The call came unexpectedly.
Marla Maples was on a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska when she got word her former husband, Donald Trump, had narrowly survived an assassination attempt.
Not long after, the phone rang again. It was Robert F Kennedy Jr.
"I need to get a message to the president."
To most political observers, it was a surprising move.
Even though Maples and Kennedy — whom she affectionately calls "Bobby" — had been close friends for years, Kennedy was running against Trump as an independent candidate in the 2024 presidential race.
There was no love lost between the two men.
Trump had publicly called Kennedy "the dumbest member" of the famous Kennedy clan. Kennedy, in turn, had labelled Trump "unhinged" and "a terrible human being".
But that one phone call to Marla Maples would help trigger a political realignment few saw coming, and the birth of a movement that is now reshaping America's health system.
The birth of MAHA
A Georgia native who still speaks with a soft Southern lilt, Marla Maples met Donald Trump in New York in the 1980s where she was working as a model and actor.
They had their daughter, Tiffany, in 1993, and were married two months later in a lavish ceremony at the Plaza Hotel. The marriage ended in 1999.
Since then, Maples has carved out a career as an actress, TV host and model.
But in recent years, she has become deeply embedded in the world of wellness, and it's there that she strengthened her friendship with Kennedy.
"I met him probably 20 years ago and he was doing a lot with keeping the rivers and the water clean, and I thought that was one of the most important things we could do," she told Foreign Correspondent.
"I just loved the commitment to making sure that we have a healthy environment."
The two have a close friendship, bonded by a shared love of nature and a belief in the healing power of clean water, fresh air and holistic living.
When Kennedy launched his independent presidential run he drew strong backing from the wellness world; a community of influencers, health crusaders and mothers passionate about clean eating, "vaccine freedom" and alternative healing.
Many self-identify as "crunchy", favouring natural living and holistic remedies over conventional medicine.
Trump, on the other hand, has never been mistaken for a wellness icon.
The 79-year-old is arguably McDonalds' most famous customer. During his first presidential campaign, his go-to order was reported to be two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fishes and a chocolate shake.
But despite Trump and Kennedy's differences - in politics and in diet - Maples saw something others didn't.
"I'd always had a vision that was much bigger for the two of them working together," she said.
That vision would finally materialise in the days after the assassination attempt.
When Kennedy asked her to pass a message to Trump, Maples agreed without hesitation - and for good reason.
Kennedy was just nine when his uncle, President John F Kennedy, was assassinated in broad daylight. Five years later, his own father was gunned down while running for president.
So, when he watched his political opponent narrowly escape a similar fate, it hit close to home.
"That was a very powerful moment," Maples said. "These things are triggers."
According to Maples, Kennedy was speaking with Trump the next day.
"Bobby has so many people that follow him who didn't necessarily support Donald," she said. "So it was a tricky situation. You have to help people understand what's at risk, what's at stake and what the bigger goal is."
After weeks of behind-the-scenes talks, Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.
That unlikely alliance sparked a new slogan and a new mission: Make America Healthy Again (MAHA).
What is MAHA?
When Kennedy and Trump teamed up, the MAHA movement quickly became a political force.
It helped Kennedy to bring countless devoted followers into the Republican fold.
At its core, the MAHA ideology sells itself on the idea of a cleaner, more "natural" way of life.
Its followers reject chemical additives, seed oils and artificial dyes. Instead, they promote organic food, regenerative farming and what they call "health freedom".
Much of the movement exists online, shaped by influencers who felt alienated during the pandemic and found each other in the comment sections of Instagram and TikTok.
One of them is Erika Nolan.
A homesteader and horticulturalist in Georgia's picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, Nolan is a proud "MAHA mom".
Homesteaders like Nolan aim to live off the land, growing their own food, raising animals, and embracing a self-sufficient lifestyle.
Like many in the movement, she wasn't always political, or particularly health conscious.
Growing up, Nolan ate what she now calls "junk": Kraft Mac and Cheese, Froot Loops and Burger King were staples in her diet.
That changed during COVID.
"I felt like I was already waking up to a corrupt food system prior to COVID but it was COVID that really fast-tracked me," she said.
"I was reading the ingredient labels on everything I consumed, including medicine."
Nolan started speaking out online, questioning lockdowns and vaccine mandates. She lost old friends, but she gained a new community online.
"People started coming together from out of the woodwork from different areas where all of a sudden it was this feeling of like, I'm not alone," she said.
To many in the health world, Kennedy was a hero.
"He was aware that things like food dyes and seed oils were toxic," said Erika. "[It] taps into the conversations that I was already having."
When Kennedy joined forces with Trump, Erika said, the reaction online was ecstatic.
"I was so pumped up. I was so excited. I couldn't believe it," she said.
"Everyone in the health and wellness niche were totally swayed by RFK moving in that direction. RFK had a huge following and obviously Trump knew that."
Fixing America's health problems
After winning the presidency, Trump swiftly appointed Kennedy as his health secretary.
In turn, Kennedy wasted no time bringing the ideas once promoted by the wellness fringe into the mainstream.
States like Utah and Florida have followed his lead, removing fluoride from their public drinking water.
And in Texas and Louisiana, certain processed foods must now carry warning labels if they contain certain banned substances.
To supporters of the MAHA movement, these changes represent a long-overdue reckoning.
But for dietitian and nutrition scientist, Jessica Knurick, the picture is more complicated.
"Their approach really has been to focus on very specific things, very easy-to-understand, specific things that play into a real conspiratorial message," she said.
"So, food additives and food dies and toxic seed oils and things like that that kind of play into this distrust that Americans have in health institutions, in science and scientists. And it's a real distraction from the systemic issues in America."
Those systemic issues, Knurick said, are far more urgent and difficult to solve.
"Our food environment right now is, if you look at the data, it's about 70 per cent ultra processed food," she said.
"And we have a food environment where a lot of people live in what we term food deserts, where it's very difficult to have access to fresh produce, fresh fruits and vegetables."
And for many people, she said, the issues the MAHA movement is focused on just don't match their everyday reality.
"The MAHA movement is very much a movement that seems to be for middle to upper class white people in this country, which is also one of my issues with it," she said.
"So, it sells a lot of solutions. It talks a lot about supplements, it talks a lot about personal health. If you live in a food desert, is the fact that they use Red Dye 40 in Skittles instead of beet juice really the biggest issue for you?"
Vaccine skepticism
While MAHA's clean food policies have dominated headlines, another force is quietly powering the movement: vaccine resistance.
The anti-vaccine movement, long simmering at the edges of American wellness culture, has become one of MAHA's most controversial elements.
It's a message that resonates deeply with a base already sceptical of government science - and now, with RFK Jr inside the Health Department, that scepticism is rapidly becoming policy.
Kennedy is a longtime vaccine critic. He's the founder and former chairman of Children's Health Defense, a prominent anti-vaccine group.
Last month, he sacked all members of a key federal immunisation advisory panel and appointed several vocal vaccine sceptics in their place.
During the recent measles outbreak - the worst in the US in more than 30 years - the virus spread from Texas to nearly 40 states. Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but falling childhood immunisation rates since the pandemic have left many communities vulnerable.
There are now more than 1,260 confirmed cases. It took more than two months and the deaths of two unvaccinated children before Kennedy said on social media that the most effective way to prevent measles is to get the MMR vaccine.
Paediatrician Dr Annie Andrews said she was disappointed by Kennedy's response to the outbreak.
"He has the biggest platform of all of us and he had an incredible opportunity to damper distrust in vaccines in the face of this measles outbreak, which is a true public health crisis," she said.
"[Instead] he's played word salad and said some things around that. He has not said it unequivocally."
Kennedy's concerns with childhood vaccinations run deep. He has previously linked them with autism, despite there being no scientific evidence to prove it.
In April, he announced that he would determine the cause of autism by September this year.
Dr Andrews, who is running in the 2026 midterm elections as a Democrat, is worried that Kennedy's quest to find the cure for autism will result in him blaming vaccines.
"That is just diverting resources. That's diverting focus," said Dr Andrews.
"What he is doing in my view is laundering the anti-vax movement under this umbrella agenda of making America healthy again. And ironically, not vaccinating is going to make our communities and Americans a lot less healthy."
What is the future?
The movement has had a popular start, galvanised online, championed by influencers and now embedded inside America's highest offices.
But the real test is the next four years.
In the coming weeks, the MAHA Commission, a government appointed group created to deliver the movement's goals and headed up by Kennedy, is expected to release its first national road map, focused on improving the health of America's children.
Behind the scenes, wellness warriors like Marla Maples have helped push the agenda forward. Now, they say, the moment has arrived.
"It's a time of unveiling," Maples said. "I think a lot was hidden from us for many, many years and now people are asking the questions."
For Maples, this isn't just political. It's deeply personal - a vision for a healthier, freer future.
"We can breathe clean air. We can have our kids running free through the grass, [they] learn how to eat right. They learn how to live with the joy. That's what I want.
"We say make yourself healthy again."
Watch Trump's Wellness Warriors tonight on Foreign Correspondent at 8pm on ABC TV and iview.
