RFK Jr. Sends Sorry Text to Sex Assault Accuser

'I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely,' he wrote to ex-nanny Eliza Cooney
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 12, 2024 11:24 AM CDT
RFK Jr. Sends Sorry Text to Sex Assault Accuser
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign event on Nov. 14 in Columbia, South Carolina.   (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard, File)

A bombshell allegation in a recent Vanity Fair article that accuses Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of a 1998 sexual assault has been roundly dismissed by the independent presidential candidate, who declared on a podcast after the story released, "I am not a church boy. ... I am who I am." He also noted, "I have so many skeletons in my closet ... that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world." Kennedy appears to have been a little sorrier behind the scenes, according to the Washington Post, which reports on a private apology that the 70-year-old contender sent to Eliza Cooney, who served as his family's part-time nanny in the late '90s.

"I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings," Kennedy said in a text to Cooney, sent just after midnight on July 4, two days after the Vanity Fair article went live, per the Post, which verified the text came from Kennedy's cell phone number. "I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so." The Post notes that he also tried to call her twice a day earlier, as well as sent her a text asking her to call him. Kennedy also asked if Cooney would be open to meeting "face to face." "I recognize that this might not be possible," Kennedy wrote. "I have no agenda for sending this text other than making the most sincere and ernest [sic] amends."

The New Republic calls Kennedy's mea culpa "the worst way ever to apologize" to sexual assault victims, and Cooney, now 48 (she was 23 when she said the groping happened) doesn't seem to disagree. "It was disingenuous and arrogant," she tells the Post of RFK Jr.'s text. "I'm not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they don't admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse." She also balked at a face-to-face meeting, noting, "What woman wants to do that?" Cooney says she doesn't know how Kennedy got her number. As for Kennedy, he tells the Post of his apology: "The text message speaks for itself." Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is going in hard on Kennedy's initial dismissiveness over the accusation, putting up billboards in West Hollywood featuring his "church boy" and "skeletons in the closet" comments, per Los Angeles Magazine. (More Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stories.)

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