Near the end of her marriage to Andrew Cuomo, Kerry Kennedy slept in an enclosed bathroom to protect herself, according to a biographer who looked closely at Governor Cuomo’s life.
The abusive harassment helped end the marriage between Cuomo, now 63, and Kennedy, the seventh son of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, said author Michael Shnayerson. They married from 1990 to 2005 and have three daughters.
The accusations are matched by a pattern of brutal harassment and degrading treatment of women raised in recent weeks that has left Cuomo facing widespread demands for resignation and a possible dismissal if he does not.
Shnayerson wrote that Kennedy wanted to leave the marriage in 2001, when Cuomo’s role as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton was coming to an end.
“Her problems with her husband were strictly personal,” Shnayerson wrote in Vanity Fair. Part of her complaints revolved around not doing things like visiting her daughters ’schools and reading a book about parenting, but there were also harsher accusations.
“Kerry ended up being ridiculed and belittled,” Shnayerson explains to a source close to the couple who told him. “Either Andrew would work on the marriage or not, and the two would divorce.”
Cuomo filed for a failed candidacy for governor in 2002, but failed to pass the state convention. Kennedy filed for divorce as soon as he left the race.
Shnayerson wrote that for six months, Cuomo refused to leave his home or respond to his lawyers.
“On more than one night during this period, Kerry slept in a locked bathroom, according to a source close to the family, who reported cases of physical abuse.” I have been a human rights activist and for women who they have abusive husbands, “Kerry told a friend,” and here I am enduring this abuse, “Schnayerson recalled.
The harassing behavior continued in several ways, such as making it difficult to plan vacations for her daughters, she wrote, citing a source who said, “There are a million ways for a single parent to make a living. ‘another miserable father, and he played this game.’ ”
The Post could not immediately contact Kennedy for comment.
A spokesman for the governor told Vanity Fair: “The divorce took place more than 15 years ago and it was tabloid fodder for weeks with all sorts of false rumors circulating. Time has proved them false. Andrew is a great father, and his daughters will be the first to say that Kerry and Andrew have been good parents, and time has shown that those who spread the rumors were actually the problem. “