Cheryl Hines, who shot to fame playing the beleaguered wife of Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, has faced her share of real-life headaches as the wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But the actress is about to face her biggest challenge yet as her husband suspends his independent campaign for president and throws his support to Donald Trump, in the hopes of securing a cabinet position in a Trump White House 2.0.
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In a statement released shortly after her husband made his announcement, Hines tells The Hollywood Reporter, “I deeply respect the decision Bobby made to run on the principle of unity. Over the last year and a half, I have met some extraordinary people from all parties — Democrats, Republicans and independents. 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. It has been an eye-opening, transformative and endearing journey.“
But despite the show of unity with her husband, Kennedy’s decision to align himself so closely with Trump will make for, at best, some awkward dinner table conversations at home; at worst, it may result in a full-scale shunning of Hines by the Hollywood establishment.
Hines, 59, has made no secret of her aversion to Trump and his predilection for personal attacks — particularly toward women.
“I know it’s going to be bad,” Hines noted of the coming mudslinging in a cover profile interview with THR. “But these politicians are Teflon. They’re like nobody I’ve ever seen. I think back to Trump. Remember the early days of Trump when he insulted Ted Cruz’s wife about her looks?”
Hines was referring to an exchange of tweets when Cruz and Trump were still presidential rivals in 2016. Trump tweeted side-by-sides photos — a glamour shot of Melania and an unflattering one of Heidi — with a caption that read, “The Images Are Worth A Thousand Words.”
The tweet disturbed Hines.
“That’s so ridiculous and disrespectful that he would say something disrespectful about Ted Cruz’s wife,” she told THR. “She has nothing to do with any of this. And I’m sure Ted Cruz will never forget that.
“Then cut to Trump as president and Ted Cruz couldn’t be happier,” she continued, referring to Cruz’s later enthusiastic endorsements of his former political rival.
As the campaign proceeded, and Hines realized she and her husband would never see eye to eye on politics, she found herself easing up on her knee-jerk reactions to Trump’s brand of politics.
“I’d think, ‘Why am I holding on so tightly?’” Hines said. “I don’t need Ted Cruz to be mad at Trump. I need to let it all go. I was holding on so tightly for so long. 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,’” Hines said.
Later in the conversation, which occurred in December, Hines openly pondered the various, unknowable turns the election could take — particularly with two chaos actors like her husband and Trump in the mix.
“Is Trump going to be in jail?” she asked, referring to the multiple lawsuits Trump faced. (He would later be found guilty of 34 charges in his New York hush-money trial, making him the first American president to be convicted of felony crimes.) “That’s the other thing I ask Bobby all the time: ‘Can Trump be a president from prison?’ Bobby said, ‘It’s not in the Constitution that he can’t.’
“Because who would write it in the Constitution?” she added.
Asked how she might respond to Trump turning his attacks on her husband, and by extension, herself, Hines joked, “I’ll be in Greece. With no reception. That’s my plan.”
But, it turns out, the attacks never came from Trump, but rather from the Democratic establishment and Kennedy’s own family members. The Democratic National Committee spent millions to block Kennedy from ballots, according to one senior-level Kennedy campaign staffer.
That quiet allegiance set the stage for one of the most controversial political alliances, between two of the strangest and most colorful figures, in recent history.
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