New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi Suspended Over Alleged Affair With RFK Jr.
A high-profile New York magazine political reporter who previously wrote a piece about female reporters being accused of sleeping with their sources was placed on leave after allegations of her having an affair with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. were brought to light.
In a statement Thursday night, New York magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi confirmed that she had a “personal” relationship with a “former political subject” earlier this year.
“The nature of some communications between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal,” she said, without naming Kennedy.
The 31-year-old claimed that they never had a physical relationship.
“During that time, I did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source,” she said. “The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict. I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.”
Several sources told the New York Post that the two were reportedly sexting while he was married to actress Cheryl Hines and she was engaged to Politico’s chief Washington correspondent, Ryan Lizza.
The 70-year-old former independent presidential candidate asserted that he had only met Nuzzi once when she wrote a piece on him last November. She went to Kennedy’s Brentwood, California, home to conduct the interview.
The two also hiked together in the Santa Monica Mountains.
“Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece,” his spokesman told the outlet.
After admitting her actions to New York magazine editors, she was suspended.
Nuzzi admitted that “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 magazine wrote in a statement.
New York magazine also stated that if it was aware of the relationship, she would have been prohibited from covering the presidential election.
“An internal review of her published work has found no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias. She is currently on leave from the magazine, and the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review,” the statement continued. “We regret this violation of our readers’ trust.”
The magazine did not mention Kennedy by name.
Since the allegations were brought forward, Nuzzi’s 2015 social media post and article about female reporters sleeping with sources resurfaced.
“Why does Hollywood think female reporters sleep with their sources?” she wrote on Twitter, now X.
The new allegations come as Kennedy is being investigated for reportedly cutting off the head of a deceased whale to bring home almost 20 years ago, as TTOA previously reported.
He is also no stranger to infidelity. In a diary that was obtained in 2013 by The Post, he said that his “lust demons” were his “greatest defect.”
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