After Newsweek published a cover story offering details of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s account of his marriage with Mary Richardson Kennedy, which alleges that she attacked him, killed their family dog, threatened suicide repeatedly, and even stole from his daughter, Mary Kennedy's family is firing back. The Richardsons released a statement, "This latest piling on is proof perfect of the unbelievable emotional and psychological abuse that Mary endured during the last years of her life, and now in death."
Mary Kennedy hanged herself in a barn on her Mt. Kisco property on May 16. In 2010, the year the couple separated, she was arrested for drunk driving twice and, once, when RFK tried to take her to the hospital out of concern for her mental state, she ran from the car into the road. While RFK and his sister Kerry Kennedy, who was best friends with Mary since high school, cited her long history of depression and "demons," her friends blamed RFK's behavior (his alleged cheating and abandonment) for her decline into drinking and depression as well as her concern over sharing custody of their four children.
Lawrence Leamer, the biographer who wrote the article, told the Journal News it was a fair article, because "It shows that she was a sick woman, it was not evil. Bobby tried in his way to deal with it, he wasn’t successful. There’s no reason to blame anyone, it’s a tragedy."
Leamer claims it was difficult for him to get a hold of the 60-page affidavit, but Capital New York notes that the Newsweek article has many photos "courtesy of Kerry Kennedy": "Kerry Kennedy is quoted only once in the article, though broad statements describing her point of view on Mary, her life and her death that occur at intervals could have been obtained in an exclusive interview for this article or could have been collected from various statements she's already made, making the extent of her cooperation with Leamer hard to assess (and increasing the feeling that the perspective of the article is one endorsed by the Kennedy clan)."
Mary Kennedy’s attorney Peter Bienstock also spoke to the Journal News, "I was not happy. This is not what Mary would want. She was first and foremost a mother and as a mother of these four children she did not ever debate these issues in public or want them debated in public now," adding, "What sort of father would publish this garbage to be read by his children about their dead mother and to be read by his children’s teachers, doctors, neighbors, friends?"
The Daily News' Joanna Molloy thinks RFK Jr. is full of it, "Can’t Bobby Kennedy Jr. let his tragic wife Mary rest in peace? And if he can’t, why doesn’t he at least man up and admit that his affairs had a part in driving her crazy?" She recounts an anecdote from a woman in Bobby Kennedy's circle, "Once, my girlfriend and I were talking to him at a party, and he put his hand right up her dress. He smiled and moved on and I asked her, ‘Why didn’t you say anything?!’ and she said, ‘I was totally shocked!’"
