RFK Jr's wife Cheryl Hines is spotted WITHOUT wedding ring

Cheryl Hines appeared to ditch her wedding ring as she broke cover for the first time since her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was exposed in a sexting scandal with a journalist. 

The actress, 59, beamed as she stepped out in Milan, Italy on Friday evening following a Gucci-hosted afterparty during Milan Fashion Week. 

Despite the spotlight on her marriage, the Curb Your Enthusiasm star seemed in good spirits as she waved to fans, wearing a stylish leather jacket, white shirt and blue suit pants. 

The bombshell photographs showed that she had ditched her large diamond wedding ring that she had been pictured wearing less than a week ago at the Emmy Awards on Sunday.

As she greeted fans in Italy, Hines was swinging a set of keys from her finger, and in a blink-and-you-miss-it-moment, a smaller band could be seen on the third finger of her left hand.

It is unclear if this was a keyring or a smaller, more subtle ring than the one she flaunted in her last public sighting on Sunday. 

That star-studded appearance came just days before her husband's alleged affair with New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi was revealed. 

Following the exposure of Kennedy's extramarital tryst with Nuzzi, the journalist insisted that their relationship was only over text and never turned 'physical.' 

Amid the fallout of the scandal, Hines has remained silent about the state of her decade-long marriage to Kennedy. 

Before this week's humiliation, the actress has notably stood by her husband during his unpredictable and sometimes bizarre campaign for president, including Kennedy's recent admission that he dumped a bear corpse in Central Park in 2014. 

Hines also weathered a new federal investigation into allegations Kennedy cut off the head of a dead whale and took it home during a trip to the beach two decades ago. 

Once described by her co-star Larry David as 'the one person in Hollywood who doesn't have a single enemy', the star's marriage to Kennedy has reportedly come at great personal expense over the years. 

Her friends were said to have warned the actress about Kennedy's history as a serial philanderer, while others questioned her silence in the face of her husband's anti-vaccine rhetoric during the pandemic.  

It was David who introduced his Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star to Kennedy in 2006 at a ski-weekend fundraiser in Banff, Canada, for Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental nonprofit co-founded by Kennedy. 

Both Hines and Kennedy were married to other people when they met. Hines was married to Paul Young, founder of the management firm Principato-Young, with whom she shares one daughter, Catherine, 20.

Kennedy was previously married to his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy. Kennedy filed for divorce from Mary in 2010 but she died by suicide in 2012 before proceedings were finalized.

By then, Hines and Kennedy had reconnected. They went public with their relationship in October 2011 and married three years later.

Hines later admitted that David had never intended to play matchmaker and in fact gave her a hard time about the relationship, saying, 'Why would you do that? Are you crazy?' 

Kennedy's relationship with Nuzzi reportedly began after she visited the $6.6 million California home he shares with Hines for a profile last November. 

Nuzzi's profile of Kennedy was less than flattering, and included descriptions of riding in his 'filthy' dog car that resembled one that 'survived a nuclear war' or 'the chicken-pox vaccine.'

'Rearview mirror smashed to bits, seat belts chewed off, cushions gnawed open, filth and dog hair covering every surface. The death machine smells so bad I thought I might pass out after about 15 seconds riding shotgun,' she wrote.

The unflattering depiction of Kennedy continued as Nuzzi described 'the astounding amount of waste produced by his dogs' on their hike, how he wore an 'unfriendly expression' on his face, and recalled his joy at pointed out 'coyote s***' to her during their walk. 

With scrutiny now falling on her relationship with Kennedy, Nuzzi said in a statement that their exchanges 'turned personal', but was never 'physical.' 

She said in the statement: 'Earlier this year, the nature of some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal.

'During that time, I did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source. The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict.

'I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.'

Even before the sexting scandal, Hines has faced mounting pressure in liberal Hollywood circles to publicly denounce her husband. 

Earlier this month the hate got so loud that Bill Maher stepped in to defend Hines from the 'obnoxious posers on…the far left' who 'tweet screamed' at her in their thousands. 

According to Maher, 'Going after the wife... Even the mafia doesn't do that.' 

For his part, Kennedy has stood up for his wife amid the backlash and maintained that their marriage was able to withstand differing political stances. 

'She is a lifelong Democrat,' he told TMZ. 'And the idea of me supporting Donald Trump… was, like I said, it's something she would have never imagined, that she never wanted in her life.

'I think it causes her a lot of discomfort.'