The Fantastic Mrs (Amaryllis) Fox Kennedy
Under Construction
Amaryllis Fox (now Fox Kennedy) is the first spouse of one of RFK Jr’s children – marrying his eldest son Bobby III in 2018 - after the couple had originally met at Burning Man.
As weird and extreme as Burning Man can be Amaryllis’ life has been quite unusual to a near preternatural degree – in many ways even rivaling the variety and intensity of that of RFK Jr himself!
From the start she found herself a member of a family all with rather cool unique names – at least by mainstream US standards. Born in 1980 as Amaryllis Damerell Thornber, to her mother Lalage Damerell, a retired English actress, and her father, Hodson Thornber, Amaryllis’ life has been full of adventure, intrigue and quite an impressive amount of productivity.
She is probably best known as a former CIA agent and for her memoir about that experience. And now Fox Kennedy has taken the helm as the head of the epic Kennedy24 campaign. But there’s yet so much more to Amaryllis’ unique life story.
When Amaryllis was just eight years old her friend Laura was killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Her dad helped her reframe the tragedy and the overwhelming sense of loss it caused her. Rather than being deeply traumatizing the experience caused her to become much more aware of geopolitical conditions and events.
As she grew up between Washington, D.C. and London, Fox Kennedy attended a number of leading schools – graduating from the National Cathedral School in 1998 and then continuing on to The American School in London before completing undergraduate studies at the University of Oxford in 2002 - graduating with a Bachelors Degree in theology and international law.
She reportedly turned down an offer of employment from MI6 while at Oxford but the September 11 attacks led her to pursue a master’s degree in conflict and terrorism at the Walsh School of Foreign Service. While at Walsh, an algorithm that Amaryllis developed to help find local terrorist safe havens drew the interest of the CIA – and this ultimately led to her involvement in the intelligence/spy world.
Clandestine Interview with Burmese Leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi
But even before Fox Kennedy became directly involved with the intelligence agency she’d had a taste of international intrigue and adventure. In 1999 when Amaryllis was 18 she worked on a mission for the BBC to secretly record an interview with the Burmese leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi who was then under house arrest.
In the process of setting up the meeting with the captive Suu Kyi, Amaryllis exchanged communications with a dissident journalist via messages taped inside the water tank of a toilet at a Rangoon café. Kind of weird method but sometimes it's what's necessary. There were a number of other elements to that story too - many of which are described in the video below.
CIA Career
This early adventure in stealth and tradecraft set Fox Kennedy in good stead for her career in the CIA where at age 22 she became one of the youngest female officers in the agency’s history. As her mission Amaryllis was assigned to “non-official” cover – living abroad under a fake identity and with no diplomatic protection.
She assumed the cover identity of an art dealer which allowed her to gather info focused on the preventing the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by terror organizations.
Fox Kennedy left the CIA in 2010 after working eight years undercover.
Tech Career - & ... - ?
In 2012 she launched her company Mulu, an online social network business that let users share product recommendations and direct a percentage of any resulting sales to themselves or a charity of their choice. Charities ranged from Greenpeace to the Lance Armstrong Foundation to Doctors without Borders among many more. Amaryllis described its purpose as ideally using “peoples' good taste in gadgets, books or shoes to help build health clinics in Sudan."
Fox Kennedy was co-host of the 2017 History Channel mini-series American Ripper about Herman Mudgett - alias H.H. Holmes - the United States first serial killer - responsible for as many as 200 murders.
In addition to offering guest commentary on contemporary world events for news outlets ranging from CNN and MSNBC, to All Jazeera, the BBC and FOX News, Amaryllis also acted in her husband Bobby III's 2021 film Fear and Loathing in Aspen.
Book, Netflix Series and Public Speaking
Amaryllis’ 2019 memoir Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA described her experiences in the CIA but was careful not to reveal potentially sensitive details and made certain characters into composites to protect privacy.
Apple is said to be developing a TV series based upon the memoir that will star actress Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson.
Around this time Fox Kennedy also hosted the Netflix documentary series The Business of Drugs, which investigates the social effects, legal issues and supply chain systems specific to six types of generally-illegal drugs: marijuana, heroin, cocaine, meth, opioids, and synthetics.
For the filming of the series Amaryllis daringly traveled to several not-especially-safe countries while in the third trimester of pregnancy with her and Bobby III’s second child.
Amaryllis also speaks professionally at events around the world on peacekeeping and effective dialogue.
RFK Jr’s Presidential Campaign Manager
Most recently Fox Kennedy has of course been hard at work rocking the presidential campaign of her father-in-law RFK Jr. She started off a co-campaign manager with experienced politician Dennis Kucinich in April of 2023 but took the full reins when Kucinich resigned in October.
Here’s a great interview in which she describes much of her role and the going ons within the campaign ... and her very informative X/Twitter account
Before meeting and marrying Bobby III Amaryllis had been married to fellow CIA officer Dean Fox and had a daughter with him, Zoe, born in 2008 in Shanghai.
Bobby III and Amaryllis’ wedding took place at Cape Cod in 2018 and the couple have two children together: their daughter Bobby Kennedy IV (born 2019) and son Cassius Watts Thoreau Kennedy (born 2021) and named after three of Bobby and Amaryllis heroes: Champion boxer/activist Muhammad Ali, philosopher-author Alan Watts and philosopher/activist Henry David Thoreau.
And yes, as you may have already deduced, the phrasing of the title of this page is an oblique reference to Amaryllis’ other father-in-law successful businessman Steven Rales’ producing Wes Anderson’s fun films – 2009’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox amongst many others. Amaryllis’ mother Lalage remarried to Rales in 2012