The Obvious Red Flags RFK Jr. And Cheryl Hines' Marriage Won't Last

Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. don’t exactly scream “couple goals,” but somehow, they’ve been making it work since 2014. On the surface, they appear to have it all figured out. But scratch a little deeper, and their marriage is practically filled to the brim with weird things and red flags.

If you ask the couple themselves, though, they’d tell you that everything is fine and dandy. Hines once told Us Weekly the secret to their supposed long-lasting love is their ability to stay grounded amid all the chaos. “There’s, like, a connection that you look at your husband or your partner and all the crazy going on around you, or you look and you check in and it’s like, ‘OK. It’s going to be OK. We’re going to move through this moment,'” she said. Still, one has to wonder if she’s just deflecting, considering that RFK Jr. has been accused of having an inappropriate “personal relationship” with journalist Olivia Nuzzi, and according to Mediaite, there’s chatter that he’s cheated on Hines with several other women. Yikes!

And that’s just the beginning. As if cheating weren’t enough, there are plenty more red flags where those came from. Let’s unpack the rest, shall we? Let’s see if they are bound to be another Kennedy marriage that’s doomed to fall apart.

Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s relationship had a rocky start from day one. In fact, it seems Hines’ friends had her on red alert, warning her to steer clear of RFK Jr. and his less-than-sterling reputation. Jerry Oppenheimer wrote in the book “RFK Jr.: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream” that Kennedy came with a “history as a womanizer … intertwined with scandal” (via Page Six). So yeah, he was not exactly Prince Charming material.

Hines’ friends were apparently so wary that they practically begged her not to go there. “Any woman who gets involved with Bobby does so with her eyes open, or their brains lopped off. Any woman who thinks they’re going to change Bobby is misguided and purposefully ignorant,” Oppenheimer claimed. “Women have to understand what they’re getting into when they’re with him. You can hate it, you can make excuses for it, you can do whatever you want to do, it doesn’t change the fact that he has a long history of doing certain things.”

Even Larry David, the man who played a key role in introducing the two, had major second thoughts about playing Cupid. “He introduced us — just because we were at the same event,” Hines told Alec Baldwin in an episode of his “Here’s the Thing” podcast. “But then later Larry was like, ‘That’s a terrible idea. No, no, no — don’t get involved.'” Honestly, when Larry David tells you something’s a bad idea, maybe take the hint.

When it comes to being a womanizer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn’t just have a reputation — he had receipts, too. In 2013, the New York Post reported the existence of a notebook from 2001, apparently listing 37 women he had flings with that year. Each name came with a handy numerical rating from 1 to 10, with “10” supposedly meaning they had slept together. The kicker? This happened during his marriage to his former wife, Mary Richardson.

As if that wasn’t messy enough, RFK Jr. reportedly strung Richardson along long after their marriage ended — even while he was romancing Cheryl Hines. According to a friend of Richardson who spoke to The Daily Beast, “Mary was brainwashed … believing everything that Bobby said. And he was leading her on. He might have been with Cheryl, but he was still giving Mary enough encouragement to stay hopeful.” The friend didn’t hold back, adding, “Bobby did everything he could to demean and hurt Mary.”

And the alleged womanizing spree didn’t stop there. According to the New York Post, at one point, his phone purportedly had a list of 43 mistresses scattered across the globe — Toronto, Paris, Palm Beach, Miami, you name it. And guess who was apparently in the mix? Cheryl Hines herself, long before they tied the knot.

Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might be a love match, but politically? Not so much. Hines, a Democrat, and RFK Jr., who’s firmly not, have made it clear they’re not exactly on the same page when it comes to politics — especially given RFK Jr.’s knack for eyebrow-raising opinions. When RFK Jr. faced backlash for making shocking comments about the Holocaust, Hines wasted no time practically throwing him under the bus. She called his remarks “reprehensible and insensitive” and made it crystal clear that “his opinions are not a reflection of [her] own.” If that wasn’t enough, she doubled down on X, formerly Twitter, writing, “While we love each other, we differ on many current issues.”

RFK Jr., to his credit, seems aware that his wife isn’t leading his fan club when it comes to his political ventures. Although Hines did reluctantly support his short-lived presidential campaign, she didn’t hide her discomfort when he endorsed Donald Trump — a move she definitely wasn’t on board with. “This is a really difficult issue for Cheryl. This is the opposite of what she would want to do. She went along with it because she loves me, and she wanted to be supportive of me, but it was not something that she ever encouraged,” he explained to TMZ. “I would say — her trepidation about this and her discomfort with this were the dominant feelings.”

Happy couples usually dream of forever, but Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have reportedly toyed with the idea of divorce more than once. In an interview with The New York Times, RFK Jr. confessed that he offered Hines an out — proposing they publicly announce a separation so she could distance herself from the fallout of his controversial beliefs. “I saw how it was affecting her life and I said to her, ‘We should just announce that we are separated,’ so that you can have some distance from me,” he admitted. “We wouldn’t really be doing anything, we would just — I felt so desperate about protecting her at a time where my statements and my decisions were impacting her.”

But they were reportedly far less noble — and had little to do with his alleged infidelity. Apparently, she was over his political antics, especially his growing camaraderie with Donald Trump. “The guy is a serial philanderer and she knew that coming in,” a source dished to Page Six. “She knew she was getting in with a Kennedy, who are known for being infamous womanizers. … But she never signed up to be a member of Trump World!”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political baggage isn’t just his to carry — it’s reportedly been dragging down Cheryl Hines’ acting career, too. In an appearance on “Breitbart News Daily”, RFK Jr. claimed that the “cancel culture” he’s facing has started to impact his wife, suggesting she’s already lost out on work because of him. “I don’t want to go into details, but I can tell you that she has already lost,” he said. “In fact, she lost one today. I can tell you, yes, there is a cancel culture. It’s alarming.”

Hines, however, wasn’t about to let that one slide. While she admitted to a minor hiccup, she insisted to The New York Times that she hadn’t actually lost any gigs. “I haven’t lost any jobs because of my support for his candidacy, but there was a project I’m involved in where there was a pause for discussion about how his candidacy might affect what we are doing but it has been resolved,” she said. In other words, no jobs were harmed in the making of this marriage — at least for now.

Despite her support for her husband, Hines makes it clear she’s not about to play the dutiful political spouse at every event. A little less Jackie Kennedy energy and a little more Melania Trump, perhaps? “I support Bobby and I want to be there for him, and I want him to feel loved and supported by me,” she added. “And at the same time, I don’t feel the need to go to every political event, because I do have my own career.”