Shawn Hubler’s story about internet darling Cory Kennedy in last Sunday’s LA Times has been getting some buzz all its own, but one detail that I haven’t seen addressed much is the age difference between her and her once boyfriend Mark “The Cobra Snake” Hunter, a relationship her mother, Jinx Kennedy, condoned.
“We were just glad that she was happy,” Jinx says. And when it became apparent that the almost-21-year-old photographer was dating her not-quite-16-year-old daughter, she says, she insisted that the couple spend their time together at the Kennedy-Levin home, where she could watch them.
“I said, ‘Mark, I love you dearly and I’d hate to put you in jail, but I’d do it in a New York minute,’” she remembers. In truth, though, she and her husband felt that Hunter was good for their daughter: “I thought she would be protected because Mark is a great guy.”
(Noted: Kevin Roderick commented that the Santa Monica teen and her mom “come across as less than stable” in the piece.”)
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Born in Ohio, grew up in Connecticut, but have lived in Los Angeles longer than anywhere else. To make money to move to L.A. I worked as a walking fire alarm at a nuclear power plant. Upon arrival in the city I was an au pair by day and a bouncer by night. Since then I've made ends meet as an audience wrangler, assistant to an investigative reporter, flower delivery guy, production assistant, audience warm up guy for Ozzy Osbourne, videographer, event producer, red carpet manager, writer, and blog consultant, but the highlight was my visit to Skywalker Ranch where I had to help George Lucas wire speakers to an old stereo. In between it all I've volunteered as a nude model, served jury duty, nearly won Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (the Disneyland version... I only lost a cruise, not money), been punched in the face by a complete stranger, was stalked and killed by a squirt gun assassin squad, and once loaned $5 to Heath Ledger that he never paid back.
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Um, who gives a shit? Besides the general Hollywood trash socialites, I mean.
But if it weren’t for blogging.la, where would we get our Cobra Snake updates?
moot…
Obviously, you don’t, and that’s fine. So there’s your answer.
Re – the story:
Yes… I found it a bit disturbing as well. Nothing wrong with a young girl getting noticed, and getting into a “scene”… but I think her mother is totally fortunate that she was able to get Cory into a program at all. At 15, 16 years old – dating a young man 5 years older isn’t necessarily uncommon (it happens a lot), and the story pointedly stayed away from getting into anything like a discussion about sexual contact – which is like saying “don’t pay attention to that pink elephant” – and the getting into the adult parties is a series of possibly huge problems… but for me the real ugly thing that comes out of this is the absolute commodification of our kids. Yeah, I said kids. JonBenet Ramsey is only the most notorious of these examples. What’s next? Sexually oriented advertisements featuring 10 year olds? It is a slippery slope, it is real predatory, and it is ugly.
That said, it doesn’t seem like Cory was anyone’s victim – and that says a lot about her particular composition. I get the feeling she’s going to be something big in a few years. Go girl!