Chris Pratt defends ‘wonderful’ relative and US health secretary RFK Jr

Hollywood superstar Chris Pratt has praised family member RFK Jr, the US secretary of health who has looked to defund LGBTQ+ health research, including HIV-prevention programmes.

Marvel actor Chris Pratt made the comments while appearing on the Club Random with Bill Maher podcast. His wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, is Robert F Kennedy Jr’s cousin, and the eldest the daughter of Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican former governor of California, and journalist Maria Shriver.

Since being nominated by president Donald Trump, Kennedy has overseen a series of mass lay-offs within the health department, and looked to defund research for sexual and gender minorities – including “critical” HIV research

Jurassic World star Pratt claimed RFK Jr. was doing a good job, and criticised those who, he felt, only opposed the health secretary’s actions because he was part of the Trump administration.

“There’s certain things [RFK Jr] oversees that seem to be supported in a bipartisan way, like getting terrible toxic stuff out of our kids’ food,” Pratt claimed. “That’s a great thing. If you just do that, that’s amazing.

“I’d hate to be so mired in hatred for the president that any success from his administration is something I’d be having an allergic reaction to. To be like: ‘Oh, well, if they do it, I don’t want it to happen. I’ll put [disinfectant] Clorox in my children’s cereal myself’. Be reasonable here: there [are] certain things that would be a good thing to have. I want them all to be successful.”

Chris Pratt, who in 2022 was forced to deny that he attended anti-LGBTQ+ megachurch Hillsong, revealed that he and RFK Jr. avoid talking about politics at family gatherings. The secretary of health is the son of slain US attorney general Bobby Kennedy and a nephew of assassinated former Democratic president John F Kennedy.

“I’ve spent a number of occasions hanging with him [in a] strictly family dinner kind of vibe,” Pratt explained. “I really got along with him well and think he’s great. He’s funny, he’s wonderful. I love him… [but] when you jump on the bandwagon with the most-divisive president ever, it makes sense that you’re going to be made to look terrible. So, I don’t know what to believe [about his reported policies].

“It’s not like I say to Bobby: ‘Let’s talk about this’, while we’re playing cards or having fun or having dinner. I’m not going to pick his brain to find out exactly which of those things are true. I just assume that none of them are. For the most part, I wish him well.

“I’ve seen in Hollywood how the person you are can be such a contrast to the person people are told you are, and you can go: ‘Wow, that [viewpoint] is pure fiction’. Millions of people are being fed that, and I’m not there to defend myself, nor am I going to jump in and be mired in this story.”

RFK Jr. is a staunch anti-vaxxer, and just two years ago, wrongly blamed the use of poppers for causing the Aids pandemic. He has also claimed that “chemical exposure” turned children transgender.

Earlier this month, a judge blocked plans by the National Institutes of Health – part of Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services – to defund the work of 17 LGBTQ+-health researchers.

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