As the troubled spouse of Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David, Cheryl Hines has experienced her fair share of real-life difficulties as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s wife.
However, the actress is about to embark on her greatest battle to yet when her spouse decides to drop his independent presidential campaign in favor of Donald Trump in an attempt to land a cabinet post in a Trump White House 2.0.
Hines tells The Hollywood Reporter in a statement issued soon after her husband’s declaration, “I deeply respect Bobby’s decision to run on the basis of unity.” I have had the privilege of meeting some truly amazing individuals over the past year and a half, representing Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Based on my observations, the great majority of all parties are genuinely decent individuals who wish the best for our nation and each other. The voyage has been enlightening, transforming, and charming.
Nevertheless, despite her husband’s demonstration of support, Kennedy’s choice to side so strongly with Trump will, at best, produce for some uncomfortable conversations around the dinner table at home; at worst, it might lead to Hines being completely shunned by the Hollywood elite.
The 59-year-old Hines has never concealed her dislike for Trump and his penchant for making disparaging remarks about other people, especially women.
“I know it’s going to be bad,” Hines noted of the coming mudslinging in a cover profile interview with THR. “But these politicians are Teflon. They’re like nobody I’ve ever seen. I think back to Trump. Remember the early days of Trump when he insulted Ted Cruz’s wife about her looks?”
Hines was alluding to a 2016 Twitter exchange between Cruz and Trump while they were still rivals for the presidency. Trump posted two side-by-side pictures on Twitter: a glamorous picture of Melania and an ugly one of Heidi. The caption said, “The Images Are Worth A Thousand Words.”
The tweet disturbed Hines.
“That’s so ridiculous and disrespectful that he would say something disrespectful about Ted Cruz’s wife,” she told THR. “She has nothing to do with any of this. And I’m sure Ted Cruz will never forget that.
“Then cut to Trump as president and Ted Cruz couldn’t be happier,” she continued, referring to Cruz’s later enthusiastic endorsements of his former political rival.
As the campaign went on and Hines came to terms with the fact that she and her spouse would never agree on political issues, she saw that she was becoming less insensitive to Trump’s style of politics.
“I’d think, ‘Why am I holding on so tightly?’” Hines said. “I don’t need Ted Cruz to be mad at Trump. I need to let it all go. I was holding on so tightly for so long. Even when Trump was elected, I had to really have a long talk with myself because I thought, ‘I’m not going to make it through these four years,’” Hines said.
Later in the December talk, Hines candidly contemplated the unpredictable and diverse paths that the election could take, especially with two disruptive figures like her husband and Trump involved.
“Is Trump going to be in jail?” she asked, referring to the multiple lawsuits Trump faced. (He would later be found guilty of 34 charges in his New York hush-money trial, making him the first American president to be convicted of felony crimes.) “That’s the other thing I ask Bobby all the time: ‘Can Trump be a president from prison?’ Bobby said, ‘It’s not in the Constitution that he can’t.’
“Because who would write it in the Constitution?” she added.
When asked how she would react to Trump’s attacks on her husband and, consequently, on her own person, Hines jokingly said, “I’ll be in Greece. With no reception. That’s my plan.”
However, it now appears that Kennedy’s own family members and the Democratic establishment were the ones who launched the attacks, not Trump. One senior-level Kennedy campaign official said that the Democratic National Committee had spent millions to prevent Kennedy from appearing on ballots.
That tacit pact laid the groundwork for one of the most contentious political partnerships in recent memory, involving two of the most bizarre and colorful characters.
