Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Siblings: All About His Famous Family

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer from a storied political family, has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services .

Kennedy, who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and lent his support to Trump, is known for his misleading and false claims on vaccines, including repeated assertions that vaccines are linked to autism, even though for decades numerous studies across several countries have debunked the association. He also founded Children's Health Defense, a leading anti-vaccine group.

The appointment continues the Kennedy family's involvement in public service.

His uncle, John F. Kennedy, served as the 35th President of the United States. He was the youngest man and first Catholic to be elected to the office. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963.

His father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., served as John F. Kennedy's Attorney General. He successfully ran for the United States Senate from New York, and after announcing his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, he was fatally shot on June 5, 1968 at 42 years old.

His mother, Ethel Kennedy, was pregnant with their 11th child at the time of her husband's assassination. She died in 2024.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a combined six children from his marriages to Emily Ruth Black and Mary Richardson: Bobby, Conor, Finn, Aidan, Kyra and Kick.

He is currently married to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" star Cheryl Hines and is a stepfather to her daughter, Catherine Young.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has 10 siblings: Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend, Joseph Patrick Kennedy II, David Anthony Kennedy, Courtney Kennedy Hill, Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, Mary Kerry Kennedy, Christopher George Kennedy, Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Douglas Harriman Kennedy and Rory Kennedy Bailey.

Here's more about Robert Kennedy Jr.'s siblings:

Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend (born July 4, 1951) Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was born on July 4, 1951, as the first child of Ethel and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Townsend attended Harvard University and went to law school at the University of New Mexico.

From 1995 to 2003, Townsend served two terms as the lieutenant governor of Maryland, where she lived with her husband David Lee Townsend and their four children: Maeve Kennedy McKean, Kerry Sophia Kennedy Townsend, Rose Katherine Townsend and Meaghan Anne Townsend.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy II (September 24, 1952) Joseph Patrick Kennedy II is the second-oldest child of Robert and Ethel. He served on the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 1999 for Massachusetts's 8th congressional district.

Kennedy founded Citizens Energy Corporation in 1979, a non-profit energy company dedicated to making energy affordable. After leaving the company to serve in Congress for 12 years, he returned in 1999 as founder and chairman of the company, according to his official biography.

He has fraternal twin sons with his first wife Sheila: Matthew and Joseph Patrick III.

David Anthony Kennedy (June 15, 1955 — April 25, 1984) David Kennedy died of a drug overdose when he was 28. At the age of 13, The New York Times reported , he witnessed his father being shot to death by assassin Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

"We all pray that David has finally found the peace that he did not find in life," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, David's uncle, said in a statement at the time of his death in 1984, according to the Times.

Courtney Kennedy Hill (September 9, 1956) Mary Courtney Kennedy Hill (known as "Courtney") was married to ABC sports producer Jeffrey Robert Ruhe for a decade before divorcing in 1990.

She then married Paul Michael Hill in 1996. He was part of the " Guildford Four " and was wrongly imprisoned for 15 years in connection with bombings by the IRA. He was portrayed by John Lynch in the 1993 film " In the Name of the Father ."

They separated in 2006.

The pair had a daughter, Saoirse Roisin Hill, in 1997. She died at age 22 from an apparent overdose while staying at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Michael LeMoyne Kennedy (February 27, 1958 — December 31, 1997) Michael L. Kennedy died on Dec. 31, 1997, when he was just 39 years old.

According to The New York Times , Kennedy collided with a tree while playing football on skis, a favorite tradition of the family. Kennedy lost control and crashed into a tree on a mountain in Aspen, Colorado. He suffered a head injury and was pronounced dead 90 minutes later. His sister, Rory Kennedy, reached him almost immediately and attempted to resuscitate him, but the effort was unsuccessful.

Kennedy was a lawyer and had been chairman of Citizens Energy Corporation, his brother Joseph Kennedy's nonprofit that delivered heating fuel to low-income households. He helped chair election campaigns for his brother Joseph and his uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Allegations of infidelity between Kennedy and a teenage babysitter surfaced in 1987, though were never proven. Shortly after, he and his wife Victoria Gifford Kennedy (daughter of former NFL player and sportscaster Frank Gifford ) filed for divorce. The divorce was not finalized by the time of his death.

Mary Kerry Kennedy (September 8, 1959) Mary Kerry Kennedy (who goes by "Kerry") is a lawyer, activist and bestselling author. On her Instagram profile, she also describes herself as a "progressive Catholic" and a "lifelong feminist." Kerry is the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights .

She married Andrew Cuomo in 1990, and they divorced in 2005 while Cuomo was working as New York State Attorney General. The couple 's twins, Cara Ethel Kennedy-Cuomo and Mariah Matilda Kennedy-Cuomo, were born in 1995, and their youngest, Michaela Andrea Kennedy-Cuomo, followed two years later.

Christopher George Kennedy (July 4, 1963) Christopher G. Kennedy, 61, is the eighth child of Ethel and Robert and the former chairman of the board of trustees for Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises, Inc. , which manages the funds of the family. He received a B.A. in political science from Boston College in 1986, followed by M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In 2018, Kennedy ran for governor of Illinois and lost in the Democratic primary. He previously served on the University of Illinois Board of Trustees as Chair from 2009 to 2015.

He is married to Sheila Sinclair-Berner and has four children.

Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy (January 11, 1965) Maxwell Kennedy graduated from Harvard, and then received a law degree from the University of Virginia, his wife Vicki's alma mater, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Max Kennedy was an assistant district attorney in the Philadelphia prosecutor's office. Appointed by former President Barack Obama, he served as a member of the board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

Maxwell Kennedy married Victoria Anne Strauss, and they have three children: Caroline, Noah and Max Kennedy Jr.

Douglas Harriman Kennedy (March 24, 1967) Douglas Kennedy, the tenth child of Robert and Ethel, is a journalist who has worked at The New York Post, The Boston Herald, and most recently FOX News starting in 1996. He graduated with a B.A. from Brown University.

He has five children with his wife, Molly: Riley, Mary, Rowen, George and Anthony.

Rory Kennedy Bailey (December 12, 1968) Six months after her father was shot and killed, Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy Bailey was born. She is a documentary filmmaker who focuses on social justice. Her film " Last Days in Vietnam " was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2015.

Rory Kennedy and her now-husband, Mark Bailey, had planned to wed on July 17, 1999. The couple postponed the wedding, however, due to a plane crash that ended up killing John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her older sister Lauren Bessette. The three were en route to the celebration when the accident occurred.

Instead of the lavish 300-person Cape Cod wedding they had planned, according to The Cape Cod Times, the couple got married in Greece two weeks later with 25 guests in attendance.