New York magazine DC correspondent Olivia Nuzzi is on leave amid an alleged affair with RFK Jr.
Nuzzi visited RFK Jr.’s sprawling Brentwood, California, home and the two went hiking together in the Santa Monica Mountains during a writing assignment.
RFK Jr. has dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Donald Trump.
Nuzzi visited RFK Jr.’s sprawling Brentwood, California, home and the two went hiking together in the Santa Monica Mountains during a writing assignment.
RFK Jr. has dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Donald Trump.
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00:05New York Magazine's Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi was placed on leave after she had
00:10an alleged romantic relationship with former independent presidential candidate Robert F.
00:14Kennedy Jr. while covering his campaign. Nuzzi, without naming the 70-year-old Kennedy scion,
00:19admitted in a Thursday night statement that earlier this year, the nature of some communications
00:24between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal. The 31-year-old star political
00:29reporter insisted the relationship was not physical in nature. Sources told the Post that
00:34Nuzzi and RFK Jr., the son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy,
00:39were allegedly sexting while she was engaged, and he was married. Nuzzi penned a profile on
00:44Kennedy that was published in November 2023, and sometime after that, the two began their
00:48alleged fling, Status News reported, citing sources. While reporting out the feature article,
00:54Nuzzi visited RFK Jr.'s sprawling Brentwood, California, home, and the two went hiking
00:59together in the Santa Monica Mountains. Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life
01:04for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece a Kennedy spokesperson told the Post
01:08when asked about their alleged relationship. After recently coming clean to editors at New
01:13York Magazine, Nuzzi was placed on leave. She confessed she had engaged in a personal relationship
01:18with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign,
01:23a violation of the magazine's standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures the
01:27publication said in the statement. The reporter would have been barred from covering the presidential
01:32election if the magazine had been aware of the relationship, according to New York Magazine,
01:37which also did not identify Kennedy by name in his statement. An internal review of her
01:41published work has found no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias. She is currently on leave
01:46from the magazine, and the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review, the statement
01:50continued. We regret this violation of our readers' trust. Kennedy was not used as a source
01:56as Nuzzi covered the 2024 presidential race, a source told Status News, which first reported on
02:01the relationship. Another person familiar with the relationship said the pair are believed to
02:06have become romantically involved around the New Year, according to the outlet. In her statement,
02:11Nuzzi said the relationship should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict.
02:15I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I've disappointed,
02:19especially my colleagues at New York. Kennedy has been married to Curb Your Enthusiasm actress
02:24Cheryl Hines, his third wife, since 2014. Nuzzi was engaged to Politico reporter and collaborator
02:30Ryan Lizzo in 2022, but the pair called off the marriage in the last few weeks, sources told the
02:36Post. An Instagram post from July shows the lovebirds enjoying a beach vacation. Lizzo was
02:42fired by The New Yorker, where he had been the Washington correspondent, in 2017 after he was
02:46accused of inappropriate sexual conduct by a colleague. He denied any wrongdoing. Nuzzi shared
02:52a link to a New York mag story in 2015 about the depiction of female reporters on the big screen
02:57as slutty ambition monsters. Why does Hollywood think female reporters sleep with their sources?
03:02Nuzzi wrote on X. Kennedy launched his presidential campaign on the Democratic
03:06ticket in April 2023. It challenged President Biden. He then ran as a third-party candidate,
03:12but after failing to gain any serious national traction, suspended his independent White House
03:17bid last month. He subsequently endorsed Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.
03:23Kennedy is no stranger to marital infidelity, and in a diary obtained by the Post in 2013,
03:28he referred to his lust demons as his greatest defect. He acknowledged in an affidavit filed
03:33during divorce proceedings from his second wife, Mary Richardson, that he had resorted to committing
03:37numerous infidelities throughout the marriage to keep my sanity. Richardson committed suicide in
03:42May 2012, before the divorce was finalized, and while Kennedy dated Hines, whom he married two
03:47years later. Kennedy detailed his extramarital affairs in the diary, where he recorded romantic
03:52encounters with 37 women while married to Richardson.