RFK Jr. confesses he snorted cocaine off toilets

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reflecting on maintaining his sobriety for more than four decades, said his cocaine habit knew no bounds.

“I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats,” he confessed in a video that quickly went viral.

During a conversation on comedian Theo Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend,” Mr. Kennedy talked openly about his recovery from addiction.

He described the daily commitments that kept him sober, including early morning recovery meetings in the Los Angeles area, where he met Mr. Von.

“We’ve been in recovery together for years,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Mr. Kennedy said he still went to in-person recovery meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, describing the push to make meetings virtual as opposed to in-person as “heartbreaking.”

“I said this when we came in, and I said, ‘I don’t care what happens, I’m going to a meeting every day,’” he said. “I’m not scared of a germ, you know. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats. I know this disease will kill me. If I don’t treat it, which, for me, means going to meetings every day, it’s just bad for my life.”

“For me, it was survival,” he added.

The video clip has circulated across social media platforms, including a clip shared on @factpostnews that gained over 13 million views before noon Thursday.

Some health care patrons did not respond to his confession with enthusiasm, instead pointing to his comments as a reason for him to leave his post in the Trump administration.

Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action, a group that pushes for doctors and scientists to be elected for public office, sounded this alarm to Newsweek: “RFK Jr. doesn’t believe in germ theory?”

Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care, a health care advocacy organization, said that Mr. Kennedy should “resign” based on his comments.

The secretary has not been shy about airing out his long history of substance addiction publicly. He turned to drugs after his father, Robert Kennedy, the 1968 Democratic presidential candidate, was assassinated.

Mr. Kennedy used heroin for 14 years, he said, leading to two arrests for drug possession. But a 1983 felony conviction for heroin possession led him to a treatment program and regular rehabilitation sessions as part of his probation condition, becoming the catalyst for his commitment to sobriety.