Cheryl Hines may be very supportive of her husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Curb Your Enthusiasm star was by Kennedy’s facet on the 2024 presidential marketing campaign path till he dropped out of the race in August 2024. That very same month, the couple celebrated 10 years of marriage.
“You may have given me a life I might’ve by no means imagined full of affection, laughter, pleasure and journey. In my darkest hours you deliver me gentle. I really like you,” Hines wrote on Instagram.
Kennedy and the actress share seven youngsters of their blended household. Hines has a daughter, Catherine, from her first marriage to Paul Younger, whereas Kennedy has six grownup youngsters — sons Bobby III, Conor, Finn and Aidan and daughters Kick and Kyra — from his two earlier marriages.
Earlier than his 2014 wedding ceremony to Hines, Kennedy was married twice. He married his first spouse, Emily Ruth Black, in 1982, separated 10 years later and divorced in 1994. That very same yr, he wed his second spouse, Mary Kathleen Richardson, and filed for divorce in 2010. Richardson died by suicide in 2012.
So, who’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s spouse? Here is all the things to find out about actress Cheryl Hines and her relationship with the politician.
She labored for Rob Reiner earlier than her huge break on Curb Your Enthusiasm
Hines labored odd jobs whereas attempting to make it in Hollywood, together with as a bartender and private assistant to actor, screenwriter and director Rob Reiner — which, in a roundabout manner, led to her being solid on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
“After I auditioned for Curb, it was a one-hour particular on HBO. It wasn’t even meant to be a sequence,” she mentioned on The Again Room with Andy Ostroy podcast. “I used to be nonetheless working for the Reiners after I obtained Curb. It was actually loopy as a result of Rob got here in and was like, ‘Are you taking part in Larry David’s spouse?’ ”
Hines had minor roles in a number of TV exhibits and flicks for almost a decade earlier than her huge break on the sitcom in 1999. She instructed Ostroy she would not have gotten the half if she had been extra profitable earlier in her profession.
The actress beforehand instructed the Orlando Sentinel in 2012, “Till Curb, I might performed small roles, actually small roles. They needed to solid an unknown actress. It labored in my favor that I hadn’t performed something. It modified my life.”
Hines went on to obtain two Primetime Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Cheryl David, which led to her starring in movies like Herbie: Absolutely Loaded (2005), Cake (2005), RV (2006) and A Unhealthy Mothers Christmas (2017) in addition to the TV sequence Suburgatory, amongst different high-profile initiatives.
Larry David launched her to Kennedy
Hines credit her on-screen husband with introducing her to her off-screen husband. She instructed The New York Occasions that David launched her to Kennedy in 2006 at a ski weekend fundraiser for the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental nonprofit that Kennedy co-founded. On the time, Hines was married to her first husband and Kennedy was married to Richardson.
The actress recalled not planning to ski till Kennedy satisfied her. “I used to be Larry like, ‘What is going on?’ He is like, ‘Yeah,’ giving a sign like, ‘That is Bobby,’ ” she mentioned in 2014, including that she wasn’t aware of the Kennedy household past what she discovered in historical past class.
Hines and Kennedy did not reconnect till 2011, when Kennedy and Richardson have been separated. Hines mentioned David by no means truly meant to play matchmaker and that he gave her a tough time about her romance with Kennedy when it started.
“It is a part of the enjoyable of Larry,” she mentioned. “You simply know it doesn’t matter what you say to him, he will say, ‘Why would you do this? Are you loopy?’ ”
Kennedy later instructed The New York Occasions that their friendship started “slowly at first” and rapidly advanced right into a romantic relationship.
She and Kennedy obtained married after three years collectively
Hines and Kennedy went public with their relationship in October 2011 and obtained engaged in Might 2014. Not too lengthy after, the couple married on Aug. 2, 2014.
Hines, who wore a Jackie Kennedy-inspired wedding ceremony robe, instructed The New York Occasions that she and Kennedy initially deliberate on eloping with their youngsters as witnesses, however their respective massive households — notably their moms — needed a much bigger wedding ceremony.
They loved a “informal celebration” on the Kennedy household compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, with superstar visitors that included David, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kevin Nealon, Ed Begley Jr. and Sen. Ed Markey.
“It is enjoyable that the 2 households are coming collectively,” Hines instructed ipromiseyoumedia forward of their wedding ceremony. “It’s totally candy that manner. I come from an enormous household and the Kennedys are an enormous household.”
When requested how she felt about tying the knot with Kennedy, she added, “It feels nice as a result of you understand you will be with the particular person you actually wish to be with for a really very long time. And that is an awesome feeling.”
She and her daughter went into enterprise collectively
Hines shares a daughter, Catherine Rose, along with her first husband, Younger. In 2023, Hines and Catherine launched their eco-friendly cosmetics model Hines + Younger with merchandise like scented candles, physique lotions, lip balms and scrubs. The road, which Hines mentioned she needed to begin when Catherine started faculty, focuses on avoiding single-use plastics, based on Entry Hollywood.
Hines + Younger launched in the summertime of 2023 — across the similar time, a number of 2024 presidential campaigns, together with Kennedy’s, started to realize steam, and the timing wasn’t misplaced on Hines. She instructed Newsweek, “It is barely ironic it is launching at a time that is so irritating. However that is life.”
She loves poker
Hines developed a love for poker in 2003 when she was pregnant along with her daughter and has since described herself as “an actual poker fiend.”
As for her technique, she instructed Neurology Now in 2007, “I tend to speak rather a lot on the poker desk, which throws folks off as a result of they spend numerous time attempting to learn me. I are inclined to win greater than I lose, which is nice!”
She’s combined her love of the cardboard recreation with enterprise: She starred in The Grand (2008) alongside Woody Harrelson, Jason Alexander, Ray Romano and Judy Greer. The actors performed an actual poker event within the improvised mockumentary movie.
She’s an advocate for folks with cerebral palsy
Hines has been a longtime advocate for cerebral palsy analysis, consciousness and affected person monetary help after her younger nephew was identified with the sickness as a child.
“There are such a lot of medical bills that are not coated by insurance coverage. For instance, the price of medical tools and wheelchairs is exorbitant,” she instructed Neurology Now. “That is why I believe it is necessary to be a voice for folks with CP. If my efforts may also help even one little one with CP, or one household, then I be ok with what I am doing.”
Hines has additionally mixed her advocacy along with her love of poker, getting into tournaments benefiting cerebral palsy analysis and affected person care.
She denounced Kennedy’s comparability of anti-vaccine advocacy to Anne Frank
In January 2022, Kennedy made a speech evaluating his expertise as a longtime anti-vaccine conspiracist to that of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager and diarist who died in a Nazi focus camp after her household hid in an Amsterdam attic for 2 years throughout the Holocaust.
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you can cross the Alps to Switzerland,” he mentioned at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington, D.C. “You can conceal in an attic like Anne Frank did. In the present day the mechanisms are being put in place so none of us can run and none of us can conceal.”
When requested about her husband’s comparability, Hines wrote on X (previously often known as Twitter), “My husband’s opinions usually are not a mirrored image of my very own. Whereas we love one another, we differ on many present points.” In a separate submit, she referred to as his assertion “reprehensible and insensitive.”
After the backlash from not solely his spouse but additionally from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and Memorial, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and plenty of others, Kennedy supplied a mea culpa on X. “I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank, particularly to households that suffered the Holocaust horrors,” he wrote. “My intention was to make use of examples of previous barbarism to indicate the perils from new applied sciences of management.”
Hines, who was required to get the COVID-19 vaccine to work on the units of Curb Your Enthusiasm and I Can See Your Voice, later instructed Newsweek, “It was a really emotional time. I had folks saying, ‘What’s Bobby doing? He is making it tougher for everybody.’ Everyone needed to return to regular they usually thought the one manner to do this was if everybody was vaccinated. I heard from individuals who felt like that. One-hundred p.c.”
Kennedy supplied to faux a separation from Hines amid backlash for his feedback
Kennedy instructed The New York Occasions that he ready a press launch stating that he and Hines had break up merely to defend her from the backlash she’d acquired over his anti-vaccine views and proclamations.
“I noticed the way it was affecting her life and I mentioned to her, ‘We must always simply announce that we’re separated,’ so as to have a ways from me,” he mentioned in 2023. “We would not actually be doing something, we’d simply — I felt so determined about defending her at a time the place my statements and my selections have been impacting her.”
Hines declined his provide to take action. She defined to the outlet that she by no means felt negatively impacted by supporting her husband.
“I have not misplaced any jobs due to my help for his candidacy,” she mentioned. “However there was a undertaking I am concerned in the place there was a pause for dialogue about how his candidacy would possibly have an effect on what we’re doing nevertheless it has been resolved.”
She’s influenced his presidential marketing campaign
Regardless of disagreeing on some points, Hines introduced her help for Kennedy’s presidential aspirations in April 2023.
“My husband, Robert Kennedy Jr., introduced right this moment he shall be working for President and I help his determination,” Hines mentioned in an announcement obtained by ipromiseyoumedia. “He’s a fearless chief who understands the wants of the American folks and has devoted his life preventing for democracy.”
Nevertheless, she declined to speak about coverage, telling Newsweek, “I am not going to checklist points as a result of it makes my blood stress go up an excessive amount of.” The actress added that she and Kennedy — the latter of whom helps a closed border with Mexico, based on ABC Information — obtained pushback from Democrats in Hollywood for his run.
Kennedy mentioned that whereas Hines doesn’t publicly focus on points or coverage, she does affect his decisions. He instructed Newsweek she “particularly outlawed appearances on Steve Bannon’s present, which I in any other case would have performed.” Kennedy added: “She’s vital. She has a way of the favored pulse. She has knowledge that I and the remainder of the marketing campaign depend on. She’s form of the last word arbiter on each dialogue.”
In January 2024, The Hollywood Reporter interviewed each Hines and Kennedy. When requested in regards to the potential of being first girl, the actress replied: “For those who’re asking me, ‘Has this been my dream, to be first girl?’ I might say, ‘No.’ But when somebody mentioned to me: ‘Guess what? You’re going to be first girl tomorrow,’ I might say, ‘Nice. Let’s do it.’ If that’s what life arms you, then you definately settle for it and expertise it for all the things it has to supply.”
Later that yr, Hines appeared on The Coop with Package podcast and mentioned being concerned in a presidential marketing campaign “looks like a VEEP episode.”
“There’s one thing very humorous about [always having a] safety element with you,” she mentioned, revealing that her Secret Service identify is solely “No. 2” however would favor it to be “the Queen.”
Kennedy ultimately dropped out of the presidential race in August 2024.
