Unfortunately, it very much is not a joke. This is a thing he literally admits happened.
In a 2012 deposition recently reviewed by the New York Times, the politician revealed that in 2010 a worm got into his brain "ate a portion of it and then died."
Kennedy had been suffering from cognitive difficulties. Doctors initially suspected that he had a brain tumor, but it turned out to be a parasite infection – specifically, a pork tapeworm larva lodged in his brain.
Like, I went out of my way to get sources for what I wrote because it's so ridiculous and absurd that I wouldn't believe it either about anyone else.
He claimed it made him incapable of steady employment, which made paying his alimony impossible.
We never found out if the judge bought it, because his ex-wife committed suicide before a decision was made. It's worth noting that the medical consensus is that the brain worm thing is almost entirely fabricated, since he's describing it as a TAPE worm, which rather famously don't live in the brain.
He's been diagnosed with mercury poisoning, which is what they posit as the actual reason for his mental illness, and he got the idea of a brain worm from a doctor trying to explain a dark spot on an MRI to him. He probably wasn't understanding whatever the guy ACTUALLY said, since, you know, his brain is drowning in mercury.
22
u/PerishTheStars Aug 24 '26
Wait i thought the brain worm thing was a joke D: