A Family Affair: An Intimate Evening with the Kennedys and Shrivers Together in Miami
“It has been my difficult choice to put my principles ahead of my personal affections for the President which remain undiminished. Some members of my family agree with me and others do not. I bear them no ill will. Families can disagree and still love each other. We hold that possibility for the entire country too.”— RFK Jr.
The floral bodycon dress Cheryl Hines is wearing for the Miami fundraiser was picked out by Kyra Kennedy. The ladybug tie on her father is a recent gift handed over with one request: Don't pair it with the pink shirt. He did so anyway.
“No one can get him out of the pink shirt,” Cheryl says, overhearing my conversation with her nephew, Jackson Hines, a political science major and part of his uncle's campaign team. I'm grilling Jackson about Bobby's fashion habits on the road. He says Bobby is particular about certain things: skinny ties, preferably printed with some form of wildlife, small lapels, and dress pants hung by the pleats. “I've never seen anyone else hang their pants that way,” Jackson says.
I don't mention it, but the pink button-up is my least favorite. Even with a permanent tan, it washes him out, whereas the light yellow one he wears less often does the opposite. Then again, I have an aversion to pink. I've never liked anyone in the color. If I had my way, everyone would outgrow and avoid it.
Bobby's wardrobe became a topic of interest back in July 2023 when Wired.com revealed his new stylist, Tom Soluri. According to Federal Election Commission records, he paid Soluri $6,178 for style consulting in October. On his Instagram last June, Soluri announced working with Kennedy by sharing an image of Bobby dressed in a dark blue suit alongside Cheryl. “I had the privilege of working with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his Presidential announcement and run,” Soluri wrote. “It was an amazing experience to style such an influential figure in American politics.”
In March, the New York Times accused Bobby of “cosplaying as a Kennedy” in their article “The Power of the Kennedy Look,” noting: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a secret weapon up his rolled-up shirt sleeves. His look — skinny rep ties, button-downs, shrugged-on suits, shock of gray hair, and weather-beaten tan — not only sets him apart. It also speaks directly to associations with the early 1960s, a golden age of promise that represents ‘vigor, wit, charisma, change,’ said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University, and that are buried deep in the American hive mind.”
The Miami event is hosted by David and Leila Centner, deemed “Miami's Most Philanthropic Power Couple” by Modern Luxury Miami. Known for their work as inventors, serial entrepreneurs, tech visionaries, and philanthropists, the two have pioneered web development, online marketplaces, and electronic toll collection ventures.
The Centners also co-founded The Centner Academy, a private school that enrolls pre-K to eighth grade, with about 300 students and 75 employees. Leila, whose background is in finance, previously worked for Arthur Andersen and Deloitte Touche. In 2021, the school faced backlash for hosting presentations by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists and removing vaccinated teachers from classrooms. Future hiring excluded vaccinated individuals. Students who received the vaccines had to be quarantined for 30 days after each dose due to concerns about “vaccine shedding.”
Two massive crystals anchored in the lawn mark the entrance of their house. Once inside, Denise makes the rounds, asking attendees if they are okay with being photographed. Everyone is, save for a young woman in a glittering gold gown who politely declines. Her hesitancy stems from being newly Kennedy-curious, but not ready to admit it publicly. A friend dragged her here, she explains; she doesn't want her presence mistaken for support.
After assessing the scene, I wander into the main room and sit alone on a powder blue sofa, watching a chicly dressed crowd bustling around the house looking for different things: wine openers, snacks, napkins, Bobby Kennedy. Exhausted from my earlier gig driving shotgun with Kyle Kemper in the big Kennedy Bus he's traveling the country in, handing out Kennedy 2024 hats and buttons around Art Basel, I have little energy left for mingling.
I'm happy to sit as a silent spectator until a young pregnant woman in fabulous heels settles into the chair across from me. By the looks of it, she’s six or seven months along. We make small talk; it's her second baby. They'll be a little over a year apart. She wants them close in age. The sex is a surprise, but she's betting on a girl. I tell her I always knew. I was wrong once, only because of the pretty profile in the sonogram of my fourth born. Based on the soft slope from nose to forehead, I was sure Hayes was a girl. When she tells me her name is “Eunice,” I feel like a fool for not having guessed she was somehow related. Her face bears signature Kennedy features: a broad, warm smile with lots of teeth. Family names are recycled. She is one of two Eunices (I think). I've lost track of how many Johns, Jacks, and Bobbys there are in this brood.
As a group, the Shrivers, all Miami based, are in high spirits. They liven the room instantly, circling the sofa and greeting people energetically as they enter. At one point, they're talking about family favorites. Eunice, the oldest, is her father Anthony's favorite. Anthony Shriver, everyone knows, was his mother's favorite. And Joey, his youngest, proudly proclaims he is his mother's. Anthony laughs — no one protests.
“Don't you have a favorite?” one of them asks.
“No comment,” I reply. I do, but I wouldn’t dare say who in this room.
This second baby overjoys Anthony. He won't stop telling passersby that Eunice is pregnant again. Their relationship is something sweet to watch, something you see mainly in movies. Based on her Instagram dedications to him, he's an ideal father, attentive and engaged in every sense of her life. His captions about his kids are equally adoring. Scrolling through his feed, you'll find plenty of praise and promotion for countless siblings and cousins regarding whatever they've got going on. Bobby is his current focus. At every event I've seen, he's beaming with pride watching his favorite cousin on stage.
Bobby Kennedy's children adore him the same way. The boys are frequently on hand at events. In his latest birthday message, Kyra writes how it took her all day to find one of her favorite photos — him as a sea monster with a seaweed mustache holding her on his hip. In another, she is tiny beside him, cradling an American Girl doll at a movie premiere. A third scene shows him gazing at her with glowing eyes, his head tilted to the side, captioned “my best friend.” While the Kennedy men are notorious for their infidelities, their commitment to fatherhood goes largely overlooked.
“Bobby was a bad husband, but a terrific father,” a woman who knew him and his second wife Mary told me during lunch the afternoon before we arrived in Miami.
Support from his own siblings is divided. At least four in his family continue to air grievances publicly about him running. They see him as a spoiler, a threat to the Democratic nominee.
Kerry Kennedy condemned his remarks on Twitter, describing his anti vaccine speech as "sickening and repulsive.”
"Bobby’s lies and fear-mongering yesterday were both sickening and repulsive. I strongly condemn him for his hateful rhetoric."
She told the New York Times that her brother's anti-vaccine advocacy detracts from his other more positive qualities.
"He was an extraordinary older brother," Kerry Kennedy said. "He’s brilliant, he’s well-read, he cares deeply, he is extremely charismatic. He has a childlike buoyancy and lightness to him. He’s a beautiful person in a million different ways.”
CNN Naturally Ran With The Drama:
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign challenging President Joe Biden is too much for a family that defined the modern Democratic Party. They’re frustrated, sad, and completely opposed. They say they love him. They use words like ‘heartbroken’ and ‘tragic.’
It’s the vaccine skepticism, which includes a book about ‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ and saying Anne Frank was better off than Americans under supposed vaccine mandates because she could at least hide from the Nazis. It’s insisting that Sirhan Sirhan didn’t actually shoot Kennedy’s father and breaking with many in the family years ago to argue for the assassin’s parole. Now, it’s going up against a president whose administration is stocked with Kennedys in prominent positions and who has decades of personal and emotional connections to multiple members of the family.
They’re angry to be put in this position – because they always want to support the family, but they’re being put in a position that makes that impossible,’ said one person who has spoken to several members of a family generally so guarded that even longtime aides often feel like they barely understand the dynamics themselves.
‘Which brother?’ Chris Kennedy, a former gubernatorial candidate in Illinois, joked when asked by CNN about his thoughts on his brother’s campaign.
‘This is a difficult situation for me. I love my older brother Bobby. He has extraordinary charisma and is a very gifted speaker,’ Rory Kennedy, the filmmaker and youngest child of Robert F. Kennedy, told CNN. ‘I admire his past work as an environmentalist – because of him, we can swim in the Hudson. But due to a wide range of Bobby’s positions, I’m supporting President Biden.’
‘I prefer not to talk,’ texted Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Maryland lieutenant governor who’s now an adviser on retirement at the Labor Department, when asked about the frustration within the family about her brother’s run.”
Out back, shrimp and steak skewers on sample trays circulate the pool area. Unloading fireworks and other flashy props, Kyle Kemper introduces his pregnant partner. Someone else introduces me to the producers of Vaxxed and local donors whose political interests are primarily rooted in alternative health and wellness issues that only one candidate they are here to donate to is pushing.
A handful of the ladies in attendance hail from Palm Beach. As old friends and long-time admirers of Bobby, they are eager to gossip about him and his personal life. They like but don't fully trust Cheryl. They admit it with casual revelation, claiming her allegiance is too flimsy. They think she could accompany him more on the campaign trail. They bring up the Covid party scandal as added evidence, a reference I hear often. There is lingering resentment over how Cheryl and Bobby hosted a Christmas party at their home and urged guests to be vaccinated or show proof of negative Covid tests to attend. They blame Cheryl. Bobby answered the backlash by admitting he isn't always the boss in his house.
I notice Conor Kennedy alone by the buffet. I tell Denise to ask him for a photo — a portrait if possible — but she's too scared. My boys are on the phone fighting over Doordash; everyone wants something different. I mute their screaming as we approach Conor.
“Can I get my sister in it with me?” he asks. He feels weird taking it alone. We follow him back into the house to find Kyra and his cousins. After I tell them who we are and what we do, the group agrees to a photo. Instinctively, they all set aside their red Solo cups and squeeze in for the shot. With a slight tilt of her hips, Kyra Kennedy slips into a well-practiced modeling pose. Her love of fashion stems back to her teenage years. At 18, she interned for Christian Dior and Kenneth Cole, debuting in Paris at the Bal Des Debutantes 2013 as her official societal introduction.
By 2016, the New York Times spotlighted her bustling social life when they coined “The Snap Pack” to describe a group of wealthy New York socialites who loved flaunting their lavish lifestyles on Instagram. Her polished presence at events, combined with her keen fashion sense, has made her a standout figure within the Kennedy family and beyond.
As the night progresses, the party's atmosphere becomes increasingly vibrant. The Kennedy cousins are mingling, their laughter and animated conversations filling the room. It's clear they enjoy each other's company — their bond a testament to the strong familial ties that have long defined the Kennedy clan. The scene embodies everything the media evades now to undermine Bobby’s role in this long loved American saga. He is the favorite cousin and uncle, but headlines refuse to honor it.
In a library across the hall, he addresses an intimate crowd crammed together in a study with an American flag behind him. I duck in briefly to see men in suits glued to his speech. The scene is a teaser — what he'd look like if elected. Respectfully presidential, a handsome fantasy under good lighting. Gift bags are passed to Cheryl. She shakes hands and hugs adoring strangers. One woman grips her by the arms to passionately profess her faith in her husband. Another wipes a tear from her cheek after Bobby is done speaking. The room is alive with hope and adrenaline. Amid all the action, Bobby pauses to take a photo with anyone who asks. His presence commands attention, and there's a certain magnetism to the way he interacts with everyone he meets no matter the scene or setting. Despite the criticism and skepticism, his supporters see him as their last authentic hope for democracy.
Top donors are well aware of the challenges ahead, but their commitment to the cause is palpable.
After the speeches and greetings, the schmoozing and the selfies, Anthony takes the stage as lead hype man to introduce his cousin. Bobby, face half-lit by rotating white stage lights, grins from the sidelines. He takes a long swig of green tea, drinking until it’s nearly empty, and then stashes it in the bushes before approaching the stage, while a few heads behind him, Cheryl shouts, “That's my husband!”
Before he starts, Bobby calls his family up to greet and thank the crowd. One by one, they shuffle past him, lining the length of the stage. Watching him watching them, I’m sure I've never seen him happier.
Later in the evening, the crowd gathers outside for Kyle’s makeshift fireworks display. Bobby on the sidelines looks delighted by the thrill of it. There's a sense of unity and shared purpose among the attendees. For a moment, all the controversies and challenges he faces among family and in the throes of political warfare, fade into the background, overshadowed by celebration.
As the event winds down, I find myself reflecting on the complexity of the Kennedy legacy. It's a story told and retold of triumphs and tragedies, of public service and personal struggles. Through it all, the family has remained a symbol of resilience and determination; a message the media continually tries to cut Bobby out of. But this particular evening is drenched by a collective belief in lasting legacy.
* Edit Update: Eunice gave birth to a baby girl (Penelope Rose Garcia Shriver) early this year.
I think the "anti-vax" and "conspiracy theorist" labels should be put into quotation marks. I mean, does he identify as such? I think of him as a skeptic, not a blanket "anti," and I respect him mightily for that. Plus, as news continues to validate his stances, it's less "theory," and more FACT...
I love this snapshot of RFK and his family, united in support of his presidential run. I never see these positive comments made by his detracting family members…most agreeing on his abundant charisma. I’d love to see these comments repeated on social media.
RFK is the modern day embodiment of the Kennedy spirit we all love and admire. Anxious for the rest of the country to get on board his run for the WH.