Robert F Kennedy denies taking a bite of dead dog

New York: Robert F Kennedy Jr has been forced to deny that he took a bite out of a dog carcass on a trip to Korea.

The presidential candidate reportedly posed with the barbecued remains of a dog in a photo taken in 2010 – the same year he had a tapeworm removed from his brain.

Robert F Kennedy Jr poses with an animal carcass in 2010.Credit: X

Kennedy, 70, insisted that he had eaten a goat and that the picture had been taken in South America.

Vanity Fair reports that he recommended a restaurant in Korea that serves dog on its menu to a friend, and texted the same individual a picture of him posing with the barbecued animal.

The photograph shows Kennedy pretending to take a bite out of the carcass, which has been skewered on a large stick.

“It’s me in a campfire in Patagonia on the Futaleufu River eating a goat, which is what we eat down there,” he told Fox News, hitting out at the magazine’s “lack of sort of journalistic standards”.

However, Vanity Fair cites a vet who identified the carcass as canine, noting that it had 13 pairs of ribs – including a tell-tale “floating rib” found in dogs.

Goats also have 13 pairs of ribs, although floating ribs – meaning they are not attached to the sternum or another rib – are a rare characteristic.

Sex assault claims

Elsewhere in the article, Kennedy is accused of sexually assaulting a 23-year-old babysitter when he was a married 45-year-old father of four.

Eliza Cooney, who moved into the Kennedy’s house in 1998, claims that he groped her in their kitchen and slid his hands along her hips, rib cage and breasts.

“My back was to the door of the pantry, and he came up behind me,” she said. “I was frozen. Shocked.”

Cooney also claimed that he had rubbed her leg under the kitchen table and asked her, while shirtless, to rub lotion on his back.

Kennedy allegedly attempted to avoid paying child support when he separated from his wife, citing “brain fog” as a medical reason for his financial difficulties.

He puts the condition down to a tapeworm that apparently consumed part of his brain, although his family reportedly attributed this to his heroin addiction.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr at a campaign event in West Hollywood last week.Credit: AP

By the age of 29, when Kennedy overdosed in a plane bathroom, he had been injecting the drug for half his life.

Speaking to the Breaking Points podcast, Kennedy called the Vanity Fair article “a lot of garbage” and declined to comment on specific allegations.

He said: “I have said this from the beginning. I am not a church boy. I am not running like that.

“I said in my … I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”

Kennedy’s campaign has been approached for comment by The Telegraph.

The Telegraph, London

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