RFK Jr. Dead Whale Story

Submission 105

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About

The RFK Jr. Dead Whale Story refers to a 2024 investigation into Robert F. Kennedy Jr. concerning a story about him allegedly harvesting the head of a dead whale in the 1990s. RFK Jr.'s daughter Kick Kennedy originally told the story in an interview with Town & Country Magazine, saying that her father chainsawed the head off to study its skull. The investigation was launched in September 2024, over two decades later, by a federal law enforcement agency, weeks after the viral RFK Jr. Dead Bear Cub story that RFK Jr. confessed to. As the story was picked up in the media, it prompted a wave of reactions and memes online.

Background

On December 25th, 2012, Town & Country Magazine^[1] published an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s daughter Kick Kennedy. She relayed a story from when she was six (in 1994) about her father harvesting the head of a dead whale on the beach at Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. She said that her father "ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale's head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York."

On August 24th, 2024, X^[2] user @CyberPunkCortes resurfaced the Town & Country Magazine interview in a viral tweet that received over 12,000 likes in a month (shown below).

When the story resurfaced, on August 26th, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund^[3] released a document that announced an investigation of RFK Jr., titled, "Investigation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Possible Violations of Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act."

Online Reactions

In the following weeks, various reactions to the dead whale story and the investigation of RFK Jr. spread online. Many jokes and memes involving the whale surfaced after the RFK Jr. Olivia Nuzzi Alleged Cheating Scandal went viral.

For instance, on September 19th, 2024, X^[4] user @MikeBeauvais tweeted, "RFK Jr. had to tell Cheryl Hines about his affair with Olivia Nuzzi the same day he had to tell her he was being investigated for cutting off a dead whale’s head with a chainsaw. Rough Thursday," gaining over 31,000 likes in five days (shown below).

On September 21st, X^[5] user @sreekyshooter combined multiple RFK Jr. stories and memes into one post, including the brain worm and saying that he sounds "like a fork in a garbage disposal," gaining over 39,000 likes in three days (shown below).

Other discourse about the whale story and the investigation surfaced on Reddit^[6] in September 2024 as the tale continued to spread online.