(WASHINGTON) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a conversation with Roseanne Barr posted on X Sunday that he placed a dead “young bear” in Central Park 10 years ago.
In the video, which the campaign said was posted to get ahead of a New Yorker article, the candidate said he was driving in upstate New York when a woman in a van in front of him hit and killed the bear, he told Barr.
Kennedy told Barr he pulled over and put the bear in the back of his vehicle, planning to skin it and put the meat in his refrigerator.
However, after a day spent “hawking,” followed by a dinner that ran long back in New York City, Kennedy told Barr that he did not have time to put the bear in his house before catching a flight out of New York. Kennedy said he chose — with encouragement from others — to place the dead bear in the New York City park next to a bicycle he happened to have in his car to make it appear as if a bicyclist struck the bear. Kennedy said bicycling accidents with pedestrians were big news at the time.
The dead bear made news when a woman discovered it the next day, though Kennedy was never tied to the incident.
Kennedy said at the end of the video that he told the story to get ahead of an upcoming New Yorker profile of him, which he believes will include details of the incident.
“Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one [New Yorker],” he wrote on X to accompany the video.
The Kennedy campaign is not worried about any legal ramifications stemming from Kennedy’s bear incident, a campaign official told.
The official said the video was shot as an outtake when Kennedy recorded a conversation with Barr. The campaign saw it as a funny story that they decided to post Sunday when they became aware the New Yorker was planning to include the incident in an upcoming article, the campaign official said.
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