RFK Jr says barbecued carcass he held up on camera was a 'real photo' — but it was no dog​

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks at the Libertarian National Convention on May 24, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is refuting a report in Vanity Fair that he sent a photo of himself to friends posing with the barbecued carcass of what experts identified as a dog.

On Fox News Tuesday, Kennedy, a former environmental attorney known for his conspiracy theories about vaccines, vehemently denied the animal was a dog.

He insists it was a goat.

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"This Vanity Fair story, I want to give you an opportunity to address it, that has a picture of you holding up what looks like a carcass of a dog and pretending to take a bite out of it," said anchor Martha MacCallum. "It's getting a lot of attention, so I want to ask you if you want to explain that photo. Is that a cheapfake? Is that a real photo? What was going on there?"

"That is a real photo," said Kennedy. "It's of me at a campfire in Patagonia in the Futaleufú River, eating a goat, which is what we eat down there."

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"Vanity Fair said that they talked to veterinarians who assured them that it was a dog, that they had meta-analysis that it was in Korea, that it was in Korea of me eating a dog, and that, that statement is emblematic of the entire article, of the lack of sort of journalistic standards throughout that article."

According to Vanity Fair, Kennedy's text message of the photo to a friend was accompanied by an explicit recommendation to try a restaurant in Korea that serves dog.

The carcass photo was not the only damaging information outlined by the article; it also detailed an allegation that Kennedy had inappropriate sexual contact with a babysitter his family hired who was half his age.

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