RFK Jr got sober months before his brother David died at a Palm Beach hotel
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RFK Jr got sober months before his brother David died at a Palm Beach hotel

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Just months after he had gotten clean himself, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Kennedys lost their younger brother to drug addiction at a Palm Beach hotel in 1984.

RFK Jr., a likely candidate for a health-related position in the new Trump administration, has spoken openly about his own 14-year battle with heroin addiction.

But his “best friend”, brother David, did not make it. He died at the age of 28 of a drug overdose at the Brazilian Court Hotel in April 1984. David Kennedy’s autopsy showed a mixture of cocaine, the pain reliever, Demerol, and the sedative, Mellaril.

David Kennedy died alone in a Palm Beach hotel

When the family gathered for Easter at the Kennedy Estate at 1095 N. Ocean Blvd., David was allegedly kicked out because he was drunk and acting erratically.

It is not clear if RFK Jr. was also there.

But in addition to David, news stories put two other brothers at the facility.

The oldest son of RFK Sr. and Ethel’s 11 children, Joseph, was there. Also, younger brother Douglas checked in with David to stay in the $150-a-night room at the Brazilian court five days before David’s death.

A woman who had dated David a few days before his death said he had been sobbing and was severely depressed.

History: Which Kennedy family member overdosed at a Palm Beach hotel?

David died alone.

A secretary knocked on his door on the morning of April 5. When Elizabeth Barnett got no answer, she used her passport key to gain entry.

His mother Ethel had frantically called the hotel to say he had not shown up for his flight to Boston.

More: David Kennedy, RFK’s fourth child, died of a drug overdose in 1984 in Palm Beach

In the room, Barnett found both beds made and David between them.

She touched his face. He was gone.

When the hotel called Ethel back, Ethel said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?” and hung up the phone.

Two bellhops were later arrested on charges of delivering the drugs, but they took a plea deal to lesser charges and received probation.

The Kennedy brothers’ addiction began shortly after the assassination of RFK Sr

David at the age of 12 had been at the Ambassador Hotel in June 1968 watching news footage of the murder of his father, which happened downstairs. RFK Jr., age 14, had also been there.

Both would start using drugs soon after, around the same time.

RFK Jr. said his heroin addiction began at age 15, David’s at 13.

Family members said the murder may have sparked David’s addiction, but a car accident in 1973 likely made it worse.

How RFK Jr got sober

David was the fourth child of Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy and RFK Jr. was the third, two years older than David.

Seven months before David died, his older brother had been arrested in Rapid City, South Dakota, on heroin possession charges after he became ill on an airplane. The 29-year-old was released by police and entered a drug rehabilitation program a few days later in September 1983.

RFK Jr. said this year that he had attended 40 years of 12-step meetings to escape “drugs, sex, alcohol or extreme behavior” and still does.

He said on a Latino Capitalist podcast in July that he wants the government to create free “rehab farms” in rural areas across the country for those struggling with addiction to “rehabilitate” them from using both legal and illegal drugs.

The government would pay for recovery to grow food on organic farms for three or four years with a sales tax on cannabis products, according to “Mother Jones.”

Holly Baltz is investigative editor at The Palm Beach Post. She also has a passion for history. You reach her at [email protected].

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