Robert F. Kennedy Jr grossed people out this year with a story about a parasitic worm eating part of his brain. Now he is back with another doozy about leaving a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park.
The independent presidential candidate, conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist made the disclosure in a three-minute video posted on social media on Sunday as he apparently tried to get out ahead of a New Yorker magazine story that mentions the weird tale of roadkill and stealth from a decade ago.
In the video shot at what looked like a post-meal chat with people including sitcom actress Roseanne Barr, Kennedy recounted the saga.
Photo: AP
He and friends were on a falconry excursion in New York state in 2014, Kennedy said, when a van ahead of him hit and killed a six-month-old black bear.
The scion of the most prominent political family in the US, eager to salvage the corpse for the meat, put it in the back of his own vehicle.
“And you can do that in New York state. You can get a bear tag for roadkill bear,” Kennedy, 70, said in a gravelly voice.
However, the falconry field trip ran late, so he could not get the remains back to his home in Westchester County. So did a dinner that he attended that evening in the Big Apple and Kennedy realized he would have to go straight to the airport for a flight he was due to take.
“The bear was in my car, and I didn’t want to leave the bear in the car because that would have been bad,” he said.
After Kennedy and company brainstormed, they took the carcass to Central Park and left it under an old bicycle Kennedy had in his car.
Kennedy said the plan was to make it look like a cyclist had killed the animal, an admission that drew laughter from people in the video.
“I wasn’t drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea,” he said. “Then I thought, you know, at that time this was the little bit of the redneck in me.”
When the animal’s body was eventually found it became a huge news story.
“And I was like: ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’” Kennedy said. “I was worried because my prints were all over that bike.”
He said the story remained dormant for a decade until a fact-checker from the New Yorker called to verify it for a feature on Kennedy. The piece has yet to be published.
“It’s going to be a bad story,” Kennedy said with a laugh.
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