RFK Jr. denies eating dog, claims photo shows roasted goat

Article content

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being hounded by a report that alleges the candidate for U.S. President is pictured taking a bite of a cooked dog.

In fact, the long-shot candidate — trailing Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden by a wide margin — says a photo of the dead animal he was about to sink his teeth into was actually a goat.

The accusation is part of a sprawling article by Vanity Fair published Tuesday, which also alleges a sexual assault.

Kennedy, in an interview with News Nation host Chris Cuomo hours later, claimed that the Democratic National Committee was trying to dig up dirt on him and gave it to the magazine, calling the article a “dumpster of misinformation.”

“It’s a goat,” Kennedy said. “And it’s in Patagonia. It’s a river trip that I used to do … every year. That’s what everyone eats down there, it’s goats.

Article content

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

According to Vanity Fair, last year, Kennedy texted the photo of himself and an unidentified woman pantomiming eating the roasted animal carcass to a friend. The friend was told that Kennedy was about to travel to Asia and suggested he dine at a Korean restaurant that serves dog meat.

The magazine said the digital photo’s metadata suggested the picture was taken in 2010 in Korea, around the same time that Kennedy was diagnosed with a dead tapeworm in his brain.

According to the magazine, the friend said Kennedy “sent me the picture with a recommendation to visit the best dog restaurant in Seoul, so he was certainly representing that this was a dog and not a goat. In any case, it’s grotesque.”

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

Elsewhere in the article, a part-time babysitter accused Kennedy of sexual assault.

Article content

Article content

Eliza Cooney, who was 23 when she was hired to look after his four children with second wife Mary Richardson, moved into the family’s home in Mount Kisco, N.Y., in 1998.

In one incident, Cooney detailed Kennedy’s hand moving up and down her leg under a table in a diary entry dated Nov. 7, 1998.

“It seemed like he thought I was somebody else or wasn’t paying attention,” Cooney wrote, which the author of the article saw. “Like he would come to every once in a while and snap out of it or I would move away. It was like he was on something or really tired or was missing Mary or was testing me.”

Several months later, Cooney alleged that Kennedy came up behind her in the kitchen pantry and began groping her. The nanny, still wearing a sports bra and leggings following a yoga class, claimed that he put his hands on her waist and ran them up her body to her breasts.

Article content

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

“My back was to the door of the pantry, and he came up behind me,” she said. “I was frozen. Shocked.”

Cooney said a co-worker interrupted him after entering the kitchen.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” or “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your wife to know about,” the man told Kennedy, according to Cooney’s recollection.

Kennedy didn’t deny the allegations.

“I’ve said this from the beginning: I am not a church boy,” Kennedy told the Breaking Points podcast. “I am not running like that. … I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet.”

Article content