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Late-night show host Stephen Colbert has reacted to Robert F Kennedy Jr’s extraordinary revelation that a worm ate part of his brain and died inside his dead by launching a spoof campaign video entitled: “The Amazing Adventures of Worm in Brain-Man.”
Executed in the style of a vintage kids’ Spider-Man cartoon, the rapidly-assembled animation took aim at the independent presidential candidate who has been regularly criticised over his anti-vaccine and conspiratorial stance.
The segment opened with a clip of incredulous CNN anchor John Berman introducing the story before cutting to a short film featuring a worm slithering its way into RFK Jr’s ear and duly influencing some of the budding politician’s more controversial public statements.
An accompanying song rings out, declaring, as follows:
“Worm in brain, worm in brain, makes him say stuff that’s insane,
“It burrowed in, ate his thoughts, now he tells people: ‘Don’t get shots.’
“Look out! He’s got a worm in brain – insanity now explained!
“Check out his new campaign!”
It emerged this week that RFK Jr, a former environmental lawyer turned long-shot presidential candidate and the son of the late New York senator and attorney general Robert F Kennedy, made the bizarre admission about the worm in his brain during a deposition during his 2012 divorce proceedings, The New York Times reported.
He reportedly said he had begun to experience “cognitive problems” and both short and long-term memory loss in 2010, not long after his uncle, the late Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy, died from the effects of brain cancer.
The NYT said the record of the deposition showed Mr Kennedy had initially feared that he, too, had a brain tumour.
But he received a second opinion from a doctor in New York who told him the cause of his problems – and a dark spot on his brain scans – was a dead parasite.
Mr Kennedy testified that the physician had told him that the spot on the scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died”.
He also said in the deposition that he has suffered from mercury poisoning, which he believes was caused by eating too much fish.
“I loved tuna fish sandwiches. I ate them all the time,” he said.
The candidate has since attempted to capitalise on the reaction to the story by declaring on X: “I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President [Donald] Trump and President [Joe] Biden in a debate.
“I feel confident of the result even with a six-worm handicap.”
RFK Jr’s bid for the White House has prompted concerns among President Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s campaigns that he could peel support away from both of them in November – as some polling has indicated.
The independent candidate has been effectively disowned by members of his own family, who came together last month to endorse Mr Biden as part of a calculated snub to his views.
