Last Thursday, New York Magazine suddenly announced that journalist Olivia Nuzzi was put on leave after they discovered/learned that she had been engaging in an affair with Robert Kennedy Jr. There are several funny/awful/unethical elements to all of this. Status broke the larger story on Thursday, with some interesting details like Nuzzi did not “proactively disclose” her relationship with Kennedy to New York Mag and the magazine “only recently learned of it.” Which explains why the magazine acknowledged that if they had known, they never would have let Nuzzi cover any part of the election. Status also gave a timeline – Nuzzi met Kennedy late last year, probably October or early November 2023, when she interviewed him for a New York cover story. Then the “romantic” relationship “started around the new year” and continued through this year. The entire time, Nuzzi was engaged to Politico’s Ryan Lizza, and they were seen by some as beltway media’s It Couple. Lizza announced their split on Friday, and then Puck dropped some exclusive news hours later:
In a subsequent statement that contained quite a morsel of a twist, Olivia Nuzzi clarified that the relationship was “never physical”—an insinuation that it was some sort of prurient emotional and sexting dynamic. For its part, R.F.K.’s camp claimed that the two had met only once, for the interview that “yielded a hit piece” in the magazine. (At the time, R.F.K. tweeted out the article and called it “provocative.”)
As it turns out, Nuzzi sent Kennedy nude photos of herself—“demure,” per a source familiar—and the relationship likely was indeed strictly remotus (of course, only two people know for sure). Meanwhile, the relationship probably started just a bit earlier than the existing timeline suggests, and the claim by R.F.K.’s spokesperson that they only met once is not entirely accurate. (It was more than once, but whatever.)
Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza had been engaged for two years, up until a month or so ago, when they broke up. In the immediate aftermath, some of Nuzzi’s associates advanced the idea that Lizza had leaked news of his ex-fiancée’s SMS dalliance to Haskell and New York, perhaps through anonymous channels, in order to exact some measure of retribution. Again, there are certain things only certain people know for sure, but my reporting thus far leads me to believe that this hypothesis is not true. (Interpret this how you will, but Darcy’s original report notes that the 70-year-old R.F.K. was “alleged to have boasted privately about the alleged relationship” with the 31-year-old journalist.)
Outside the rampant speculation about disgruntled lovers and ulterior motives, the most pertinent question is whether Nuzzi will keep her job. After a chaotic first 24 hours in which Nuzzi appeared to have been getting conflicting advice from multiple friends, frenemies, and representatives, she is now quietly awaiting the results of her employer’s investigation. The salient question for Haskell and Vox Media chief executive Jim Bankoff, of course, is whether her relationship with R.F.K. influenced any of her coverage—including, most notably, her memorable July feature about “the conspiracy of silence” to protect Joe Biden from scrutiny over his mental decline. (At the time of publication, Kennedy was still running on a third-party ticket.) In an interview with The New York Times in March, Nuzzi asserted that the 2024 campaign was “a three-man race,” and she knocked “the establishment press” for refusing to take Kennedy’s candidacy seriously. Anyway, it’s a lot for Haskell to think about on the flight home from Milan.
Like everyone else, I’ve been looking through some of Nuzzi’s political and election reporting throughout this year and I have to say, she absolutely deserves to be fired and blacklisted. She was sexting Robert Kennedy and sending him “demure” (and likely mindful) nudes privately and then going on CNN and MSNBC to mock President Biden’s age and capability AND telling people that Kennedy is a viable candidate? It’s a whole other level of unethical. As for the scandalous/gossip side of this – it would be next-level if Ryan Lizza found out about his fiancee’s affair and found a way to inform her bosses. I would also buy that Kennedy has been indiscreet, and really, it could be all of the above. Plus, I doubt Nuzzi was all that discreet.
Imagine being 31 years old and sending your nudes to a 70 year old dude with a brain worm? That’s something else… like, Nuzzi was still having this extremely inappropriate online relationship with Kennedy even after the brain worm story came out. F–king spare me the “she’s just a 31-year-old girl, HE had all of the power!” No he didn’t. He’s an absolutely batsh-t 70-year-old missing part of his brain because a worm ate it, and she was the one sending him photos and pursuing him.
This was Lizza’s statement in Politico’s Playbook:
Statement from Ryan Lizza on RFK Jr.-Olivia Nuzzi story, via Playbook: “Because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiancée, my editors and I have agreed that I won’t be involved in any coverage of Kennedy in Playbook or elsewhere at POLITICO.”
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) September 20, 2024
Photos courtesy of Instagram, Avalon Red.