“Maybe because he felt that a lot of his supporters were more traditional about marriage,” Isabel Vincent alleges.

RFK Jr. stayed with Cheryl Hines because ‘another divorce’ would cost him Trump cabinet post, biographer claims

"Maybe because he felt that a lot of his supporters were more traditional about marriage," Isabel Vincent alleges.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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April 10, 2026 8:56 p.m. ET

Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" season 12 premiere in 2024. Credit:

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cheryl Hines' marriage survived rumors of major scandal — but the politician's biographer claims the relationship has been rockier than we thought.

Isabel Vincent, who wrote the new biography *RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise*, claimed that while researching her book, she found that Kennedy's alleged affair with reporter Olivia Nuzzi severely strained his marriage.

"After the Olivia Nuzzi scandal, it was really played down, [as if] Cheryl Hines was in Europe and everything was okay," Vincent told PEOPLE in an interview. "Everything was not okay. That was a really bad time."

** has reached out to representatives for Hines and the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.

Kennedy and Donald Trump on the 2024 campaign trail in Arizona.

Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty

The author alleged Kennedy "really tried to make it up to" Hines because he felt uncertain about his ability to remain in President Trump's cabinet as the Secretary of Health and Human Services with the dissolution of another marriage. (He previously divorced Emily Black in 1994 after 12 years of marriage.)

"He felt he couldn't be in the presidential Cabinet and have another divorce. That would have been his second divorce [filing]," Vincent alleged to PEOPLE. "Maybe because he felt that a lot of his supporters were more traditional about marriage so he did not want to have another divorce. But that was... almost the end of their marriage."

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Vincent also alleged that Kennedy's relationship with Hines isn't on completely stable ground even now.

"From what I understood, they're somewhat together, but they're not always together," she claimed. "She's not accompanying him on every single thing he's doing."

In 2025, rumors circulated that Kennedy and Nuzzi shared a digital affair while he was campaigning for president in 2024. Hines responded to the rumors on the *Kate Miller Podcast* in October 2025.

Kennedy Jr. on the set of 'Fox & Friends' in 2024.

Roy Rochlin/Getty

"At the time, Bobby had been running for president and it was an exhausting year and a half of headlines and rumors and articles and chaos," the *Curb Your Enthusiasm* actress said. "And at that time, I thought, 'Okay, this is more chaos and more rumors.' And, um, it was a lot."

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Hines said that the Nuzzi rumors surfaced shortly after she learned of her nephew's death. "So you have a real loss and a real family situation. And then to have a story was distracting at best, but also in the scheme of what's real, what's not, what's important, what's not — it was not ranking up in the 'what's important in life' category," she said. "I don't know this person. Don't know their intention. I could guess, but I won't. But you can if you want."

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