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Roseanne Barr has distanced herself from Robert F Kennedy Jr’s social media video in which the presidential hopeful confessed to dumping a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago.
In the video, the Roseanne star, 71, can be seen holding a mug and listening on as RFK Jr, 70, tells the outlandish anecdote.
Writing on X/Twitter, Barr explained: “This was not filmed by me or my team.
“This was off the cuff after the interview. There is no spin here- just a funny story. It’s nice to see RFK finally get some press- Albeit during an economic crash by the Biden Harris administration. Great job journos!”
RFK Jr posted the three-minute video on X seemingly in an attempt to get ahead of the publication of a forthcoming article in The New Yorker magazine.
In the clip, RFK Jr claims he had set out from the Big Apple in October 2014 to spend a weekend falconing with friends in upstate New York, when he saw a motorist ahead of him hit the bear with her car.
The cub was killed instantly, he says.
RFK Jr says he pulled over and retrieved the dead animal, loading it into his own vehicle, adding: “I was going to skin the bear – and it was in very good condition – and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator.
“And you can do that in New York State. Get a bear tag for a roadkill bear.”
Under state law, RFK Jr was legally able to pick up the creature, although he would have needed to notify the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation in order to obtain the necessary tag.
Resuming the story, he tells Barr that he drove on and continued with his day’s sport near Goshen in the Hudson Valley before attending dinner at Peter Luger Steakhouse some 75 miles south.
“At the end of the dinner, it was late and I realised I couldn’t go home,” he continues.
“I had to go to the airport, and the bear was in my car, and I didn’t want to leave the bear in my car because that would have been bad.”
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RFK Jr says it was at this moment that he landed on the idea of leaving the bear cub’s carcass in Central Park next to an old bicycle he had in his vehicle as part of a ploy to make the cub’s death look like an accident involving a cyclist.
The scheme was cheerily endorsed by his fellow diners, he claims.
“So we did that and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something,” continues RFK Jr, seen sitting at a messy dinner table while Barr listens intently.
The following day, RFK Jr learned that the discovery of a dead bear cub was all over the news.
“The next day... it was on every television station. It was a front page of every paper and I turned on the TV and there was like a mile of yellow tape and 20 cop cars, there were helicopters flying, and I was like, ‘Oh my god. What did I do?’” he says in the video.
When The New Yorker’s profile of the long-shot contender for the White House did emerge later on Monday, the anecdote about the bear and its disposal was included along with a picture of RFK Jr, seemingly taken by a friend, posing with his hand in the dead cub’s jaws.
The photo has since gone viral across social media, alongside a swathe of X users sharing their disgust.
