RFK Jr cut off dead raccoon’s penis on family vacation ‘to study later’
A new RFK Jr. biography leans on his private diaries to surface a grotesque roadkill anecdote—raising bigger questions about what’s verified, what’s hearsay, and why sensational personal stories are being used to frame a sitting HHS secretary.
Apr 14, 2026
Sources
Summary
A biography by journalist Isabel Vincent claims Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s private 1999–2001 diaries include an entry describing him cutting the penis from a road-killed raccoon on I-684 while his children waited in the car. The Irish Star write-up amplifies the shock value while bundling in other animal-related allegations and character attacks with uneven sourcing. It matters because salacious claims can drown out the provenance of the underlying records and blur the line between documented entries, secondhand assertions, and politically timed narratives about a top public-health official.
Reality Check
The most verifiable part of this story is that a reputable mainstream outlet (People) is reporting that Vincent’s book cites a dated diary entry describing the raccoon incident, and that Vincent told People he took the genitals to “study them later.”
But the Irish Star framing collapses multiple categories of material into one scandal stream—direct diary text, the author’s interpretation, Kennedy’s own past public comments about roadkill, and separate allegations (including from relatives)—without consistently labeling what is documented versus disputed or secondhand.
Treat the raccoon anecdote as “reported in a new biography citing private diaries” unless and until the underlying diary pages are independently authenticated or published in full context.
Detail
The Irish Star story is based on a new biography, *RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise*, by investigative journalist Isabel Vincent.
The book reportedly draws on RFK Jr.’s private journals kept in New York City between 1999 and 2001 and said to be updated daily.
A quoted diary entry dated Nov. 11, 2001 describes Kennedy pulling over on I-684 and cutting a dead raccoon’s penis out of the animal while his children waited in the car.
People magazine reports Vincent said Kennedy took the genitals to “study them later.”
The article claims the journals were shared with Vincent after Mary Richardson Kennedy’s death by suicide on May 16, 2012, and frames Mary as having held the journals as “leverage” during their divorce.
The piece adds broader animal-related stories (bear carcass in Central Park; whale incident; feeding hawks via blended animals) without clearly separating confirmed reporting, Kennedy’s own statements, and family allegations.
Separately reported 2024 coverage quotes Kennedy saying he has picked up roadkill his whole life and had a freezer full of it, in the context of press questions about the Central Park bear-carcass story.
The Irish Star also mentions claims about affairs and that Kennedy flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane twice, attributing details to the biography without independently documenting the flight records in the article text.