Cheryl Hines’ Hollywood friends are reportedly surprised by her switch from liberal to conservative MAGA views.
“She used to be so liberal that it’s very hard to wrap her head around it,” a longtime Hollywood friend reportedly told the Daily Mail in a comment posted Wednesday.
“And now she’s married to a member of the Trump administration and is literally defending his ridiculous statements on ‘The View,'” they added.
Friends of the Curb Your Enthusiasm star, who is married to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are said to be disappointed that the longtime Democrat is now “MAGA.”
People close to Mr. Hines, 60, said it was “beyond comprehension” that Mr. Kennedy had changed to fully supporting his wife after publicly distancing himself from his polarizing views.
Earlier this month, Mr. Hines appeared on ABC’s daytime talk show and verbally sparred with the famously liberal “The View” hosts, discussing Mr. Kennedy’s controversial claims linking autism, circumcision and Tylenol use.
“With all due respect, your husband is the most unqualified Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in our history,” co-host Sunny Hostin said.
“I think that’s very, very dangerous.”
Hines returned the applause and defended her husband of 11 years, saying she didn’t understand how he could be “less qualified than an economist,” an apparent reference to Sylvia Burwell, a political campaign staffer who led HHS under former President Barack Obama.
“He’s spent his career researching toxins, researching people’s health, and fighting for one guy who was using Roundup on the job,” she added, noting that Kennedy’s previous career was as a lawyer. Kennedy previously represented a school groundskeeper who claimed he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma due to the use of Roundup herbicide.
Kennedy’s former clients ultimately won $289 million in damages in a 2018 lawsuit.
Hostin fired back, claiming that Kennedy “spread a lot of misinformation, a lot of confusion, a lot of confusion. And I think that’s very dangerous.” “I say this with the utmost respect,” Hostin added.
“The View” co-host Joy Behar agreed: “Some things are good, some things are not.”
When pressed by Behar and Whoopi Goldberg about Kennedy’s apparent anti-vaccine views, which were based on the since-debunked claim that certain vaccines cause autism, Hines again defended her husband.
“Are we going to listen to parents who tell us that once their child has been vaccinated and dressed, their child no longer hits the markers or has stopped developing as they should?” Hines asked.
One source said it was “unrealistic” to see Hines step up to bat in support of Kennedy’s controversial views.
“I looked at it and thought, ‘Who are you and what did you do to Cheryl?'” they reportedly told the Daily Mail.
“I know she loves her husband, but I feel like she has given up on what she believed was with him,” they continued.
“At the time, it made sense that she would marry Kennedy,” a Hollywood friend said of her 2014 marriage to Kennedy. “But I didn’t see this coming.”
Mr. Hines has also supported Mr. Kennedy amid his alleged sexting scandal with journalist Olivia Nuzzi.
A longtime friend who had known Mr. Hines since he studied television and radio production at the University of Central Florida expressed shock at the apparent change in Mr. Hines.
“We don’t talk about politics,” they told the outlet, adding that if they did, “it would only get worse.”
“It looks like she’s gone MAGA, or at least MAHA. This is really…beyond comprehension to me,” they explained.
“She went from, “There’s something wrong with that side,” to “Well, there’s good in them,” to “MAGA people are not bad people, in a good way.”
They went on to say, “One wonders if she has always been this way, or if there has been some change in her ethics and morals.”
A Curb Your Enthusiasm staff member told the Daily Mail that her political views are now “unrecognizable” from when she joined the hit show’s cast in 1999.
They said Mr. Hines “was 100 percent a Democrat while I worked with him and was proud of it.”
“We encourage people to vote blue and stand up for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and liberal politics,” they added. “And now she’s completely on the other side.”
They also lamented the “sudden change” in Mr. Hines’ political beliefs that seemed to have happened “overnight.” “I respect her right to have an opinion, but this is totally crazy to me,” they explained.
A representative for Hines did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
The Waitress actress, who married President Kennedy in 2014, previously pushed back against her husband’s comments in 2022 that said unvaccinated people were more oppressed than people who lived in Nazi Germany.
“My husband’s opinions do not reflect my own,” she said at the time, calling his opinions “reprehensible and insensitive,” adding: “We love each other, but we currently disagree on many issues.”
