Biography Reveals RFK Jr. Diary Entry Detailing Roadkill Dissection on New York Highway

A new biography of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released Tuesday includes excerpts from personal diaries he kept between 1999 and 2001, containing a November 2001 entry in which he described standing on Interstate 684 in Westchester County, New York, dissecting a dead raccoon. The 72-year-old HHS Secretary, who runs the Trump administration's health initiative MAHA, has a documented history of unusual behavior involving deceased animals that dates back decades.

The Details

In 'RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise,' authored by New York Post journalist Isabel Vincent and published by William Morrow on April 14, Kennedy's diary entry recounts the incident with specific detail. Writing on November 11, 2001, he documented: 'I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be.' He noted that his children remained in the vehicle during the roadside procedure.

Vincent offered context for Kennedy's behavior in an interview with People magazine, explaining that his interest in animal dissection stems from childhood aspirations. According to the author, Kennedy harbored veterinary ambitions as a youth and worked after school at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Vincent suggested Kennedy's freezer contains specimens he has collected from roadkill for later study.

The diary entry appeared as Kennedy was processing strained relationships within his extended family. The passage specifically referenced tensions with his brother Douglas Kennedy and cousin Bobby Shriver during that period. The diaries themselves entered the public record through a circuitous path: Kennedy's second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, obtained them during their difficult divorce proceedings, which remained unfinalized when she died by suicide in May 2012.

Kennedy's documented interactions with deceased animals extend considerably beyond the raccoon incident. In 2024, he publicly acknowledged placing a dead bear cub in New York's Central Park approximately a decade earlier, fashioning the scene to suggest a bicyclist had struck the animal. He posted a video online explaining his involvement in that incident.

His daughter Kick Kennedy recalled in a 2012 Town & Country interview an earlier episode from her childhood. When she was six years old, Kennedy used a chainsaw to decapitate a whale that had washed ashore on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, then secured the whale's head to the family minivan's roof with a bungee cord. She described the resulting journey as involving whale fluid leaking through vehicle windows while family members wore plastic bags over their heads with mouth holes.

Additional revelations from the biography detail Kennedy's private struggles during the 1999-2001 period. The diaries reveal a crude numerical tracking system for infidelities, with entries marking days without extramarital activity as 'victory' and days with such activity as being 'mugged' by 'lust demons.' Vincent's book also addresses Kennedy's associations during this era, including flights taken with Jeffrey Epstein.

Environmental organizations expressed outrage regarding the whale decapitation narrative. Kennedy's cousin Caroline Kennedy sent a letter to lawmakers last year characterizing his college-era behavior as disturbing, specifically referencing his practice of feeding live small animals to hawks in his dormitory and describing the scene as one of despair and violence.

Context

Kennedy built a career as an environmental lawyer before his 2024 presidential campaign, which he suspended mid-race to support Donald Trump. His appointment as HHS Secretary in the Trump administration placed him in charge of federal health policy and the MAHA movement, which criticizes pharmaceutical industry practices and vaccine schedules. The timing of these biographical revelations comes as Kennedy's tenure in a prominent public health position generates ongoing scrutiny from medical professionals and public health advocates who question his qualifications and policy positions.

The narrative around Kennedy has long included accounts of unconventional personal conduct. These diary excerpts and historical anecdotes provide documented evidence—sometimes from Kennedy himself or family members—that establish a pattern rather than isolated incidents. The Central Park bear incident had been previously reported, but the raccoon entry represents newly disclosed material that intensifies the characterization of Kennedy's unusual relationship with dead animals.

The biography's release demonstrates the continued public interest in Kennedy's personal history as his public influence expands. Vincent's access to the diaries, mediated through an intermediary who possessed them as leverage during the contentious Kennedy divorce proceedings, has made previously private reflections available for public examination. This availability of personal documents has allowed media outlets and readers to form their own assessments of the material.

Kennedy has not publicly commented on the diary excerpts or the biographical revelations. His previous public acknowledgments of incidents involving dead animals have typically been presented as reflections on his interests rather than expressions of regret.

What's Next

The biography is expected to maintain commercial visibility given ongoing media interest in Kennedy's public role and personal history. Political observers are likely to scrutinize whether these revelations influence public perception of his HHS leadership or face policy opposition from lawmakers. Medical and environmental organizations have indicated they will monitor how Kennedy's documented history shapes implementation of MAHA initiatives and federal health policy under his direction.

Further excerpts from the diaries may surface as media outlets and researchers engage with Vincent's full text. Kennedy's response—whether through direct comment, social media engagement, or legal action—remains to be seen, though his historical pattern suggests minimal engagement with such controversies.