Stephen Colbert Takes Jab at RFK Jr.'s Breathing: He Sounds Like 'a Bear Getting Autoerotic Asphyxiated'

Stephen Colbert mocked Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s audibly heavy and labored breathing during Kennedy's Senate Finance Committee hearing on the Trump administration's HHS budget.

In his Thursday, April 23, Late Show monologue, Colbert joked that Kennedy, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, sounded "like a bear getting autoerotic asphyxiated" during the hearing.

In August 2024, RFK Jr. admitted to a decade-old mystery: he was the person who left a dead bear cub in New York City's Central Park in October 2014. He released a video of himself recounting the story to Roseanne Barr to preempt an exposé by The New Yorker.

Colbert joined fellow late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel in highlighting the irony of the nation's health secretary experiencing "more upper respiratory distress than usual.”

“Listen to the health secretary on the mic while being questioned,” Colbert said before playing a clip of Kennedy being questioned at the hearing at which senators grilled him regarding his role in recent measles outbreaks and his plans to cut funding for vaccine development.

“Is that a good sign when your health secretary breathes like a walrus snorting lobster bisque?” Colbert quipped.

“Like he’s the first person in history to need a CPAP while awake?” he asked.

While Kennedy has long suffered from spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological condition affecting the vocal cords, many commentators — including Kimmel, who also roasted the footage — noted that the condition does not typically explain such heavy breathing.

He has previously mentioned issues with mercury poisoning, according to a 2024 ABC7 report and reports in The Guardian. He has speculated that his spasmodic dysphonia could be linked to injuries from vaccinations. Kennedy has also disclosed having a parasite in his brain.

In a segment that went viral in September, Colbert digitally inserted Kennedy into a Star Wars scene as Darth Vader, playing his heavy breathing audio over the iconic character's mask.

Colbert marveled at the intensity of the noise, stating, "I've never heard someone have sleep apnea while they're still awake.”

Colbert also had a field day mocking revelations from a new biography, RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise, which detailed an incident where Kennedy cut the p------- off a dead raccoon.

"I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the p---- out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be," he penned in a 2001 diary entry, likely referring to the rift he had with brother Douglas Kennedy and cousin Bobby Shriver, per a report. "My kids waited patiently in the car."

When recently confronted by a TMZ reporter about what he did with the organ, RFK Jr. laughed and walked away.

“He took the g------- so he could, quote, study them later,” Stephen said.