Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, said he once scooped a dead bear off the side of the road and dumped the carcass in New York City’s Central Park.
In a video released on Kennedy’s social media account, the candidate is seen telling actress Roseanne Barr of a time roughly a decade ago when he retrieved a dead bear from the side of the road after it was fatally struck by another driver. Kennedy said after an initial flood of media coverage around the dead bear, the story died until The New Yorker discovered it and questioned him for a profile the magazine was working on.
Kennedy said he picked up the bear while going falconing and wanted to skin it for meat. His day lasted too long, however, and he had to leave the city on a flight. He disposed of the bear carcass by dumping it in Central Park beside an old bicycle, thinking to play into a rash of biking accidents that had taken place in the park at the time. He credited the idea to the “little bit of redneck in me.”
News of the dead bear blew up in local media coverage, causing some concern that it would eventually be linked back to him. The story eventually passed, however. The video of Kennedy explaining the bear story was published to his X account on Sunday.
Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, @NewYorker… pic.twitter.com/G13taEGzba
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 4, 2024
The New Yorker profile of Kennedy went live on Monday, recounting the bear story with fewer details, but seemingly corroborating the incident with a picture Kennedy took with the bear carcass. The photograph shows Kennedy with his hand in the dead bear’s mouth and a mock grimace across his face.
When the magazine questioned Kennedy about the incident, he joked that “maybe that’s where I got my brain worm,” referring to a medical incident during which a doctor found a dead worm in Kennedy’s head. The candidate said that the parasite had eaten a part of his brain.
