Robbie Williams wears his support for anti-vaxxer RFK Jr’s presidential campaign

Robbie Williams has broadcast his support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr as the singer was captured wearing campaign merchandise for the anti-vaccine independent US presidential candidate.

On Wednesday, footage aired on Seven’s Sunrise program showed Williams walking past the Sydney Opera House wearing a T-shirt reading “Kennedy 2024”.

The shirt matches the “Classic Kennedy T-Shirt” sold on Kennedy’s presidential campaign website’s store.

Williams, who’s set to begin his Australian tour tonight, has publicly flirted with conspiracy theories. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he entertained Pizzagate, a conspiracy theory precursor to QAnon that was built on the debunked belief that leaked emails from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign showed high-level Democrats talking about a Satanic paedophile ring active in the basement of a pizza store using code words.

“Look, there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for that language, who knows,” Williams said in a YouTube interview. “The fact that we don’t know means nothing has been debunked.”

Before that, he shared his beliefs in angels (the heavenly beings, not just his hit single) and UFOs, and even met repeatedly with David Icke, a world-famous conspiracy theorist whose belief that reptilian shapeshifters secretly rule the world has been called anti-Semitic. 

But the pop star’s support for RFK Jr also comes as a surprise given Williams’ public support for a worldwide COVID-19 vaccine campaign, and as someone who posted about his own vaccinated status.

Before his campaign, Kennedy was best known as an anti-vaccine campaigner. Even as he has tried to reframe his candidacy for a broader, populist appeal, he was caught reportedly claiming that COVID-19 was targeted at “Caucasians and Black people” and that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” were most immune, questioning whether the virus was “deliberately targeted”. 

Despite this — or perhaps because of this — Kennedy has been able to court celebrity campaign backers, recently gaining the endorsement of NBA Hall of Famer and known anti-vaxxer John Stockton.

The political scion abandoned plans to contest the Democratic presidential primary in favour of an independent run and has polled in the high teens to upwards of 25% of support in early battleground states. This is reportedly worrying former president Donald Trump’s advisers as they fear Kennedy is pulling voters from his reelection bid.

Frontier Touring, which organises Williams’ Australian tour, and Kennedy’s presidential campaign have been contacted for comment.