CNN
—
Unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a social media video on Sunday that he drove a lifeless bear cub carcass from upstate New York and positioned it in New York Metropolis’s Central Park 10 years in the past, sharing the story in what he mentioned was an effort to fight a forthcoming New Yorker article he predicted shall be “a foul story.”
Within the video, which was posted to his X account, Kennedy tells actress Roseanne Barr about touring by means of New York’s Hudson Valley to go hawking and coming throughout a “younger bear” that had been hit and killed by one other driver. He says within the video he determined to place the lifeless bear in his automotive.
“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him at the back of my van as a result of I used to be gonna pores and skin the bear,” he mentioned. “It was in superb situation and I used to be gonna put the meat in my fridge.”
Kennedy then tells Barr he spent the day hawking earlier than driving to New York Metropolis for a dinner — with the bear nonetheless in his automotive. On the finish of the dinner, Kennedy mentioned, he needed to go to the airport and couldn’t take the bear again to his dwelling. He mentioned he broached to pals the thought of taking the bear to Central Park and making it seem as if a biker had hit it.
“I had an outdated bike in my automotive that anyone had requested me to do away with and I mentioned, ‘Let’s go put the bear in Central Park and we’ll make it seem like he obtained hit by a motorbike,’” Kennedy says within the video, prompting laughs from Barr and others within the room not seen within the video. “All people thought, ‘That’s a fantastic concept.’ So we did that and we thought it might be amusing for whoever discovered it or one thing.”
Kennedy mentioned the bear’s discovery appeared on “the entrance web page of each paper,” drawing vast media protection and prompting investigations from regulation enforcement, which he mentioned “frightened” him as a result of he’d left behind fingerprints. Kennedy advised he was not blamed for the incident on the time.
“Fortunately, the story died down after some time and it stayed lifeless for a decade. The New Yorker one way or the other discovered about it, and so they simply — they’re gonna do a giant article on me. … So that they requested me, the actual fact checkers,” he mentioned.
Kennedy advised the upcoming story would painting him in a detrimental gentle.
“You already know, it’s gonna be a foul story,” he mentioned whereas laughing.
A number of the particulars Kennedy describes within the video seem to align with an October 2014 incident through which a lifeless bear cub was found in Central Park, attracting protection from main information retailers across the nation. The lady who found the bear told reporters at the time that she discovered it with its head resting on a motorbike. The state’s Division of Environmental Conservation said shortly after the bear was found that it had died after being hit by a automotive.
In a caption on the publish containing the video, Kennedy wrote, “Wanting ahead to seeing the way you spin this one, @NewYorker.”