RFK Jr.’s Father-Son Dynamic with JFK’s Best Friend, Lem Billings: From Getting Groomed for the Presidency to Exploring Heroin

Joseph KonigFri, April 17, 2026 at 6:56 PM UTC

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Lem Billings (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (right) at a 1973 tennis tournamnt in N.Y.C.Credit: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty -

One of President John F. Kennedy's closest childhood friends, Lem Billings, embraced a fatherly role in RFK Jr.'s life after the assassinations of his father and uncle

Billings was a boarding school pal of JFK's who was so close with the family that patriarch Joe Kennedy referred to him as another son, and he later had his own bedroom in the White House

The new biography RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise claims that Billings started grooming a young Bobby to become the second Kennedy president and, later, they did heroin together

One of President John F. Kennedy's closest childhood friends and intimate White House advisers embraced a fatherly role in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s life after the assassination of his dad in 1968, taking the young Kennedy scion on international adventures — and growing so close that they did heroin together, a new biography claims.

Amid a tumultuous youth, Bobby bounced from boarding school to boarding school and was frequently kicked out of his Hyannis Port home by his mother, Ethel, who was quick to anger and would hit her sons, Bobby previously claimed in his own memoir.

Without a father — and with his last remaining paternal uncle, Ted, plotting bids for the White House and dealing with scandals of his own — Bobby found a new surrogate father: Kirk LeMoyne “Lem” Billings, investigative journalist Isabel Vincent writes in the new biography RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise.

"Lem, who had started doing heroin and other drugs with Kennedy, was even more convinced that he could be president and searched for another challenge that could compare with his uncle’s heroics on the Solomon Islands during the Second World War and his father’s climb up Mount Kennedy," Vincent writes in a passage about a rafting trip Billings took Bobby on to Peru.

Lem Billings, RFK Jr. and Ethel KennedyCredit: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty

Billings was a boarding school pal of JFK's who was so close with the family that patriarch Joe Kennedy referred to him as another son. He later had his own bedroom in JFK's White House.

Following his father’s 1968 assassination and a mother who could not tolerate his antics, Bobby was sent to Africa on a trip with Billings. The Kennedy family devotee positioned himself as a surrogate father to Bobby and began mentoring the young Kennedy scion, viewing him as the family’s next best chance to mold a future President Kennedy.

“That boy is just like Jack,” Billings told RFK Sr. before he died, according to Vincent.

Robert F. Kennedy Sr., then a lawyer for a Senate committee, carries Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 1957Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty

That Africa trip proved fruitful for Bobby, whose love for nature and adventure turned out to be profitable in addition to great fun: Billings secured the 15-year-old a $25,000 payout from Life magazine for pictures and an interview. Later, talk show host Jack Paar gave Bobby a lion cub named Mtobo Mbaya, or “Bad Boy” in Swahili.

Billings continued bonding with Bobby in the ensuing years, visiting him at school when Ethel wouldn’t and finding him a new one when he got kicked out of whatever prestigious institution he was enrolled in last, the book says.

Billings would always impress upon the importance of the family legacy to the young RFK Jr., with one boarding school friend telling Vincent that Billings was a “strange guy” who, despite being “a second father to Bobby,” was placing a “cruel” burden on the teenager.

Though Bobby has not yet made it to the White House as his family’s second U.S. president, he reportedly played a role in keeping Billings sidelined during the family’s last best shot. Vincent reports that Billings sat out longtime Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s 1980 presidential campaign in part due to his failing health and drug abuse.

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In his “elegant” East 88th Street apartment and surrounded by a “shrine” to the Kennedy families, Billings was dying and addicted to heroin, which Vincent reports his young protégé would do with him. He suffered from heart palpitations and needed an asthma inhaler. “The former champion wrestler was increasingly in sailing health and stoned out of his mind,” Vincent wrote of Billings.

For the next generation of Kennedys, Billings' Manhattan apartment became a refuge to seek counsel or to do drugs.

PEOPLE reached out to Bobby's office for comment on Vincent's description of their drug use. Bobby didn't respond to PEOPLE's messages seeking comment about the biography.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. at a Senate hearing on Sept. 4, 2025.Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty

Billings was not alone in doing hard drugs with RFK Jr. Vincent’s biography also details his role in his brother David’s addiction and drug abuse. In 1984, David died of a drug overdose in Palm Beach, Fla., at age 28.

“It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets, because Bobby himself is a predator," Caroline Kennedy claimed in a shocking January 2025 statement about her cousin, who now serves as President Donald Trump's health and human services secretary. "He’s always been charismatic — able to attract others through the strength of his personality, his willingness to take risks and break the rules."

“I watch his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction," Caroline added.

Billings died in May of 1981. He bequeathed the Manhattan apartment — part drug den, part museum to the Kennedy family’s former glory — to Bobby, who eulogized him at his funeral by describing Billings as “a father to me” and “the best friend I will ever have.”

RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise was released on Tuesday, April 14, and is now available wherever books are sold.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please contact the SAMHSA substance abuse helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

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