Cheryl Hines has hit back at former President John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, after he asked her to personally call up the family of a child who died of measles.
The actress and wife of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Schlossberg’s polarizing cousin, told the Wall Street Journal that she “[doesn’t] understand what’s going on with him.”
“[Schlossberg’s] behavior—I don’t even want to say anything, because anything I say, he’s going to think, he’s going to be... excited that someone’s talking about him,” she said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Hines’ comments come five months after Schlossberg put the onus on her to speak out about the rising cases of measles in the U.S. Kennedy is a prominent vaccine skeptic who has promoted the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
In an Instagram post on March 6 (which he has since deleted), Schlossberg said that he wanted to ask the Curb Your Enthusiasm star for a “favor.”
“I need you to call up the family of the child who died of measles, and say sorry,” he said. “Can you do that for me?”
Schlossberg seemed to be referring to a six-year-old girl in Texas who died from measles in February, marking the first U.S. death from measles since 2015. The girl was unvaccinated.
Kennedy initially dismissed the measles outbreak in Texas as “not unusual” before backtracking in a Fox News editorial.
The 32-year-old Schlossberg, who is the only grandson of the 35th president, has fervently criticized Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism dating back to last year.
In recent months, he’s also taken to social media multiple times to call out Hines, who married Kennedy in 2014 at the famous Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
Hines met Kennedy through comedian Larry David, who cast her as his wife in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Last month, Schlossberg tweeted that Hines looked “super dehydrated” and said that he had never met her.
Then, last week, Schlossberg re-posted an anniversary message Kennedy made for Hines—one that had people scratching their heads over its bizarre caption—and wondered, “What does she let you do on your bday?”
Hines had not publicly responded to Schlossberg’s barbs prior to the Journal interview, in which she said that she feels “very connected” to the Make America Healthy Again movement that Kennedy has championed.
“Is science ever settled?” Hines said. “It’s like any drug that goes on the market that at the beginning everybody thinks is great, and then 10 years later, they realize it’s causing some sort of issue. Well, there was probably settled science at the beginning.”
In June, Kennedy sacked all of the former members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a vaccine advisory panel. He’s also cut $500 million in research funding for mRNA vaccines, citing unproven safety concerns.
The organization he led from 2015 to 2023, Children’s Health Defense, has falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism.
In March, the organization shared a video in which the parents of the Texas girl who died of measles said they had had no regrets about not vaccinating their daughter.
“It was her time on Earth,” the parents said through a translator.
This week, Kennedy has faced intense blowback for his tepid response to a shooting that took place at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday.
Authorities say that the alleged shooter believed that the COVID-19 vaccine had made him depressed and suicidal.
