JFK’s controversial nephew, and how he makes his millions

The presidential hopeful's contentious rise

Robert F Kennedy Jr overcame the trauma of his father's and uncle's assassinations and conquered serious drug problems to shine as a trailblazing environmental lawyer and eco activist.

However, he has since found himself facing huge controversy for pushing conspiracy theories and misinformation.

As he becomes the fourth Kennedy to run for US president, read on for the lowdown on Robert F Kennedy Jr's chequered career and multimillion-dollar fortune. All dollar amounts in US dollars. 

Idyllic early childhood

Robert F Kennedy Jr was born in Washington DC on 17 January 1954. 

The son of Robert "Bobby" F Kennedy and his wife Ethel, Robert (also known as "Bobby") was the third of the couple's 11 children and was raised at his family's sprawling Hickory Hill estate in McLean, Virginia. His childhood was also spent at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

His idyllic upbringing was brutally upended in November 1963, however, when his uncle, President John F Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Devastating assassination

Then on 5 June 1968, when Robert was 14, his father, who was campaigning to be president, was shot in Los Angeles. He died in hospital the following day.

The grief-stricken youngster is shown here at his father's funeral, acting as lead pallbearer. The assassination devastated Ethel, who was reportedly left so bereft that she neglected her children and left them to their own devices.

An emotional wreck himself, the young Bobby turned to drugs to cope.

Drug problem

The traumatised teen started using marijuana and taking LSD, before getting into harder narcotics like heroin.

RFK Jr was expelled from two prestigious boarding schools due to his drug-taking and, in 1970, the troubled 16-year-old and his cousin Bobby Shriver were arrested for cannabis possession and placed on 13 months' probation.

Modest inheritance

The young Kennedy's finances weren't too healthy, either, with the Irish Examiner reporting that his father had spent much of his inheritance on the 1968 presidential run.

Ethel received the lion's share of what was left, which was mostly tied up in trusts, and the relatively paltry amount that remained was divided among the 11 kids.

In spite of his drug problems and money issues, Robert still managed to gain a place at Harvard University.

Elite education

The Kennedy scion graduated from the academic institution in 1976 with a bachelor's degree in American history and literature.

And his education didn't end there. Following a stint at the London School of Economics, Bobby earned himself a law degree from the University of Virginia, followed by a master's degree in environmental law from Pace University.

First job and marriage

In 1982, the law grad landed his first proper job as an assistant district attorney for Manhattan, earning a salary of $20,000 (£16k), which equates to around $63,000 (£51k) today.

He also tied the knot, marrying his college sweetheart, Emily Black, in the spring of that year. The couple went on to have two children together.

Happily married and all set for a super-successful legal career, Robert had seemingly landed on his feet – only for everything to come crashing down the following year...

Drug arrest

Despite things looking good on paper, Kennedy's drug addictions had gone from bad to worse. Having failed the New York bar exam in November 1982, he flunked it again in February 1983.

In September that year, the strung-out Kennedy overdosed on a flight to Rapid City, South Dakota. Medics and police were called, and he was found to be in possession of around a gram of heroin.

He was promptly arrested, and the incident served as a wake-up call, prompting Robert to check into rehab. In a statement released at the time via his uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy, Robert declared: "With the best medical help I can find, I am determined to beat this problem." 

Environmental law roles

The arrest was also a blessing in disguise for Robert's career.

In February 1984, he was sentenced to two years' probation and 1,500 hours of community service, which involved working for environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Riverkeeper, a non-profit devoted to preserving the Hudson River.

RFK Jr threw himself into the roles, and his passion and dedication so impressed his bosses that, by 1986, he'd landed senior attorney positions at both organisations.

Trophy home and Hudson River preservation

In the meantime, Robert and his wife Emily had purchased a trophy home in the historic New York village of Mount Kisco.

Bobby had also finally passed the New York bar exam, coasting the fitness and character portion despite his drug conviction. As an attack-dog lawyer for the NRDC and Riverkeeper, Kennedy spearheaded lawsuits that led to everything from the banning of shooting lead shot on Long Island Sound to major clean-ups of the polluted Hudson River.

Indigenous rights supporter

Starting in the mid-1980s, Robert helped shape the NRDC's international programme for environmental, energy, and human rights, and he's also a strong advocate for indigenous people.

Over the years, he's fought hard to protect the rights of these communities and prevent energy and other infrastructure projects from damaging their way of life, chiefly by speaking out and suing corporations of their behalf.

Protecting disadvantaged neighbourhoods

Bobby has also battled to safeguard poor and minority neighbourhoods, which he's said are used by unscrupulous polluters as dumping grounds.

In his very first case as an environmental lawyer, he represented the NAACP in a lawsuit seeking to stop a waste transfer station from being built in the Hudson Valley's oldest Black neighbourhood.

The Environmental Litigation Clinic

In 1987, Robert founded the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace Law School, his alma mater, and held the post of supervising attorney for 30 years.

During those three decades, Kennedy organised students to prosecute a string of lawsuits against corporations that were responsible for polluting the Hudson River and other New York waterways.

First divorce

Bobby's marriage to Emily hit the rocks in the early 1990s. Reportedly a serial womaniser, he'd allegedly cheated on his wife from the get-go, and the litany of affairs resulted in the couple separating in 1992.

They divorced in 1994 after RFK Jr shacked up with interior designer Mary Richardson, who he later married.

Describing Robert as "a wonderful father, but... not a faithful husband", Emily received a share of the Mount Kisco property worth $500,000 (£402k), which Mary later acquired from her. 

Second divorce

RFK Jr and Mary had four children together before their marriage broke down, with reports suggesting it was yet again due to Kennedy's cheating.

But as well as his self-termed "lust demons", Mary's issues with drugs and alcohol also took their toll.

In 2010, Robert officially filed for divorce and later began a relationship with Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines. Two years later, as the divorce proceedings were being finalised, Mary tragically took her own life.

Bottled water firm and Waterkeeper Alliance

In 1998, Robert co-founded a bottled water company called Tear of the Clouds LLC, which donated all its profits to Waterkeeper. It was later sold to Nestlé.

The following year, he helped found Waterkeeper Alliance, a global umbrella organisation that works to protect waterways worldwide.

Factory farming opposition

Building further on his work fighting major polluters, Robert turned his attention to factory farms during the 1990s. He toured America to galvanise support from independent, small-scale producers before launching legal action against factory farms in several states.

The Kennedy scion has also written various op-eds for The New York Times condemning industrial farming.

Kennedy & Madonna

In 2000, the hotshot eco attorney moved his career up a notch by founding his own environmental law firm along with lawyer Kevin Madonna.

Kennedy & Madonna, LLP has won numerous accolades for successfully pursuing contamination cases on behalf of non-profits, American Indian tribes, school districts, and other worthy plaintiffs.

It was also in the year 2000 that Robert reportedly first considered running for the US presidency.

Media star

Robert developed a handy sideline media career in the 2000s, becoming a co-host of Ring of Fire, a syndicated political radio show in 2004.

The following year, he released Crimes Against Nature, which quickly became a New York Times Best Seller. All in all, he's written or contributed to more than a dozen books, and he also co-founded EcoWatch, an environmental news site that still operates today.

Eco clash

As an eco activist staunchly opposed to fossil fuels, Bobby caused a stir in 2005 when he clashed with environmental groups over plans to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod.

Instead of promoting the Cape Wind Project, he slammed it as a waste of money and chose to side with the area's commercial fishing industry by opposing it outright.

Anti-vax article

RFK Jr also raised eyebrows in 2005 when he wrote Deadly Immunity, a widely discredited article that was published by both Rolling Stone and Salon.

In the article, which is riddled with factual errors, Kennedy linked autism to vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative thiomersal. He also accused government health agencies of colluding with Big Pharma to conceal the risks of thiomersal from the public.

The article was later removed from the Salon website. 

Voice disorder

In 2008, it was reported that Robert had been diagnosed with a condition called spasmodic dysphonia, which makes speaking difficult.

Kennedy said it had first presented itself as a mild tremble in his voice and, while he has regular Botox injections to control the worst of the symptoms, his voice nonetheless tends to quiver, and his speech can sound stilted.

Cleantech investing

On top of his activism, legal work, and media career, Bobby has been involved in cleantech investing.

In 2009, he was made a venture partner at early Tesla investor VantagePoint Capital Partners. In addition to that, he holds a senior advisory position at Starwood Energy Group, is a partner of eco dyeing company ColorZen, and co-owns the leading grid management firm GridBright.

Third marriage and anti-vax non-profit

In 2014, Bobby walked down the aisle with actress Cheryl Hines at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port. The pair reportedly first met after being introduced by Hines's Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Larry David.

Two years later, Robert became chairman of the World Mercury Project, which later rebranded to Children's Health Defense. The non-profit activist group is notorious for its anti-vax agenda, which has blamed vaccines and chemicals exposure for everything from food allergies to ADHD. 

Anti-vax campaigning

During the latter half of the 2010s, RFK Jr's anti-vax activism ramped up further. In 2017, he worked with actor Robert De Niro to launch a sham challenge that promised to give $100,000 (£80k) to anyone who could prove the safety of flu vaccines that had already been deemed safe across the board.

Other activities around this time included a trip to Samoa in June 2019, where he spouted his unfounded theories about the MMR vaccine. Just a few months later, the island nation was hit with a measles outbreak that killed scores of children.

Monsanto victory

In between propagating falsehoods surrounding vaccines, Bobby found the time to join Florida-based law firm Morgan & Morgan in 2016.

A year later, he took on Monsanto with his partners, suing the chemicals behemoth on behalf of groundsman Dewayne Johnson (left), who claimed he had developed cancer as a consequence of using the biotech corporation's Roundup weedkiller.

RFK Jr and the team won the case in 2018 and Johnson was granted damages of $289 million (£232m), though the award was later reduced to $21 million (£17m) after appeal.

Family concerns

A 2019 investigation by the journal Vaccine found that Robert was the number-one source of anti-vax ads on Facebook.

By the end of the 2010s, his crusade against vaccines had reached fever pitch and was causing so much consternation that three members of his own family, including his sister Kathleen Kennedy, wrote a Politico article that condemned his "tragically wrong" anti-vax stance.

Anti COVID vaccine evangelism

Then the COVID pandemic struck, and Robert's anti-vax activism took an even darker turn.

In addition to embarking on a personal vendetta against Bill Gates and chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, which involved publishing a much-derided 2021 book, Robert was also banned from Instagram and YouTube.

This came after his spreading of anti-COVID vaccine misinformation, and he was roundly condemned for comparing the criticism of anti-vaxxers to the Nazis' persecution of Jewish people and other groups.

Lucrative stance

As the New York Post has pointed out, however, Robert Kennedy's anti-vax crusade has been "paved with gold" and he's seemingly pocketed millions of dollars by railing against vaccines.

As well as earning a fortune from his work with Children's Health Defense, Kennedy is also said to have pocketed several million dollars off the back of bumper sales of his incendiary 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.

Other controversial views

Aside from his anti-vax stance, Robert holds more than his fair share of other controversial views.

They include harsh criticism of the US military for its environmental practices, doubts over the official stories behind his uncle and father's assassinations, and the apparent belief that HIV may not cause AIDS. He's also voiced reservations about America's involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Robert F Kennedy Jr's net worth

These viewpoints, many of which are at odds with much of the Democratic electorate, may put off potential voters as Robert vies for the party nomination for the 2024 presidential race.

However he performs, he certainly won't have to worry about money – according to online sources, Robert F Kennedy Jr has amassed a personal fortune of around $50 million (£40m).

Want to learn more about Robert's famous family? Explore the lives and fortunes of the Kennedy clan