Independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has described a Vanity Fair story as a “lot of garbage”, responding to several allegations including that he had sexually assaulted a former family babysitter.

Vanity Fair reported that in the late 1990s, Mr Kennedy had groped Eliza Cooney, a recent college graduate hired as a part-time babysitter for his children and to assist him with his environmental law work. She was 23 years old at the time.

When asked specifically about this allegation and the others in question on the Breaking Points podcast, Mr Kennedy said, “I am not a church boy.”

“I had a very, very rambunctious youth,” he said. “I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”

When pressed by podcast host Saagar Enjeti further on the sexual assault claim, Mr Kennedy said he had no comment.

The magazine also reported he had had several extramarital affairs and vigorously defended a cousin, Michael Skakel, who was convicted of murdering a 15-year-old girl in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Mr Kennedy’s campaign pointed reporters to a post on X where he accused the magazine of being in league with Democratic Party leadership.

While discussing the article on the podcast, Mr Kennedy focused on a separate allegation in the story – that he had posed with a barbecued dog while on a trip to Korea, later joking about it in a message to a friend.

Mr Kennedy said the photo had been taken not in Korea but in the Patagonia region of South America, and that the animal pictured was a goat.

Vanity Fair reporter Joe Hagen, who previously wrote a profile of Mr Kennedy for the magazine, said the photo was evidence of Mr Kennedy “simultaneously mocking Korean culture, reveling in animal cruelty, and needlessly risking his reputation and that of his family”.

The story also outlined Mr Kennedy’s alleged affairs and included details of drug addiction in his youth, which the candidate has been open about on the trail.

On the same podcast, Mr Kennedy – the son of Robert F Kennedy and nephew of President John F Kennedy – said that although he was committed to running for president as an independent, “the best path for me to the White House is through the Democratic Party”.

“I think that would probably be the best choice for everybody and it’s certainly something I would consider” if President Biden were to step aside, he said.

The BBC has contacted Vanity Fair for comment.