The secretary of Health and Human Services is an odd guy. Yes, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has exhibited an outright dangerous embrace of vaccine conspiracies and disregard for scientific consensus — but he also has some weird-ass habits. From saying his Super Bowl snack of choice is yogurt (“meat and ferments”) to his affinity for animal carcasses, Kennedy’s antics have been the source of endless public fascination. As we all have gained more access to Kennedy through his government work, one question in particular has wormed its way into the American mind: Why is this man always wearing jeans?
Kennedy doesn’t just wear them in his day-to-day life. He wears them in situations where jeans would be the sub-optimal article of clothing for the activity, by several degrees. Swimming, working out, in the sauna. Jeans and a belt. No shirt though, just extremely waterlogged denim.
The bizarre habit reached a pinnacle of public befuddlement on Tuesday, when Kennedy released a video promoting his “Make America Healthy Again” initiative with known healthy guy Kid Rock. With Rock’s “Bawitdaba” — a song about doing hard drugs and drinking a lot — the pair gave their vision of a “Rock Out Work Out.”
The video featured Kennedy working out on gym equipment in blue jeans and what seemed to be hiking boots. At one point Kennedy removes his shirt for the camera, and gets on a stationary bicycle inside a sauna (while still wearing jeans). He hops into a cold plunge (while still wearing jeans). He jumps into a pool (while still wearing the jeans). He drinks a glass of whole milk in the pool that is maybe a very large hot tub (again, in jeans).
The message was clear: the jeans stay on.
In response to a request for an explanation, the Department of Health and Human Services directed Rolling Stone to an interview Kennedy gave to Fox News in August in which he said that he had “started doing that a long time ago” because he would “go hiking in the morning, and then I’d go straight to the gym, and I found it was convenient, and now I’m used to it, so I just do it.”
It’s a bit nonsensical, and not the case as he worked out with Kid Rock. In the absence of a sensible explanation, the online masses have come up with their own explanation: RFK Jr. might be a “never nude.”
For the uninitiated, the concept of a “never nude” entered the popular lexicon after the sitcom Arrested Development made a running gag of the neurotic, sexually repressed character Tobias Funke’s habit of constantly wearing cutoff jorts under his clothing.
Throughout the show Funke — played masterfully by comedian and actor David Cross — is shown crying in the shower while wearing his jorts, wearing them under a speedo, under chaps, even under workout gear at the gym. “Excuse me, do these effectively hide my thunder,” he asks in one episode.
Now, being a “never nude” is not a condition you will find in the psychiatric diagnostic manuals like the DSM-5, at least not by that name. Funke’s impairment was likely based on gymnophobia, an irrational fear of nudity.
Comparisons to Funke were a common response to Kennedy’s workout video on social media, with users posting Arrested Development clips and memes while expressing general bewilderment about RFK’s obsessions with jeans.
“RFK Jr is a never nude,” one X user wrote in response to the video. A top comment on the post photoshopped Kennedy’s face over a still of Funke in his safety jorts.
“However insane you think this video is, i urge you to watch it in its entirety. It’s so much more insane than you could imagine. RFK Jr. jumps into a pool with jeans on,” comedian Milo Edwards wrote in a tweet with over three million impressions.
“Idk about you but Kid Rock doing 3 push ups in a sauna looking like he smells like wet socks and RFK Jr. getting in a bathtub with Walmart jeans on really makes me wanna be healthier,” another user joked.
Kennedy wearing jeans in any context where showing calf and maybe even knee might be appropriate is bizarre, but Tuesday’s video was not the first time questions arose about Kennedy’s denim hang up.
Last May, Kennedy made headlines after being photographed swimming with his grandkids in Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek in violation of local advisories. While the primary concern was the poor water quality of Rock Creek, Kennedy was swimming in the river in jeans. In July, he posed for a sweat-drenched photo of himself hiking Arizona’s Camelback Mountain on a 107-degree day in jeans. He and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth worked out together in jeans in an August social media video.
The “Rock Out Work Out” social media spot was released as Kennedy celebrates his year anniversary as HHS secretary. The year has been marked by the erosion of public health care systems, conspiracy-fueled changes to the nation’s vaccine policies, the reversal of measles eradication in the U.S, and the gutting of medical research funding. As Kennedy obsesses over whole milk and Super Bowl commercials, the FDA is flip flopping over whether or not to pursue mRNA vaccine research that Kennedy attempted to defund.
As Kennedy’s tenure produces public policy that will be felt in all corners of American’s health and health care systems for decades to come, it’s clear the mess he’s leaving behind will be as hard to get out of as swimming to shore in waterlogged Levi’s.
