politico.com – By Isabella Ramírez and Irie Sentner –
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Friday he was suspending his presidential campaign — bringing to a close one of the strangest campaigns in recent memory.
The independent candidate, a son of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, ran a conspiracy-filled, long-shot campaign. But despite consistently low polling, Kennedy still managed to frequently grab hold of the news cycle — often for bizarre reasons.
Here
He said a worm ate his brain
The New York Times revealed in May that what Kennedy originally thought was a brain tumor might have been the work of a hungry parasite — at least, according to him.
During a 2012 deposition made during a contentious divorce from his second wife, Kennedy told attorneys that a doctor believed an abnormality in his brain scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” per the Times. He said he had been experiencing severe memory loss and mental fogginess, which he claimed had diminished his earning power.
The revelation captivated the internet, and even Kennedy himself had no choice but to lean into it.
“I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X.
He admitted to dumping a dead bear in Central Park
In an attempt to get ahead of a New Yorker article on the subject, Kennedy posted a video on social media earlier this month admitting to comedian Roseanne Barr that he left a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago. Kennedy says in the video that another driver had killed the bear, and he pulled over and put it in his car with plans to skin it and “put the meat in my refrigerator.”
Long story short, his explanation ends with the fact that he wasn’t going home and couldn’t leave the bear in his car, so naturally, he placed the carcass in Central Park and staged it to look like a bike accident. The circumstances surrounding the bear’s death had remained a mystery for years (and, coincidentally, Kennedy’s cousin Tatiana Schlossberg wrote a 2014 report about it for The New York Times).
The New Yorker published an article featuring the story alongside a photograph from 2014 of Kennedy putting his fingers in the bear’s bloody mouth with a comical expression on his face.
His response to the New Yorker’s report? “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm,” he told the publication.
He denied eating a dog
Vanity Fair published a startling 2010 photo in July of Kennedy holding what appeared to be a whole barbequed animal — and not a pig. Kennedy had sent the image to a friend who was traveling to Asia and suggested he go to a restaurant in Korea that served dog on its menu, implying the pictured animal was a dog, according to Vanity Fair.
In an interview with NewsNation, he denied the report and said the animal was a goat in Patagonia.
“I’m a very adventurous eater,” Kennedy said. “I’ll eat virtually anything. There’s two things I wouldn’t eat — well, three. I wouldn’t eat a human, I wouldn’t eat a monkey, and I wouldn’t eat a dog. I think I’d eat anything else.”
More…https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/23/rfk-jr-7-weird-campaign-moments-00176157