Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tries to reclaim his life and legacy, with the public mission and private contradictions that will define his future.

In Part 2 of our audio series on The Rise of RFK Jr., host Raney Aronson-Rath welcomes filmmaker Michael Kirk back to the podcast to discuss Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s search for purpose after a turbulent adolescence. Newly sober and armed with a law degree, RFK Jr. throws himself into environmental advocacy by taking on powerful polluters, helping lead the Hudson River cleanup, and channeling his father’s sense of mission. Publicly, he appears reborn: charismatic, successful, and increasingly positioned for a political future.

But beneath RFK Jr’s resurgence lies what interviewees in the film describe as a public Bobby whose star seems ascendant and a private Bobby wrestling with darker impulses and unresolved wounds. Kirk recounts how Kennedy’s personal life projected a renewed Camelot-like sheen even as the “private Bobby” remained complicated and often hidden. Kirk discusses what his reporting reveals about how this period shaped Kennedy’s worldview, how it helped seed his emerging conspiratorial thinking, and the tension between public crusader and private self that would play a role in defining the chapters of RFK Jr.’s life and career to come.

This episode continues FRONTLINE’s serialized audio adaptation of The Rise of RFK Jr., in which listeners will hear the documentary itself unfold in sound with commentary and insights from the filmmaker.

You can watch The Rise of RFK Jr. on FRONTLINE’s website, on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, and on the PBS App. Want to be notified whenever a new episode of the podcast is released? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.