Photo: Taylor Hill/WireImage
Conor Kennedy is making headlines after opening up about his decision to fight in theUkraine war.
But life in the spotlight is nothing new for the 28-year-old, who is the grandson of former U.S. Senator and Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy.
Here’s more about Conor’s life, childhood and political activism.
He had a tragic childhood
The suicide ensured that yet another generation of Kennedys grew up in the shadow of tragedy, with Mary leaving Conor and three other children, then aged 10 to 17, behind.
Robert later opened up about his former wife’s death, tellingThe New York Timesshe had been “in a lot of agony for a lot of her life.”
“A lot of times, I don t know how she made it through the day,” Robert told theTimes, adding: “I don t think anybody who was around her didn’t do everything that they could to try to help her.”
He dated Taylor Swift
The young Kennedy dated Taylor Swift in 2012, with a sourcetelling PEOPLE at the timethe singer was “head over heels into him.” When the two dated, the megastar was 22, while Conor was 18 and still in high school.
The pop star was was first spotted bonding with Conor and the rest of the Kennedy clan over the July 4th holiday that summer, with the pair later being seen grabbing pizza, taking a sailboat ride on Nantucket Sound, attending a Kennedy family wedding and taking a trip to the grave site of Kennedy’s deceased mother, Mary, where Swift comforted her boyfriend with hand-holding and hugs.
He’s an activist
Kennedy was arrested in 2013, when he and 47 other people were taken into police custody for civil disobedience during a protest outside of the White House against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
At the time, his father RFK Jr. was also arrested, as was the actress Daryl Hannah and Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune.
It wasn’t the last arrest for Kennedy, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor stemming from aDecember bar fightin Aspen, Colorado.
At the time, Kennedy had been charged with disorderly conduct after he got into a fight with another man outside the Bootsy Bellows nightclub, according to Aspen police. The Kennedy family told PEOPLE earlier that Conor was defending a gay friend who was being harassed.
As part of the plea deal, Conor was given a six-month deferred sentence and required to write an apology letter to the victim, pay a $500 fine and abstain from drugs and alcohol for the six months.
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Courtesy Robert Kennedy Jr.
He recently said he fought in Ukraine
This month, Kennedy revealed he joined Ukraine’sInternational Legionof foreign fighters in a lengthy Instagram post and said he was"willing to die" for the country.
Noting how he “told one person here where I was, and I told one person there my real name,” Kennedy said that he “didn’t wantmy family or friendsto worry, and I didn’t want to be treated differently there.”
“Going in, I had no prior military experience and wasn’t a great shot, but I could carry heavy things and learned fast,” he added. “I was also willing to die there. So they soon agreed to send me to the northeastern front.
Elsewhere in his post, Kennedy said that his time in Ukraine “wasn’t long,” but that he “saw a lot and I felt a lot.”
“I liked being a soldier, more than I had expected. It is scary. But life is simple, and the rewards for finding courage and doing good are substantial,” he added, without detailing when exactly he left the International Legion.
The United States advises against traveling to Ukraine during the Russian invasion as a handful of foreign nationals have been trapped,capturedorkilled.
source: people.com
