How Tall Is Cheryl Hines? Her Tiny Stature In Pics With Shaq Has Everyone Wondering

Cheryl Hines is well known, both for her lengthy acting career and her marriage to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. When she and her husband are photographed side by side, although she's shorter, Hines is still well above RFK Jr.'s shoulder. In contrast, when she posed for a pic with Shaquille O'Neal on Instagram, Hines needed the extra inches from her high heels just to reach his bicep. Hines also donned O'Neal's necklace, and the massive pendant and thick chain made her look even more diminutive.

However, according to Celebrity Heights, Hines stands at five feet five inches tall, and her husband is around six feet tall. In contrast, O'Neal is over a foot taller than Kennedy, with a height of seven feet, one inch. Although Hines is one and a half inches taller than the average U.S. woman, the basketball icon is 20 inches taller than her. It's no surprise that Hines would look short alongside him.

In photos, discerning the relative heights of people can be disorienting. "Human perception of objects is influenced by nearby objects," explains David Cycleback, a cognitive scientist. "We judge things through comparison. This regularly leads to misperceptions and misidentifications." To further demonstrate Cycleback's point, actor Kevin Hart, who's the same height as Hines, looked even shorter than she did when he posed with O'Neal. In his case, Hart artistically accentuated their differences. By cropping the pic and preventing viewers from seeing each man's entire body, O'Neal loomed even larger in our imaginations. 

Cheryl Hines has been acting for over three decades, with much of that time spent on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." On the series, she played Larry David's wife, and she isn't that much shorter than him. According to Celebrity Heights, David is somewhere between 5'11' and 6,' making him pretty close in height to Hines' actual spouse, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

While their heights were pretty comparable, Hines was more concerned about an age gap. "I didn't think I was right for the part," Hines confessed in a 2011 interview with the Paley Center for Media. "How old is he? . . . how old do you think I am?" she queried her agent. David is 18 years older than Hines, and despite this age difference, she and David segued effortlessly into becoming an onscreen couple. During Hines' stunning acting transformation, she studied improv. Armed with these skills, as well as her instinct to razz David during the audition, she easily won the role. 

After years of working together, David became protective of Hines, and he even advised her not to date RFK Jr. While there appears to be a political difference of opinion between the two men, it's not clear why David reacted this way. Hines and David have a unique relationship that resists being measured. "It's an attraction that I can't really explain," Hines informed The Hollywood Reporter. "He's in his own category in my life."