EXCLUSIVE: RFK Jr.'s mother Ethel, 95, was behind Kennedy clan's humiliating endorsement of Joe Biden - as her combative history with her presidential candidate son is exposed
- Ethel Kennedy is 'the force behind the family's decision' to support Joe Biden for a second term over her son RFK Jr.'s presidential bid, sources tell DailyMail.com
Bobby Kennedy Jr. was only 13 years old when his then-newly widowed mother, Ethel, distraught over the assassination of her presidential candidate husband Senator Robert F. Kennedy, suddenly began aiming her anger toward her son, his father's namesake.
At various times in the wake of the June 1968 assassination,
Ethel, then 40, pushed Bobby into the painful thorns of a rose bush, beat him with a hair brush, ordered him out of the Kennedy home, constantly berated him and virtually disowned him by turning him over to a closeted homosexual.
'After all these years, Ethel's negative feelings toward Bobby haven't changed one iota,' a longtime confidant of the presidential hopeful tells DailyMail.com.
'And knowing how she feels about Bobby, most of the rest of the family have refused to support his presidential run.'
'Ethel might be bedridden, on medication because of her age, and awaiting God's calling,' the source continued, 'but she's still considered the power behind the throne – the de facto matriarch.
'The family knows her wishes, and obediently carries them out. If this was a mob family, Ethel, despite her age, would be considered the boss.'
But Bobby, who is said by sources to have little contact with his aged mother, has been the only sibling who has been publicly critical of her.
A source claims: 'It's karma for how miserably Ethel treated Bobby in the wake of his father's murder, and now today with her not supporting his presidential hopes.'
In his 2018 book, 'American Values', he verbally attacked his mother, blasting her for her use of what he called 'tough love' toward him beginning in his early teens.
'I seem to have been at odds with my mother since birth,' he candidly declared.
'Her flurries of temper appeared to me haphazard and desultory, and, of all of us siblings, most often directed toward me.
'My rebellious nature, and my inclination for pointing out her caprices may have sharpened her disfavor.
'From my angle,' he continued, 'her love didn't always feel conditional. Her approach was what today people would call "tough love", for which I proved a tough audience.
'Her exceptional qualities were mainly invisible to me as a child,' he added.
He also called her out for what he described as her tendency to divide people into two categories.
'My mother, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, divided the world into friend and foe. Generally, she judged the latter by harsher standards, and yet she sometimes discarded time-honored friendships for minor infractions. I faulted her for being mercurial and arbitrary.'
He wrote that when he was young he was 'hypervigilant to evidence of maternal hypocrisy,' and his mother's treatment of her servants and others, which he asserted was 'at odds with her advocacy work' as a human rights and environmental activist, and founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
Ethel Kennedy is 'the force behind the family's decision' to support Joe Biden for a second term over her son RFK Jr.'s presidential bid, sources tell DailyMail.com.
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