“Political writer Ryan Lizza has shared another round of explosive claims against his ex-fiancée, high-profile journalist Olivia Nuzzi, around her alleged digital relationship with 2024 presidential candidate and current health and human services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Nuzzi, Lizza writes today, would “regularly” share “opposition research” that she had obtained from trusted sources with”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
Nuzzi, Lizza writes today, would “regularly” share “opposition research” that she had obtained from trusted sources with Kennedy during his presidential campaign.
“Olivia had essentially become a private political operative for Bobby Kennedy, while publicly posing as a hard-nosed reporter,” Lizza writes on his Telos News Substack newsletter.
He goes on to specifically recall an instance in which a “young campaign aide” shared with Nuzzi, who was working for New York magazine at the time, “an inside account of the chaotic process that led Bobby to select Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.”
“But instead of pursuing the story, Olivia convinced the staffer to remain loyal to Bobby — and then informed the candidate of everything,” Lizza writes. “She had successfully caught and killed an embarrassing tell-all from a campaign whistleblower whose identity she revealed to the candidate.”
He goes on to argue why such behavior is unethical.
“In the media business, there are few journalistic crimes as serious as betraying a confidential source,” Lizza writes. “How could any source — or reader — trust such a reporter again? And if they happened to become an editor, how could any reporter trust that editor with their own confidential sourcing?”
Lizza also recalls how Nuzzi reported on former President Biden not remembering the name of a “Democratic megadonor,” which Lizza says was “told to her off the record.”
When Lizza asked Nuzzi how she was able to include that, she said, “I just sort of Michael Wolffed it.”
Lizza also shares another anecdote from Nuzzi’s 2024 presidential campaign coverage, this time involving President Trump. He writes that artist Isabelle Brourman, who had worked as a sketch artist during Trump’s Manhattan hush-money trial, had a session with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, complete with a recorder in her bag, after which, according to Nuzzi, “Izzy was hung up on something she believed Trump might have said about Butler, Pennsylvania — something explosive that, if she were correct, would shatter our understanding of recent history.”
Butler, Pennsylvania, was famously the site of the July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump.
These claims are just the latest in a number of allegations Lizza has made about Nuzzi leading up to the release of her memoir, American Cantowhere she shares her perspective on the RFK Jr. scandal, although she doesn’t name the politician directly in her book.
On Monday, he accused her of having an affair with former US Rep. Mark Sanford during his 2020 presidential campaign, a little more than a year after her interactions with Kennedy made headlines.
In a lengthy post, listed as “Part 1,” on his Telos News page, Lizza says he found an “unfinished love letter” to Sanford “that included enough details to confirm a physical relationship and the hint of some kind of falling out.”
“My heart stopped when I realized who he was. He was a famous politician, 32 years older than Olivia, and well-known for a sex scandal. But more importantly, he was a presidential candidate, a source, and the subject of Olivia’s recent profile for New York,” he writes, in part. “I was not a perfect partner, but the scale of Olivia’s betrayal was devastating. She had an affair with someone who would provide the maximum level of humiliation and personal and professional ruin, perhaps for both of us.”
Lizza continues, “She later explained to me that she became ‘infatuated’ with him after their interview, that she couldn’t get him out of her head, and that as her obsession intensified, she sent him increasingly risqué pictures and texts, secretly followed him on the campaign trail when she told me she was out covering other candidates, and fantasized about a rendezvous, which was consummated at his home in South Carolina one night after she went dark on me and made up a story about how she was dealing with a crisis concerning her sick mother. I was sure our book project was dead. How could we write a book about the presidential campaign if Olivia had a sexual relationship with one of the candidates?”
Later this week, Lizza revealed an erotic poem he claims Kennedy shared with Nuzzi.
The latest allegations about Nuzzi came a little more than a year after she left New York magazine following explosive revelations in September 2024 that she had engaged in a digital relationship with Kennedy during his 2024 presidential campaign. She was put on leave after acknowledging a relationship with a “former subject,” while an internal investigation was conducted. Nuzzi and the publication ultimately “parted ways” following the probe, which found no “evidence of bias,” according to New York magazine.
Nuzzi currently works as the West Coast editor at Vanity Fair.
In response to Lizza’s latest claims, Nuzzi’s lawyer Ari Wilkenfeld says, “This is another example of why Ms. Nuzzi sought the intervention of the DC Superior Court in 2024 amid a harassment campaign that is still ongoing and has now lasted more than 16 months; that legal process was then weaponized and used to escalate the harassment against her and to humiliate her. Ms. Nuzzi will not dignify efforts to impugn her character with any future response.”
The White House, US Department of Health and Human Services and a representative for Vanity Fair parent company Condé Nast have not yet responded to The Hollywood Reporter‘s request for comment.