What We Know About Olivia Nuzzi, The Woman In The Middle Of RFK Jr. Affair Scandal
Despite endorsing Donald Trump in 2024, another of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s rumored affairs has put him back in the hot seat. This time, his indiscretion was with Olivia Nuzzi. In a statement to the New York Times, Nuzzi didn't mention RFK Jr. by name, but did say that "some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal" and that it happened when the subject was no longer being written about or being used as her source. "The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict," Nuzzi said, before apologizing.
RFK Jr.'s representative told the outlet that he and the political reporter only met once and did not comment on affair speculation and reports. New York Magazine shared a statement about the situation without mentioning RFK Jr. either. They also said Nuzzi was on leave while the situation was under review. Nuzzi is the Washington correspondent for the magazine and started working for them in 2017. According to Status, an insider who knows Nuzzi said that her reported non-physical affair with RFK Jr. started after the November 2023 publication of the profile she wrote about him. Another source told the outlet it began around the end of 2023 or beginning of 2024.
Nuzzi has also written for the Daily Beast and collaborated with Bloomberg for the "Working Capital" docuseries, where she interviewed big names in politics and business. Nuzzi actually left Fordham University for her Daily Beast job in 2014.
Olivia Nuzzi has had other controversies
Although Olivia Nuzzi has had a successful career (earning her a spot on Forbes' 30 Under 30 in 2018), it hasn't been without controversy. In 2018, Nuzzi went to Corey Lewandowski's townhouse for an interview about former White House Director of Communications (and Melania Trump lookalike) Hope Hicks. Speaking to the Columbia Journalism Review, Nuzzi admitted to entering the former Donald Trump campaign manager's home because the door was unlocked. She couldn't get to the basement door to interview the person living there, so she headed to the main door and was able to enter. According to the Daily Mail, the townhouse doubles as the Turnberry Solutions lobbying firm office, and Nuzzi ended up speaking to someone from that organization. Lewandowski later tweeted and said a photo album was missing after that happened, seeming to imply Nuzzi took it.
Nuzzi's 2022 engagement to Politico Washington Correspondent Ryan Lizza also raised eyebrows due to sexual misconduct claims that got him fired from The New Yorker. An insider told the New York Post in September 2024 that Lizza and Nuzzi reportedly recently split.
The political reporter's tweets have also caught attention in the wake of the Nuzzi-RFK Jr. reports. Alex Young, founder of Consequence, tweeted a screenshot of a tweet Nuzzi made in 2014 that read, "The real intruder in the White House" accompanied by a photo of former President Barack Obama. Clearly, Nuzzi is no stranger to scandal.