RFK Jr. says it was a goat, not a dog in that Vanity Fair photo

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slammed a recent Vanity Fair article for suggesting that he ate a dog, instead explaining that the animal carcass photographed was a goat.

Kennedy said Tuesday on NewsNation’s “Cuomo” that a photo published of himself posing alongside an unidentified woman with an animal carcass on a spit was a goat photographed during a river trip in Patagonia.

The independent presidential candidate pushed back on the Vanity Fair piece that reported the animal photographed was a dog, and which suggested he had eaten it. The piece is headlined “RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets.”

“And, of course, it's not a dog, and they said I was eating a dog in Korea, and they had checked with experts, metadata experts, and identified it as Korea and checked with veterinarians who validated that it was a dog, and it's a goat,” he told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo.

Vanity Fair reported that Kennedy texted the photo, taken in 2010, to a friend who was traveling to Asia. The magazine also reported that a veterinarian told the magazine the animal in the photograph was a canine, pointing out the 13 pairs of ribs of the animal.

Kennedy said the photo was taken during a river trip on the Futaleufú that he took every year.

“And you know, a kayaking trip that ... that's what we ate; that's what everybody eats down there, is goats. Oh, you know, the fact the irony is Vanity Fair is, the most persistent complaint against me is that I'm, I'm promoting misinformation, but that whole article is just a dumpster of misinformation,” he added.

Kennedy noted there are just three things that he would not eat.

“And you know, I am a very adventurous eater, Chris. I think you know about that, that about me; I'll eat virtually anything,” he said.

“There's two things I wouldn't eat. Well, three. I wouldn't eat a human, I wouldn't eat a monkey, and I wouldn't eat a dog. I think I’d eat anything else, but I just couldn't bring myself to do those things. So it is a goat and, and you are what you eat,” he added.

Kennedy also echoed these comments in a post on the social platform X on Tuesday.

“Hey @VanityFair, you know when your veterinary experts call a goat a dog, and your forensic experts say a photo taken in Patagonia was taken in Korea, that you’ve joined the ranks of supermarket tabloids. Keep telling America that up is down if you want,” he wrote.

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

The Hill has reached out to Conde Nast, which owns Vanity Fair, for comment.