Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announcing his run for president in April 19 2023.
AP Photo/Josh Reynolds
Robert Kennedy Jr. hails from one of America’s wealthiest dynasties, but he earns more from his day job than he does from old family trusts. Kennedy and his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, earned at least $9 million since the beginning of 2022, at least $8.9 million of which came from their own work.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has pulled in more than $5 million since 2022 from his firm Kennedy & Madonna, LLP, according to a financial disclosure he filed on Friday. The two-person firm, which represents individuals, nonprofits and others who “have suffered the impacts of pollution,” was part of the team that secured a $670 million settlement from DuPont in the contamination case that inspired the 2019 film Dark Waters.
He has raked in cash offering his services to other firms as well. Kennedy disclosed $315,000 in salary from litigation firm JW Howard Attorneys, plus more than $60,000 in consulting fees from personal injury giant Morgan & Morgan and over $1.5 million from consulting for plaintiff’s firm WisnerBaum, where he has helped with litigation against Merck’s Gardasil HPV vaccine.
Then there’s the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit Kennedy founded to “fight corruption, mass surveillance and censorship that put profits before people.” Kennedy profited plenty from it, earning more than $500,000 in salary and bonuses. The organization has drawn criticism for campaigning against vaccines. The Kennedy campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of Attorney General-turned Senator Bobby Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for the White House, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. married Hines in 2014. Her acting career spans three decades, notably including portraying Larry David’s wife in the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm. She reported earning at least $1 million in 2022 and early 2023, when she appeared in the movie About Fate and the HBO series The Flight Attendant.
Kennedy and Hines earned at least $9 million to $10 million in overall income, according to a Forbes analysis of Kennedy’s filing. That indicates that trusts for the Kennedy family, which Forbes estimated to be worth $1.2 billion in 2015, only generated a maximum of $100,000 to $1.1 million for RFK Jr. and his wife. Still, the trusts remain valuable: RFK Jr. reported owning between $3 million and $14 million worth of assets not related to his or Hines’ day jobs, much of it stashed in entities that appear tied to his illustrious family.
The most valuable asset RFK Jr. inherited? His last name. The Kennedy cachet–and some enthusiasm from the right–has helped propel him in the polls, though he remains a distant competitor to President Biden for the Democratic nomination.