How a beloved TV star became liberal Hollywood’s public enemy number one

Cheryl Hines played Larry David’s ex in Curb Your Enthusiasm. But her real-life marriage – to Trump supporter RFK Jr – is proving less funny

There is a wedding photograph dating from 2014 that has recently and understandably gone viral. On the left is the former independent presidential candidate-turned-new Donald Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is grinning with the joys of newfound nuptial happiness, with his ill-fated tilt at the presidency not even a remote gleam in his eye. 
In the middle stands his new bride, Cheryl Hines, an actress best known for her role in Curb Your Enthusiasm as Cheryl, Larry David’s long-suffering wife, who is smiling widely but also somewhat nervously into the camera. And on the right sits David himself, whose expression of wry bemusement seems to suggest that Hines’s real-life union will be just as doomed as the one in his sitcom.
A decade later, RFK Jr – as he likes to be known – is still married to Hines, but their marriage has come under severe strain, to say nothing of public scrutiny, ever since the Kennedy scion firstly announced that he would run for the presidency in 2023. Although his often eccentric campaign was widely ridiculed, not least for his public pronouncements that part of his brain had been eaten by a worm and that he had once dumped the corpse of a bear cub in a New York park after photographing himself with it, it still came as a surprise that he endorsed Trump. 
He had described the former president as “a terrible human being”, “probably a sociopath” and “a discredit to democracy”, and declared that “under no circumstances” would he ever join a Trump presidential campaign, given the divergence in their politics; as recently as 2016, he had endorsed Hillary Clinton over the eventually victorious Trump. 
Kennedy Jr, at least, has agency over his decisions, but his wife has now been placed in a near-impossible position. If she continues to support her husband, she will now be pilloried as belonging to that small but unpopular band, the Hollywood Trump supporters. But if she comes out and denounces his support for the Republican presidential candidate, her home life may get very awkward. Most celebrity unions have their own share of risks and difficulties, but very few are as fraught as this. 
The public statement that Hines put out on X can be seen as an attempt to mollify everyone simultaneously. Calling Kennedy Jr’s presidential run – which, in an unfortunate typo, she called his ‘presidency’ – an “eye-opening, transformative, and endearing journey”, she praised those who worked on his campaign, writing: “They have accomplished feats that were said to be impossible. They have gathered over a million signatures, more than any candidate in history, and have achieved ballot access across the country despite the roadblocks and lawsuits that have been brought against them for the sole purpose of keeping Bobby off of the ballots so no one would even have the opportunity to vote for him.” 
Describing Kennedy Jr’s decision to run on the principle of “unity”, she concluded that “It’s been my experience that the vast majority of all parties are truly good people who want the best for our country and for each other.” 
Unfortunately for Hines, many of these “truly good” people are deeply opposed to her. The actor Bradley Whitford, who starred in The West Wing and is well-known for his liberal and progressive politics, was particularly nasty. “Hey, @CherylHines, way to stay silent while your lunatic husband throws his support behind the adjudicated rapist who brags about stripping women of their fundamental rights,” he tweeted. “Gutsy. Great example for the kids.” He sardonically referred to Kennedy Jr’s uncle JFK’s famous 1956 book about the courageous actors of American senators in his tweet, concluding “Profile in courage.”
Hey @CherylHines, way to stay silent while your lunatic husband throws his support behind the adjudicated rapist who brags about stripping women of their fundamental rights. Gutsy. Great example for the kids. Profile in courage. https://t.co/DrhXY3npcF
And although most actors have remained silent about the matter, Hines is now under attack. One wit, mocking her use of the word ‘presidency’, wrote “I didn’t realize he was president. Or in your worm eaten brains, maybe he already was.” 
Other social media users have been quick to pillory Hines. “You suck,” one complained. “I can’t even enjoy the episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm with you in them anymore”, while another, either deliberately blending fact and fiction or acting out of confusion, declared that “It’s no wonder Larry divorced you.” There have also been many statements of support for Hines, but these have come almost exclusively from Trump supporters. 
David himself has not made any comment on his screen wife’s current predicament, but as one of Hollywood’s most high-profile liberals, his contempt for Trump is possibly a given. Yet the actor and comedian’s views on Hines and RFK Jr are of more than usual interest; David, after all, was instrumental to their relationship, having introduced them in the first place. 
As Kennedy Jr put it in an interview earlier this year, he felt that it would be disrespectful to date David’s “television wife” without permission, and so met David in a hotel to discuss matters. The curmudgeonly comedian, in Kennedy Jr’s recollection, was “very happy” about their relationship and told him that “Cheryl was the best person that he’d ever met” and that “she was the only [person] in Hollywood who didn’t have a single enemy.” When he spoke to Hines about the relationship, David was rather more blunt. “That’ll never work.” 
The ever-affable Hines now regularly finds herself apologising on her husband’s behalf. At a 2022 anti-vaccination rally, RFK caused controversy with the statement: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank.” Hines took to Twitter: “My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive,” she said. “His opinions are not a reflection of my own.” (She later expressed regret for this, saying “If I had to do it all over again, would I use such strong words? Probably not.”)
She has also been consistent in her contempt for RFK Jr’s new ally. “Even when Trump was elected, I had to really have a long talk with myself because I thought, ‘I’m not going to make it through these four years”, and joking that, in the event of Trump attacking her husband on the campaign trail, “I’ll be in Greece. With no reception. That’s my plan.”
In the event, the attacks have come from the Democratic side rather than the Republicans. Kennedy Jr’s own family denounced his decision to endorse Trump as “a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear” and implicitly cast him out of the clan, calling it “a sad ending to a sad story.” And certainly, Hines has steadfastly defended her husband, even when asked about his more baroque conspiracy theories. “I would think that you would see the world through a different lens if you saw your uncle be assassinated, then your father,” she has said, quite reasonably.
She is now in an impossible and unenviable position. Previously, she emphasised that she forbade Kennedy Jr to associate with the extreme likes of Steve Bannon and Alex Jones. “Bobby will talk to anybody and wants to connect with everybody. I understand where he is coming from,” she said. “But I also have my limits.” Larry David has been asked whether his friendship with both Hines and Kennedy Jr might translate into an endorsement, which led to this pitch-perfect answer: “I love and support [Bobby], but I’m not ‘supporting’ him.” 
Hines has no such luxury. “I’ve learned a lot in the last two years,” she told the Hollywood Reporter in early 2024. “I pay less attention to social media. There’s a cycle to news. Things spike, they talk about it for one or two days, then they move on. And so I’ve learned to stay out of it because my words live on. And because Bobby’s my husband. And I would never want to hurt Bobby. I love him.”
Even when the controversy dies down, Hines is likely to be reminded of one of husband’s comments in particular. If he accepted a position as Trump’s running mate, he said, “that would be devastating to my marriage.” To which his wife pointedly replied: “I think Bobby knows me very well.” 
More than any scene with Larry David, the coming months may be the true test of her acting skills.