Towards the end of her marriage to Andrew Cuomo, Kerry Kennedy slept in a closed bathroom to protect herself, according to a biographer who took a closer look at the Cuomo government.
Offensive bullying has ended the marriage between Cuomo, now 63, and Kennedy, the seventh child of former Senator Robert F. Kennedy, author Michael Shnayerson said. They were married from 1990 to 2005 and have three daughters.
The accusations join a pattern of brutal bullying and derogatory treatment of women raised over the past few weeks, which has left Cuomo’s widespread calls to resign, and possible accusation if he does not.
Shnayerson wrote that Kennedy wanted to be out of the marriage by 2001, around the time Cuomo’s role as secretary of housing and urban development under President Bill Clinton ended.
“Her problems with her husband were strictly personal,” Shnayerson wrote in Vanity Fair. Part of her complaints were not doing things like visiting their daughters’ schools and reading a book on parenting, but there were also harsher accusations.
“Kerry is being ridiculed and belittled,” said Shnayerson, a source close to the couple who told him. “Andrew will work on the marriage, or not, and the two will separate.”
Cuomo submitted an unsuccessful bid to governor in 2002, but did not pass the state convention. Kennedy demanded a divorce as soon as he left the race.
Shnayerson wrote that Cuomo refused to leave their home or respond to her lawyers for six months.
‘On more than one night during that period, Kerry slept in a closed bathroom, according to a source close to the family, who reported physical abuse. “I was a human rights activist and for women who have husbands,” Kerry told a friend, “and here I am enduring this abuse,” Schnayerson recalls.
The bullying behavior continued in various ways, such as making it difficult for their daughters to plan the holidays, he writes, citing a source who says: ‘There are a million ways for a single parent to sour the life of the other parent, and he played that game. ”
Kennedy could not be immediately reached for comment by The Post.
A spokesman for the governor told Vanity Fair: ‘The divorce was more than 15 years ago and has been tabloid for weeks with all sorts of false rumors. Time has shown that they are all false. Andrew is a great father, and his daughters will be the first to say that Kerry and Andrew were great co-parents – and time has shown that those who spread the rumors were actually the problem. ”