Cheryl Hines downplayed the sexting scandal involving her husband, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and former New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi saying, “whether it’s true or false, doesn’t matter.”
The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star opened up about the alleged emotional affair during a Friday interview on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” where Katie Miller asked how she responded to Nuzzi “trying to monetize herself over Bobby” with the book Nuzzi plans to release, which will touch on her alleged relationship with Kennedy.
Hines said that at that time when Kennedy was running for president, it was an “exhausting year and a half of headlines and rumors and articles and chaos.”
“At that time, I thought, ‘OK, this is more chaos and more rumors,” Hines said, noting that she had just lost her nephew when the drama started up. “It was a lot. It was coming up on the heels of everything else.”
She continued: “Then to have a story, was distracting at best, but also in the scheme of what’s real, what’s not, what’s important, what’s not, it was not ranking up in the this is what’s important in life category.”
She added that she has “no idea” who Nuzzi is.
“I don’t know this person, don’t know their intentions,” Hines said. “I could guess, but I won’t. But you can if you want.”
She said one of the lessons she learned during Kennedy’s campaign was that “there are people that really want to be involved in the conversation.”
“I’m not just talking about this person, I’m talking about a lot of people,” Hines explained. “They spend a lot of time figuring out how to write something that’s going to get people’s attention. And if they do, then they are really celebrating. Whether it’s true or false, doesn’t matter. If it gets people’s attention, it’s a celebration. It’s a success for them.”
As TheWrap previously reported, Nuzzi is set to publish a book that spotlights her alleged relationship with Kennedy.
The book is set to be released around the holidays, according to Status, and galleys have been floated around to a small number of readers. Nuzzi worked on the memoir while spending roughly the last year in Los Angeles. The book will also cover her last decade of reporting on politics, Donald Trump and navigating the political sphere.
You can watch the full “Katie Miller Podcast” segment in the video above.
