Robert Kennedy Jr. Was Married Twice Before Meeting Wife Cheryl Hines
Robert Kennedy Jr. had two kids with his first wife, and four with his second.
Published June 27 2024, 2:06 p.m. ET
Presidential candidate and nephew of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr., is currently married to Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines. However, this is not the first marriage for RKJ.
In fact, Robert has been married three times and has spoken publicly about his current and former wives. Here is everything you need to know about the politician's relationship history.
Robert Kennedy Jr. married his first wife Emily Ruth Black in 1982.
RKJ met his first wife Emily while attending the University of Virginia School of Law. The couple had two children — Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy III and Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy.
Unfortunately, the couple split in 1992 and divorced in 1994.
According to a book by Jerry Oppenheimer, Robert moved on pretty quickly, proposing to his second wife, Mary Richardson, while still technically married to Emily.
Robert Kennedy married Mary Richardson three weeks after his divorce.
Robert tied the knot with Mary, who was six months pregnant with their son Conor, just three weeks after his divorce from Emily was finalized.
The couple went on to have three more kids together, Kyra, William aka Finn, and Aidan.
Robert and Mary were married for 16 years before he filed for divorce in 2010. Tragically, Mary died by suicide in 2012 after she reportedly found her estranged husband's fifth-step journal, where he documented infidelities with 37 women.
"Mary was an amazing woman and she was a very, very good mother... but her mental condition began deteoriating those last years," he told VladTV in 2023. "People who are strong emotionally, no matter what other people do to them or other people's behaviors, they don't take their own lives. I'm sure many things I did hurt Mary in different ways but people take their lives for complex reasons."
He continued, "There weren't names of people... the way the newspapers reported that to make it look like... it was my own way of live and examine life and struggling with an issue I was struggling with at that time. I kept that fifth step in a safe and somehow in the place she was put a lot of effort into getting that safe open."
He is now happily married to actress Cheryl Hines.
On August 2, 2014, Robert married actress Cheryl Hines on the Kennedy compound in Cape Cod, after being introduced by Cheryl's co-star Larry David.
Cheryl has been very vocal about being married to a politician and revealed she has learned to "stay out of it." She is also aware of Robert's womanizing past as well as his history with addiction.
"I pay less attention to social media. There’s a cycle to news. Things spike, they talk about it for one or two days, then they move on," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "And so I’ve learned to stay out of it because my words live on. And because Bobby’s my husband. And I would never want to hurt Bobby. I love him."
Who knows, Robert and Cheryl might be the next President and First Lady of the United States.