Jerry Oppenheimer is a bestselling biographer who has written two books about the Kennedys, The Other Mrs. Kennedy, about the life of Ethel Skakel Kennedy and RFK Jr. and The Dark Side of the Dream.
America’s ‘Royal Family‘ – the Kennedys – has a newly crowned queen, quietly anointed by the clan’s powerful matriarch Ethel Kennedy before she died last year at 96, the Daily Mail has learned exclusively.
The new power behind the Kennedy throne, according to insiders, is Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, 65, the seventh-born of Ethel and Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s brood of 11, and the ex-wife of former New York governor and Big Apple mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo.
Kerry – considered the most loyal of Ethel’s surviving children and author of a forthcoming book about her mother – publicly displayed her newly inherited muscle over the 4th of July holiday weekend with shocking fireworks.
As dozens of cousins, siblings, relatives and hangers-on gathered at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, for the political clan’s annual Independence Day celebration and family photo, several notable absences drew whispers.
According to close sources, staunch Democrat Kerry – a devoted Biden supporter like her mother – had ‘icily blacklisted’ her brother, Bobby Jr., Trump-appointed head of the Department of Health and Human Services, from the festivities.
And Kerry also banned her despised second-cousin, JFK’s only grandson, Jack Schlossberg, no doubt because of his embarrassing unhinged social media rants and attacks on certain family members and others.
In the wake of the seeming snub, Schlossberg, a 32-year-old Yale law school graduate with no known occupation, wasted no time making an inexplicable attack on one of the Kennedy family’s famously beloved members: His late grandmother Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis.
In a curious Instagram post, the tall, swarthy and nerdy Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s son, appeared on tape with the cover of the July 7 issue of People magazine.
Ethel Kennedy (middle left) crowned her beloved daughter Kerry (center right) as the family matriarch before death – and she’s already plotting to cut off Bobby Jr. (left) for backing Trump
Kerry, a proud Joe Biden backer and Ethel’s favorite of her 11 children, has already publicly disowned Bobby in public and blacklisted him from attending any extravagant Kennedy events
Both Bobby and Kerry’s other nemesis, JFK’s only grandson Jack Schlossberg, were both absent from the family’s annual 4th of July bash at their compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts
It showed Jackie standing behind JFK with the headline: ‘Jackie Knew Everything,’ an apparent reference to long-standing allegations that the president had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.
In a skin-tight gown and sultry voice, Monroe famously sang ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ to the handsome well-known womanizing president, when he turned 45 in 1962, sparking rumors of an affair, just months before he was assassinated.
Jackie had previously resurfaced in another Schlossberg posting on X back in January, in which he asked if Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, was ‘way hotter than Jackie O.’
Schlossberg wasn’t the only relative left out of the Kennedy Independence Day party.
According to the insiders, Bobby Jr.’s third wife, actress Cheryl Hines, was said to feel ‘bereft, insulted, heartbroken and p**sed’ for herself and her controversial husband for being excluded from the family circle by Kerry.
Sources tell the Daily Mail that RFK has gotten used to the put-downs by family members over his controversial views on vaccines, his short-lived run for the presidency and his decision to join with the Republican Trump administration.
In the past, sources say, Hines was ‘thrilled being part of the Kennedy family, now not so much.
‘Bobby really doesn’t give a s**t about his sister’s disinvitation and her blacklist. He has the country’s health to deal with.’
While the rest of the Kennedys celebrated, 32-year-old Jack Schlossberg, best known for his bizarre antics and family-bashing online rants, popped up on Instagram sporting a shaved head, gaming headset and an ‘I heart EU’ t-shirt
‘Kerry firmly let it be known that she’s followed matriarch Ethel’s wish to lead the family and she’s clearly running the show,’ says another insider.
Along with transferring her power to Kerry, Ethel gave her daughter the green light to write a book about her life, to be entitled Ethel: Faith, Hope, Family, and an Extraordinary American Life.
It’s described by the publisher as ‘an intimate portrait,’ and quoted Kerry as declaring, ‘The world is immeasurably better because [my mother] has lived in it.’
Known for their liberal Democratic politics, numerous tragedies and horrific scandals over decades, the Kennedys have, according to a close family observer, ‘morphed into a real-life reality show-style dynasty, right up there with the Kardashians, publicly letting it all hang out, with their feuds and virtual blood-letting.’
Schlossberg is clearly at the center of the drama and he wasted no time criticized his second cousin during his short-lived presidential campaign last year.
Bobby Jr.’s shock move to join President Trump as his Secretary of Health is pure political whiplash for the Kennedy family – ditching decades of their Democrat legacy in one fell swoop
Bobby and Kerry are the children of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy – whose 1968 assassination came just five years after his brother JFK was shot and killed during his presidency
Kerry has long been tied to politics as the ex-wife with disgraced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
In one foul-mouthed Instagram video, he took on a typical Kennedy Bostonian accent – he’s from New York City – and said he was ‘a fan’ of Bobby’s father, calling his assassination ‘a tragic day.’
But as for Bobby himself, Schlossberg declared: ‘That guy, he’s a p***k…a freaking p***k. He’s lying to you… He’s got Trump donors. He’s got Trump advisors, him and Trump go away freaking back… Don’t throw your vote away,’ and he called on his following to ‘vote for Biden. It’ll feel good.’
In another Instagram video, he called Bobby’s candidacy an ’embarrassment’ and a ‘vanity project,’ declaring: ‘I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president.’
He accused Bobby of trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame.
And worse still, he mocked his health issue, a neurological disorder known as spasmodic dysphonia, in a social media post he later deleted.
Jack’s mother Caroline Kennedy, who was the former US ambassador to Australia and Japan, also jumped on icing out Bobby Jr by attacking her cousin’s HHS nomination in a public letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
In the letter, she urged the members to reject him, calling him unqualified and referring to him as a ‘predator.’
She also asserted that Bobby, a one-time heroin addict once convicted of possession, a felony, had ‘encouraged… siblings and cousins down the path of substance abuse, suffered addiction, illness and death.’
Sources told DailyMail.com that Kerry’s move to ice out Bobby Jr. from the family’s holiday bash left his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, heartbroken, as she was thrilled to join the Kennedy clan when they married in 2014
In 1984, Bobby’s younger brother, David – Ethel and RFK’s fourth child – died at 28 of ‘multiple ingestion’ of three drugs found in his body fluids.
In her letter, Caroline declared: ‘Bobby is addicted to attention and power… Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children… vaccinating his own kids while building a following, hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating their own.’
Kennedys haven’t been Schlossberg’s only targets.
He launched an attack on popular conservative news personality Megyn Kelly after she branded him and his mother ‘disgusting,’ and was critical trans rights, which Schlossberg supports. Kelly airs a program on satellite radio and YouTube with an audience of more than three million.
During Bobby’s confirmation hearings for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Schlossberg ranted on X for hours, calling his cousin a ‘guru shaman figure’ who runs a cult and described him as a ‘f***ing liar.’
When Bobby Jr. was running for president, Kerry and their mother Ethel attended a Biden event and declared, ‘The Kennedy family endorses Joe Biden for president.’
And another sister, Rory Kennedy, added to the very public family feud, writing a post declaring: ‘The decision of our brother Bobby to run… against Joe Biden is dangerous to our country… We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.’
