Cheryl Hines appeared to ditch her wedding ring as she revealed its whereabouts for the first time since her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was exposed in a sexting scandal with a journalist.
The 59-year-old actress beamed as she stepped out in Milan, Italy, on Friday night after a party hosted by Gucci during Milan Fashion Week.
Despite the attention focused on his marriage, the Curb Your Enthusiasm star appeared in good spirits as he greeted fans, wearing a sleek leather jacket, white shirt and blue suit pants.
The shocking photos showed she had ditched her large diamond wedding ring which she had been pictured wearing less than a week ago at the Emmy Awards on Sunday.
While greeting fans in Italy, Hines was balancing a set of keys on his finger, and in the blink of an eye, a smaller band could be seen on the third finger of his left hand.
It is unclear whether it was a keychain or a smaller, more subtle ring than the one she showed off in her last public appearance on Sunday.
That star-studded appearance came just days before her husband’s alleged affair with New York Magazine journalist Olivia Nuzzi was revealed.
Cheryl Hines apparently ditched her wedding ring as she revealed her identity for the first time since her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was exposed in a sexting scandal
As she greeted fans in Italy, Hines was dangling a set of keys on her finger, where a band could be seen on the third finger of her left hand. It’s unclear whether this was a keychain or a smaller, more subtle ring than the one she showed off in her last public appearance.
The 59-year-old actress beamed as she stepped out in Milan, Italy, on Friday night after a party hosted by Gucci during Milan Fashion Week, wearing a sleek leather jacket, white shirt and blue suit pants.
Following the exposure of Kennedy’s extramarital affair with Nuzzi, the journalist insisted that their relationship was only via text messages and never became “physical.”
Amid the fallout from the scandal, Hines has remained silent about the status of her decade-long marriage to Kennedy.
Before this week’s humiliation, the actress had been notably supportive of her husband during his unpredictable and sometimes bizarre campaign for the presidency, including Kennedy’s recent admission that he had left a bear carcass in Central Park in 2014.
Hines also survived a new federal investigation into allegations that Kennedy cut off the head of a dead whale and took it home during a beach trip two decades ago.
Hines appeared to have ditched a pair of large, lavish rings she wore at her last public appearance, at the Emmy Awards on Sunday (pictured)
Once described by co-star Larry David as “the only person in Hollywood who doesn’t have a single enemy”, the star’s marriage to Kennedy is reported to have come at great personal cost over the years.
Friends are said to have warned the actress about Kennedy’s history as a serial womanizer, while others questioned her silence in the face of her husband’s anti-vaccine rhetoric during the pandemic.
It was David who introduced his Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star to Kennedy in 2006 at a ski weekend fundraiser in Banff, Canada, for Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental nonprofit co-founded by Kennedy.
In the years since she married Kennedy a decade ago, Hines has reportedly lost acting opportunities and friendships in Hollywood because of her husband’s politics.
New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi, 31, has been placed on leave following news of her relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Both Hines and Kennedy were married to other people when they met. Hines was married to Paul Young, founder of the management firm Principato-Young, with whom she has a daughter, Catherine, 20.
Kennedy was previously married to his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy. Kennedy filed for divorce from Mary in 2010, but she committed suicide in 2012 before the paperwork was finalized.
By then, Hines and Kennedy were back in touch. They went public with their relationship in October 2011 and married three years later.
Hines later admitted that David never intended to play matchmaker and in fact gave her a hard time about the relationship, telling her, “Why would you do that? Are you crazy?”
Kennedy’s relationship with Nuzzi reportedly began after she visited the $6.6 million California home he shares with Hines for a profile last November.
Kennedy’s relationship with Nuzzi came after she wrote an unflattering profile of him last fall, condemning his “dirty” car and the “fear” that drove his presidential campaign.
The revelation that Kennedy has been involved in an affair with New York magazine political reporter Olivia Nuzzi has people really wondering if this is the moment Hines kicks her “longtime philanderer” husband to the curb.
Nuzzi’s profile of Kennedy was unflattering, including descriptions of trips in his “dirty” dog car that looked like one that “survived a nuclear war” or “a chickenpox vaccine.”
“The rearview mirror was shredded, the seat belts were chewed off, the seat cushions were chewed up, and there was dirt and dog hair everywhere. The killing machine smelled so bad I thought I was going to pass out after about 15 seconds of being in the passenger seat,” she wrote.
Kennedy’s unflattering description continued as Nuzzi described “the astonishing amount of waste produced by his dogs” on their walk, how he had a “hostile expression” on his face, and recalled his glee when she pointed out “coyote shit” to him during their walk.
Now that his relationship with Kennedy is under scrutiny, Nuzzi said in a statement that their exchanges “became personal” but were never “physical.”
She said in the statement: ‘Earlier this year, the nature of some communications between me and a former reporter became personal.
‘During that time, I did not report directly on the subject or use them as a source. The relationship was never physical, but it should have been disclosed to avoid the appearance of a conflict.
‘I deeply regret not having done so immediately and I apologize to those I have disappointed, especially my colleagues in New York.’
Last month, Kennedy endorsed Trump, a decision that came as he dropped out of the presidential race and which he himself admitted could prove “catastrophic” for his marriage.
Even before the sexting scandal, Hines was facing mounting pressure in liberal Hollywood circles to publicly denounce her husband.
Earlier this month, the hate grew so strong that Bill Maher stepped in to defend Hines from “hateful far-left imposters” who were “screaming at him on Twitter” by the thousands.
According to Maher, “Going after your wife… not even the mob does that.”
Kennedy, for his part, has defended his wife amid the backlash, maintaining that their marriage was able to withstand different political stances.
“She’s been a lifelong Democrat,” he told TMZ. “And the idea of me supporting Donald Trump… was, like I said, something she would never have imagined, that she never wanted in her life.”
“I think it makes him very uncomfortable.”