Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday explained why his campaign’s TikTok account includes a resurfaced comment on an OnlyFans model’s TikTok account.
“The TikTok comment in question was made in 2022 long before I ever had a TikTok account, Kennedy wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This comment now appears on my account because the account was previously owned by one of the campaign’s young social media managers.”
Kennedy claimed his team was looking to promote his presidential run on every social media platform when announcing his run in April, but could not livestream on short-form video platform TikTok without first reaching 1,000 followers. He said his social media manager transferred his TikTok account, which had around 1,500 followers at the time, to Kennedy to allow him to livestream his announcement on TikTok.
Questions were raised Wednesday night, when a user on X posted a purported screen recording of Kennedy’s official account, writing, “Wow,” with heart-eye emojis on a video of an OnlyFans model in 2022.
OnlyFans is a subscription-based platform where users can pay creators for photos and videos, which sometimes includes sexually explicit content.
Kennedy, the son of Bobby Kennedy and nephew of former President Kennedy, is married to actress Cheryl Hines and has six children from two previous marriages.
Kennedy launched a Democratic bid for the White House but then switched in October to run as an independent.
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He has struggled to make a sizable dent in the 2024 election, though polling in December showed 1-in-5 registered voters said they are open to supporting the third-party candidate.
Kennedy supports several populist positions, overlapping between former President Trump and some progressives of the Democratic Party.
His position in the race could bolster Trump’s chances at reelection, according to recent polling. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll released last month showed Trump leading Biden by 7 points in a one-on-one matchup, 48 percent to 41 percent, respectively.
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