What a long, stranger-than-fiction trip it’s been for Cheryl Hines. Over the last year and a half, her transition from Hollywood liberal to MAGA wife has stunned Curb Your Enthusiasm fans, not to mention some of her friends and entertainment industry colleagues.
“There’s just mutual headshaking,” says one former colleague sadly. Whenever the subject of Hines comes up within their social circles, “It’s like you lock eyes and you shake heads and you move on.” Another industry insider who has worked with her says, “It’s a sense of betrayal, like, who are you? Were you always like this? I don’t know you anymore!”
Now that she’s on the press trail hawking Unscripted, her forthcoming memoir about her life and marriage to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Hines is suddenly ubiquitous—and her media bombardment is triggering a new wave of sadness and disgust from some in Hollywood who once admired her. “I think people gave her the benefit of the doubt,” says the former colleague.
“Unfortunately, we’re now sitting here and it has been 10 months of a war on science, a war on vaccines, and a war on general intelligence. And to have to listen to this craziness about Tylenol and circumcision and whatnot,” this person continued. “It’s true insanity.”
In the wake of measles outbreaks, the normalization of junk science, and the whole Tylenol thing, the question of whether Hines’s career can survive this moment might seem frivolous. But at least one Hollywood heavyweight who knows Hines has their mind made up: “Whatever her reasons for staying with that weird, imbecilic husband and whether or not she subscribes to his inane positions is of no real consequence,” this person says disdainfully. “It isn’t as though we’re talking about Zendaya, whom one would desperately want to get into their movie.” Hines’s most recent project is a short film called Prowl that she starred in with her daughter, Catherine Rose Young.
No one interviewed for this piece wanted their name attached to their criticisms of Hines, out of residual respect for her or fear of Trump reprisal, or both. And none of Hines’s Curb costars have publicly aired their feelings about her transformation either; Those whom I contacted declined to comment. Even Larry David—who’s never been quiet about his liberal leanings, and who Hines credits for introducing her to RFK Jr. at an environmental fundraiser many years ago—has kept surprisingly shtum on this particular subject, at least since making clear in 2023 that he did not support Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Maybe that will change when David premieres his forthcoming HBO sketch series about American history? It’s produced, in part, by a very different president: Barack Obama. Hines, for her part, told Billy Bush this week that they are not in close touch: “I haven’t talked to him in a while,” she said. “I love Larry, and I think Larry loves me. I think it’s just politics.”
The tiptoeing caution about Hines’s situation hints at the current mood in Hollywood, ruled by ambient fears of retribution and blacklists. “I don’t believe a Trump blacklist today would cancel careers in the entertainment industry, but it could spur retreat in terms of corporate policy and even network news,” the CEO of a major company told Deadline’s Peter Bart back in January. Hines’s decision to make a hard right turn also makes clear that in this divided America, there can be real material benefits to courting a MAGA audience—if you don’t mind losing old friends along the way. (Hines has not yet responded to a request for comment.)
Hines spent years trying to thread the needle, initially playing supportive wife to RFK Jr. while simultaneously distancing herself from his political stances. Guests at a 2021 Los Angeles holiday party at the couple’s home were urged to get a COVID vaccination or test beforehand, despite Kennedy’s strong anti-vax views. Why? “I’m not always the boss at my own house,” he quipped at the time, pointing out that the party was for Hines’s entertainment industry friends. In 2022, she publicly condemned a reference to Anne Frank that her husband made during an anti-vaccine screed, describing it as “reprehensible and insensitive” and insisting, “His opinions are not a reflection of my own.” In early 2024, Hines criticized Trump’s behavior and told The Hollywood Reporter that she had banned Kennedy from communicating with Steve Bannon and Alex Jones: “I also have my limits.”
But once her husband dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump in 2024, that line in the sand eroded. Hines released an anodyne statement containing a sentence—“I have met some extraordinary people from all parties”—that sounded as though it had been written by either a Stepford Wife or an uninspired political operative. RFK Jr. responded to the backlash on his wife’s behalf, calling her a “lifelong Democrat,” and explaining that “the idea of me supporting Donald Trump…it’s something she would have never imagined, that she never wanted in her life.” By 2025, Hines had visited Mar-a-Lago multiple times, attending celebrations there for her husband’s nomination and election night.
Trump’s social set has welcomed Hines, even as some of her Hollywood friends turn their backs. Appearing on The Tucker Carlson Show, she acknowledged that at this point, there are people in LA who don’t want to give her work because of her husband: “I do think that’s real.” She even got teary remembering the tension of shooting the final season of Curb while Kennedy was still running for president. “It made me sad, that that was how the show was ending for me.” Things got so gnarly for Hines that she claims Kennedy even suggested they separate for the sake of appearances. “Bobby felt like, ‘You shouldn’t be having to take that heat,’” she recently told Fox News. “‘So why don’t we just say we’re separated?’”
Instead, she says, “What needed to happen—and what did happen—is we got closer together.” Particularly since Trump’s second inauguration, Hines has appeared to get more and more comfortable playing the DC tradwife: mingling with the MAGA elite at Mar-a-Lago; sitting primly behind her husband as he spouts misinformation at his confirmation hearings to head the Department of Health and Human Services; smiling for a party photo with Tulsi Gabbard, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump Jr.
One of the few close pals to publicly speak up about Hines in the Trump 2.0 era is Tig Notaro, who once cohosted a podcast with Hines called Tig and Cheryl: True Story. During a recent appearance on comedian Tom Papa’s podcast, Notaro admitted that she’d had to step away from her relationship with her old pal. “My friendship with Cheryl predated her marriage to Bobby,” Notaro told Papa. When the couple first met, Kennedy was still a respected environmental lawyer. “But then [his beliefs] started to grow, and Cheryl wanted me to hear Bobby out…and I was like, ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.’ I just didn’t trust it. And then he endorsed Trump, and then it just got hard…. You’re okaying a particular ride for this country to go on.” She continued, “It’s really sad, because Cheryl did bring me so much joy.” (When reached by VF, Notaro declined to comment further.)
Sometimes it seems like Hines is living out some dementedly cringed-out Curb episode, where ordinary events spiral out of control. As Notaro pointed out, it was one thing when RFK Jr. was a free-floating conspiracy theorist (“a gnat on the arm,” as she put it); it’s quite another now that he wields so much power over the health of the American populace.
But who says Hines is looking for another Curb Your Enthusiasm anyway? She may be perfectly happy trading the stardust of Los Angeles for the Trumpian glitz of DC, where her husband recently bought a $4.43 million house in Georgetown. “Isn’t it an assumption that there is regret? Sometimes we just sever relationships and move into a new life,” the industry insider says, pointing out that Hollywood isn’t too kind to women over 40. “There are realities on that front that would already have limited her options. So here’s potentially a path to a whole new reinvigorated brand.”
Even pre-Trump 2.0, Hines had already branched out beyond entertainment. In 2023, she partnered with her daughter to launch Hines+Young, an eco-friendly luxury skin care and lifestyle company. Among the products was a MAHA-branded candle. “Ready to Make America Healthy Again?” the brand’s website teased. “Start in your home with a ‘clean’ Hines+Young premium soy wax candle. Our candles are non-toxic, made from natural ingredients, and eco-conscious in terms of sourcing, production, and burning characteristics.” In a viral Instagram video last year Hines used the image of her husband’s naked 70-year-old body in the shower to advertise a Black Friday sale, openly standing by her man—and in front of him, to block out his naughty bits.
While Hines may have been on her way to creating a MAGA Goop, Kennedy’s political career ultimately screwed up this business for her too. Before he was appointed to head HHS, he announced in an ethics agreement that Hines would “stop sales of the company’s cosmetic inventory no later than 90 days from the date of my appointment.”
Reinventing herself as a star for the red states could open Hines up to a whole new audience hungering for celebrities who’ve turned their backs on Hollywood. On the Unscripted press tour, she’s done mainstream media like The View, but also found herself embraced by Fox News, Katie Miller’s podcast, and The Tucker Carlson Show. During her appearance on the latter, Hines dropped the politically neutral mask and spoke glowingly of Trump (“I found him to be just a genuine person”) and his administration (“I can say that the people in the Cabinet, people in the administration, really want what’s best for this country”). She expressed puzzlement at those who refused to be open-minded toward vaccine skepticism, and nodded as Carlson flabbergastingly described those who hold Hines to account as having a “genocidal mindset”: “It’s the mindset that says…‘Let’s hurt her because she’s related to him.’ That’s where genocide comes from, that way of thinking.”
All of which suggests that Hines has chosen her path—and is politely giving Hollywood liberals the finger. “I do think she had multiple choices…but she doubled down,” says her former colleague. “At some point, everyone who is quiet is complicit.”
The post Cheryl Hines’s MAGA Makeover Has Her Hollywood Colleagues Scratching Their Heads: “I Don’t Know You Anymore!” appeared first on Vanity Fair.
