chapotraphouse

https://archive.ph/iNyAM

Last year Robert Kennedy Jr. texted a photograph to a friend. In the photo RFK Jr. was posing, alongside an unidentified woman, with the barbecued remains of what appears to be a dog. Kennedy told the person, who was traveling to Asia, that he might enjoy a restaurant in Korea that served dog on the menu, suggesting Kennedy had sampled dog. The photo was taken in 2010, according to the digital file’s metadata—the same year he was diagnosed with a dead tapeworm in his brain. (A veterinarian who examined the photograph says the carcass is a canine, pointing to the 13 pairs of ribs, which include the tell-tale “floating rib” found in dogs.)

The picture’s intent seems to have been comedic—Kennedy and his companion are pantomiming—but for the recipient it was disturbing evidence of Kennedy’s poor judgment and thoughtlessness, simultaneously mocking Korean culture, reveling in animal cruelty, and needlessly risking his reputation and that of his family.

When Kennedy was married to his second wife, Mary Richardson, he was known to text other damning images to friends as well—of nude women. Those friends assumed Kennedy himself had taken the pictures, but they didn’t know whether the subjects had consented to having their genitalia photographed, let alone shared with other people. When one friend lost his phone, he panicked that somebody might discover the images.