Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter shared the shocking story with Town & Country magazine more than a decade ago, but it first made headlines over the weekend due to an unlikely confluence of two factors: Kennedy’s presidential campaign ended and his daughter’s reported choice to pursue a budding relationship with Hollywood’s most divorced man, Ben Affleck.
Forget brain worms, Central Park bears, and barbecued dog carcasses, it’s time to talk about whales.
Featured in the Christmas 2012 issue of Town & Country magazine, Kick Kennedy recounted a bizarre tale about his father, who the magazine’s reporter described as “extreme environmentalism.”
Around 1994, when Kennedy heard rumors that a dead whale had washed up on the shores of Hyannisport, Massachusetts, he rushed to the scene with a chainsaw and his 6-year-old son, Kick. He cut off the whale’s head, secured it to the roof of his minivan with bungee cords, and drove five hours back to his family’s home in New York.
“Every time we sped along on the highway, whale juice would pour into the car windows and it was the most disgusting thing in the world,” Kick recalled. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with holes in them and people on the highway would give us the middle finger, and it was a normal thing for us.”
Kick, named after his great-aunt, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy Cavendish, made headlines Saturday after a source told Page Six that she was recently spotted getting cozy with Affleck in L.A. “The nature of their relationship remains unknown,” the tabloid noted.
The report sparked furious online speculation, following confirmation earlier this week that Affleck and his second wife, Jennifer Lopez, had split earlier this year. (Lopez filed for divorce on Tuesday, citing irreconcilable differences.)
Kick is an actress who has appeared in shows such as “Gossip Girl,” “The Newsroom” and “Crazy Love” alongside her stepmother, Cheryl Hines.
The day before Page Six’s report, her father ended his independent campaign for president and endorsed Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump.
“In the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and control of the media, I no longer truly believe there is a realistic path to winning the election,” Kennedy said in a lengthy farewell address to his supporters.
This “media censorship” even extended to embarrassing stories of Kennedy’s encounters with creatures large and small over the years. First, in May, The New York Times reported that in 2010, doctors discovered that a parasite had made its way into Kennedy’s brain and subsequently killed him. Kennedy quickly confirmed this was true.
Then in July, Vanity Fair reported that Kennedy had texted a friend a photo the previous year “of himself with barbecue remains that the friend suggested were a dog. Kennedy denied this, claiming the animal in the text was a goat.”
But the attacks continued, and less than a month later, Kennedy admitted on social media that he was responsible for the infamous dumping of a dead bear cub in Central Park more than a decade ago, in an attempt to pre-empt an upcoming New Yorker article.
“I thought it would be interesting for whoever discovered it,” Kennedy said in the video.
And that’s before he steps inside the 1,000 cubic foot freezer he keeps full of roadkill meat.
