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By Joe Edwards
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On Sunday, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted to dumping a bear carcass in New York City's Central Park, spawning a flurry of memes, jokes, and general confusion online.
The revelations add to a string of strange stories now surrounding the 70-year-old nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, which involve brain worms and accusations of eating a barbequed dog.
Newsweek has contacted Kennedy's campaign for comment via email.
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The "Dog" Photo
Kennedy faced backlash following the emergence of a controversial photograph that appeared to some to show him posing with a barbecued dog. The photo surfaced in a July Vanity Fair exposé, prompting widespread outrage and denials from Kennedy.
The photograph in question, taken in 2010 according to Vanity Fair, showed Kennedy alongside an unidentified woman, holding a cooked animal carcass.
Kennedy, however, vehemently denied the claims, asserting that the carcass in the photograph was not a dog but a goat.
In a request to Kennedy's team for comment on the allegations, Newsweek was pointed to tweet by Kennedy, refuting the story.
"Hey @VanityFair, you know when your veterinary experts call a goat a dog, and your forensic experts say a photo taken in Patagonia was taken in Korea, that you've joined the ranks of supermarket tabloids," it read.
Fact checkers Snopes and FactCheck.org have both concluded that the animal in question was probably not a canine.
The Brain Worm
Kennedy has previously revealed that he had a parasitic worm in his brain, which he claimed caused cognitive issues and memory loss. This unusual medical condition dated back to around 2010, when Kennedy experienced symptoms such as "brain fog" and difficulties with word retrieval and short-term memory.
During a 2012 deposition related to his divorce, Kennedy disclosed that a doctor suggested his health problems could be due to a worm that had entered his brain, eaten part of it, and then died. He was also diagnosed with mercury poisoning around the same time, which he attributed to a diet heavy in fish like tuna and perch.
The Bear Cub
In a video posted to X (formerly Twitter), Kennedy is seen telling comedian Roseanne Barr about an event in 2014 when a woman on the road ahead of him struck and killed a young bear.
He then details how he picked up the carcass and placed in in his vehicle, planning to skin the bear cub and store its meat.
Kennedy claimed he decided instead to ditch the animal in Central Park due to a dinner engagement which overran, framing the scene as a bicycle accident - an admission which seems to solve the decade-long mystery surrounding the animal, which was widely reported at the time (in The New York Times by none other than Tatiana Schlossberg, Kennedy's first cousin once removed. "Like law enforcement, I had no idea who was responsible for this when I wrote the story," she told the Times in response to her relative's revelation).
Speaking to The New Yorker about the incident, Kennedy jested: "Maybe that's where I got my brain worm."
In a separate post since, Kennedy wrote: "The press is often called the 'fourth estate,' to emphasize its independence and high purpose. But these days it is in eerie, almost comical lockstep, amplifying trivial stories to damage disfavored political figures.
"Meanwhile, parents in our country can't afford groceries. Brothers won't speak to each other because of partisan loyalties. Small towns sink under addiction and depression. And the world careens toward WW3."
Does Kennedy Have an Animal Problem?
Some political experts have suggested to Newsweek that the conversation may actually bolster Kennedy's campaigning efforts.
"[The news is] unlikely to do any serious damage because he is already regarded to be an unconventional candidate," said Andrew Wroe, a senior lecturer in American Politics at England's University of Kent.
"Indeed, the extra publicity may even be good for his campaign. It also plays into his image as a quirky outsider challenging the status quo," Wroe told Newsweek.
"The American public's expectations about how candidates should behave have changed over time," he continued. "They are more permissive and forgiving today. Gary Hart was forced out of the Democratic primaries in 1988 after allegations of an extra-marital affair, but just four years later Bill Clinton won the presidency in spite of similar allegations and an admission that he had smoked marijuana (but 'didn't inhale').
"Obama's pre-election memoirs acknowledged he used drugs. And, most notably, Trump captured the presidency in 2016 just weeks after the publication of the Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged that he could sexually assault women and get away with it because he 'was a star'".
Wroe added that next to this and other stories around Trump and his alleged behavior, Kennedy's latest story appears "relatively tame."
"Kennedy's stories are so bizarre that they're 'bear-ly' believable," political scientist Thomas Gift wrote in an email to Newsweek.
"It just makes you wonder what wild tale he'll come up with next," the associate professor at University College London said. "For some voters, RFK Jr's eccentricity is part of his appeal. For others, it just leaves them shaking their heads."
"Whichever side you're on, the one thing you can't say about Kennedy is that he's boring or predictable. If it's true that all press is good press, at least Kennedy's adventures keep him in the headlines. For a third-party candidate looking to gain traction, that's not the worst thing," he added.
Kennedy is currently polling at just 5.5 percent nationally, according to an average of polls by FiveThirtyEight.com. The election modelling site had Vice President Kamala Harris at 45.3 percent, slightly ahead of former President Donald Trump on 43.5 percent, as of August 5.
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