Olivia Nuzzi, RFK Jr. ‘weren’t careful’ about keeping alleged tryst a secret, source says
New York magazine political reporter Olivia Nuzzi and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “weren’t being particularly careful” about keeping their alleged emotional entanglement a secret, sources told The Post of the bombshell revelation.
Nuzzi, 31, and the Kennedy scion, 70, were quite blasé about the inappropriate relationship and “may have told a lot of people” before it was publicly outed on Thursday, a source dished to The Post.
“They weren’t being particularly careful. There’s a reason New York mag found out,” the source explained.
Nuzzi was placed on leave from the magazine after “she had engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign, a violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures,” the publication said Thursday.
Other sources also told The Post that the top brass at New York Magazine were already aware of the relationship and that they confronted Nuzzi, despite reports that she had come clean to editors.
A spokeswoman for New York Magazine declined to comment.
The newsroom, meanwhile, is abuzz about the scandalous allegations involving a star reporter.
“It’s all anybody is talking about,” said a New York Magazine source, noting that word trickled out after newsroom leaders and Nuzzi’s editors joined a video call led by Editor-in-Chief David Haskell Thursday night.
Haskell also circulated a memo Friday morning to the magazine’s staff, explaining that management learned of Nuzzi’s relationship a few days ago and that it was running a third-party investigation into the scandal, the source said.
Nuzzi and RFK Jr. – whom she covered for the magazine in the fall of 2023 – were allegedly sexting around the new year, sources told The Post.
Nuzzi, without naming RFK Jr., admitted in a statement of her own that, earlier this year, “the nature of some communications between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal.”
The relationship was never physical, she insisted.
RFK Jr. – who is married to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actress Cheryl Hines – only met Nuzzi “once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece,” a Kennedy spokesperson told The Post when asked about their alleged relationship.
Nuzzi was engaged to Politico reporter Ryan Lizza in September 2022. Lizza confirmed their split in a statement in Politico on Friday, in which he referred to Nuzzi as his “ex-fiancée.” It is unclear exactly when the pair parted ways.
