, 70, made headlines in May when the New York Times reported that the independent candidate suffered memory loss and mental fogginess due to a dead worm in his brain, which was partly eaten by the parasite. The scoop raised concern about his health and whether he should be running for the presidency.
Ten years ago, the story about the dead bear caused quite a stir in the media and remained a mystery until now. The initial Times article was coincidentally written by Tatiana Schlossberg, the daughter of Kennedy’s first cousin Caroline Kennedy.
After Kennedy claimed responsibility for the incident, Schlossberg said she was unaware of her relative’s involvement. “Like law enforcement, I had no idea who was responsible for this when I wrote the story,” she told the Times on Sunday.