Cheryl Hines’s hopes of reuniting on screen with her longtime TV husband Larry David are fading fast – and the Obamas may be to blame, Daily Mail can reveal.
The comedian and screenwriter was recently revealed to be working on a new HBO comedy series to mark America’s 250th anniversary next year, with the former president and first lady to serve as producers.
The show, which will consist of six half-hour episodes, is expected to see many of the stars from David’s hit sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm reunite on set.
But insiders tell Daily Mail that Hines’s marriage to Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is all but certain to rule her out.
According to sources, Barack and Michelle Obama, whose production company Higher Ground is producing the show, are ‘vehemently opposed’ to Hines having any part in the project due to her political alliances.
The 59-year-old actress otherwise would have likely been a ‘natural choice shoo-in’ after famously playing David’s character’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm for all 12 seasons.
Cheryl Hines may be blacklisted from former TV husband Larry David’s new HBO comedy project with the Obamas, sources tell Daily Mail
According to insiders, the former president and first lady are opposed to Hines’s involvement due to her marriage to Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. and her political and friendly ties to Trump
But Hines is now facing what another source called ‘the cancel culture wrath of her beloved Hollywood at the highest level of progressive political power.’
‘The Obamas are adamant that anyone politically connected to Trump – who they despise – should not have a role in any of their lucrative media projects,’ one well-connected source told Daily Mail.
‘That clearly would include Cheryl. Worse for her in the Obamas’ eyes – and Larry’s, too – she dropped her affiliation with the Democrat Party and calls herself an Independent and has an amicable friendship with Donald Trump.’
Ironically, back in 2008, then President-elect Obama considered RFK Jr. for a cabinet position as EPA administrator, enforcing environmental laws, according to Politico.
But the idea was reportedly scrapped over fears Kennedy would have difficulty getting confirmed by Senate Republicans due to his past drug use and controversial statements.
‘It’s now gone full circle,’ a source noted.
Barack, 63, and Michelle, 61, Obama were last month revealed to be teaming up with David on the new series which is set to premiere next year. The couple pictured 2019
The project marks David’s return to television, a year after his long-running HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, concluded its 12th and final season. He’s also known as the co-creator of hit NBC sitcom Seinfeld; pictured with wife Laurie
As an executive producer as well as the star of the upcoming series, David could override his powerful partners and cast Hines, but insiders say such a move is unlikely.
They claim David’s longtime personal and professional relationship with Hines has ‘chilled if not completely faded’ since her husband dropped his Democratic affiliation and ran as an Independent against Joe Biden last year.
Kennedy then became a MAGA ally and acolyte as the Trump administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services in February, and most recently, leader of its ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement.
Meanwhile David, 78, remains a prominent, staunchly liberal Democrat celebrity, who supported Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and reportedly contributed $15,000 to the 2020 Biden Victory Fund.
‘It would be a tough call for Larry to bring Cheryl on to the new show because of his negative feelings about Bobby’s politics, Cheryl’s avid support of MAGA and MAHA, and Larry’s extreme loathing of Trump,’ a source said.
Even David’s ex-wife, Laurie David, 67, a liberal democrat, environmentalist, feminist, and inspiration for Cheryl’s role as Larry’s TV spouse, attacked her earlier this year after she was seen supporting her husband at his Senate confirmation hearings.
She called Hines’s appearance in the Senate chamber her ‘best and most watched performance yet as the dutiful, adoring wife setting women back decades’.
Hines responded to Laurie’s remarks in an interview this week with the Wall Street Journal, admitting she found the post ‘odd’ because she doesn’t ‘really have a relationship with her’.
She added that she and Larry David are still friends.
Her publicist, however, declined to comment when Daily Mail asked about the state of Hines and David’s relationship, and whether or not she’ll have a role in his new show.
The Obamas’ and David’s new TV project is a sketch comedy will also see Curb Your Enthusiasm showrunner Jeff Schaffer co-write and direct episodes.
The show’s name is yet to be announced but its promotional logline states ‘President and Mrs. Obama wanted to honor America’s 250th anniversary and celebrate the unique history of our nation on this special occasion. …But then Larry David called’.
The Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale aired in April 2024, after 12 seasons. Hines and David were seen attending the premiere last year
Hines famously played David’s character’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm for all 12 seasons
‘I’ve sat across from some of the world’s most difficult leaders and wrestled with some of our most intractable problems. Nothing prepared me for working with Larry David,’ Obama joked in a statement.
Schaffer added: ‘The characters Larry is playing didn’t change history. In fact, they were largely ignored by history. And that’s a good thing.’
The show will feature a mix of Curb Your Enthusiasm cast members and other guests, but casting details have not been released.
With her gig in the new show in question, and Curb Your Enthusiasm no longer in production, Hines is apparently pursuing other work.
She recently served as the executive producer and star in a low-budget horror short film in Italy with her 21-year-old daughter Catherine from her first marriage to Paul Young.
Hines also scored a $600,000 advance from RFK Jr.’s longtime book publisher and political backer to pen a memoir due in November entitled Unscripted.
Hines has been spending time between the Kennedy estate in Los Angeles and their new $4.3million townhouse in the ritzy Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. – the home she reportedly demanded her husband buy in April after he was caught up in a sexting scandal last year with political journalist Olivia Nuzzi, 32.
The actress wanted to keep close tabs on him and his wandering eye, sources told Daily Mail at the time.
David’s ex-wife, Laurie, took aim at Hines earlier this year in a barbed post on Threads after she was seen supporting her husband at his Senate confirmation hearings
Kennedy has since become a MAGA ally and Trump acolyte as the administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services; pictured at his Senate confirmation hearing in January
Before RFK Jr. ‘infuriated’ David with his presidential bid against Biden last year and then taking a role in the Trump administration in February, the two men had a close friendship, sources say.
It was during a 2004 charity ski event with Larry and his first wife that Kennedy was introduced to Hines a friend of Laurie David, according to the couple.
At the time, Hines was separated from her first husband, Hollywood producer and manager Young, who had helped her with her acting career.
Womanizing Kennedy, who suffered from what he called ‘love demons’ in a diary that listed dozens of women, was still married to his second wife, late architectural designer Mary Richardson, the mother of four of his six children.
Like a scenario out of the offbeat Curb Your Enthusiasm show, he later claimed that he bizarrely asked David for permission to date his TV wife, and that David gave him the green light, but warned Hines it was not a good idea to be with him.
He told Bobby that Hines was ‘the most solid person I ever met’.
Richardson told a different story, claiming she introduced Hines to her husband at a charity event. When she learned they were having an affair, she was heartbroken.
She later told a confidante that she felt ‘very betrayed’ by what she termed the ‘sisterhood – women sticking together, supporting one another’.
Hines is now facing what one source called ‘cancel culture wrath at the highest level of progressive political power’, due to her links to the Trump administration
David, whose once-close bond with Hines has reportedly cooled, had a good relationship with her husband before RFK Jr. launched his presidential bid against Biden last year and then took a role in the Trump administration in February
Hines reportedly began publicly boasting about her relationship with RFK Jr., which humiliated his wife of 18 years.
Online, Richardson saw that Hines had tweeted that she had become friends with Mary’s close friend Glenn Close, had bonded with Bobby’s sister Kerry Kennedy, and become pals with his youngest son Aidan.
In the wake of Hines’s tweets, an online commenter observed: ‘Was Hines so self-absorbed that she did not think her giddy and public celebration would have no effect on the woman left behind?’
Kennedy filed divorce in 2010, and two years later depressed Mary Richardson, 52, hanged herself in the garage of her home in ritzy Bedford, New York.
Four years later, on a drizzly Saturday in August 2014, at the storied Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Cheryl Hines became the third Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
One of the guests of honor was David, who once told the Kennedy scion: ‘Nothing you ever do will rattle her.’
Jerry Oppenheimer is a bestselling biographer who has written two books about the Kennedys, The Other Mrs. Kennedy, about the life of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, and RFK Jr. And The Dark Side of the Dream.
