RFK Jr. admits to staging dead bear prank in Central Park

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted to staging a prank involving a dead bear in Central Park a decade ago.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate, admitted in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he was responsible for staging a dead bear cub in New York City's Central Park a decade ago. The bizarre revelation came as Kennedy sought to pre-empt an upcoming story by The New Yorker, which he anticipated would be negative.

In the video, Kennedy recounts how he and his friends, during a falconry expedition in New York's Hudson Valley, discovered a bear cub that had been hit and killed by a vehicle. Lacking time to take the bear home before catching a flight, Kennedy and his friends decided to stage the scene in Central Park. They placed the bear's carcass near an old bicycle to make it appear as if a cyclist had struck the animal, capitalizing on a series of recent bicycle crashes in the city.

"We thought it would be amusing for whoever found it," Kennedy said. The incident, which took place in 2014, puzzled authorities and residents. Florence Slatkin, a nearby resident, recalled that a friend's dog discovered the bear. Initially mistaking it for a bag of clothes or a dead dog, they soon realized it was a small bear with visible injuries.

Kennedy acknowledged his anxiety over the prank once it gained media attention. "The next day it was on every television station," he told Roseanne Barr in the video. "I was like, ‘Oh my god, what did I do?’ I was worried because my prints were all over that bike." Fortunately for Kennedy, the story eventually faded from the headlines.

The incident is the latest in a series of unusual events surrounding Kennedy's campaign, which has sparked concerns among both Republicans and Democrats. Previous controversies include Kennedy's admission of having a brain parasite and a denied accusation of eating a dog, which he clarified was a goat in a Vanity Fair interview.