The Olivia Nuzzi-Robert Kennedy affair story has everything: brain worms, a broken engagement, a staggering lack of journalistic ethics, white feminists claiming a 31-year-old woman is just a girl who is not responsible for her actions and Beltway media figures suggesting that all political reporters f–k the politicians they’re covering. It’s insane. In recent days, a lot of DC media figures have been telling on themselves by defending Nuzzi, and I genuinely hope this changes something about how the Washington press corps operates. Meanwhile, we’re still trying to figure out the timeline and just how Nuzzi and Kennedy’s affair was outed in the first place and when Nuzzi’s New York Magazine bosses found out. According to the Daily Beast, Robert Kennedy and his brain worm were bragging about the affair so loudly that the stories reached Nuzzi’s boss.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brags to friends that star reporter Olivia Nuzzi had sent him intimate photos was what led the scandal to explode into the open, the Daily Beast can reveal. The 70-year-old scion’s boasts became known to the 31-year-old New York magazine correspondent’s boss—who confronted her over the photos.
Nuzzi repeatedly denied an affair to David Haskell, New York’s editor in chief, but eventually came clean. Nuzzi has now been suspended, and is being investigated over her journalistic ethics by an outside party. Haskell confronted Nuzzi about the affair during a 5:30 p.m. meeting at the magazine’s downtown Manhattan offices on Sept. 13, a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. The meeting was limited to just Nuzzi and Haskell.
Haskell told Nuzzi, 31, that he was informed by a source of his that Kennedy had bragged about his relationship with Nuzzi to others, including possessing photographs of her and that they were in a romantic relationship. Nuzzi initially—and repeatedly—denied the relationship, the source familiar told The Daily Beast. Haskell gave Nuzzi the option to come clean on the matter, and she eventually confirmed the relationship.
New York magazine did not comment. Nuzzi declined to comment. RFK Jr. did not return requests for comment.
Kennedy had forcefully denied on Thursday ever meeting Nuzzi aside from her November 2023 profile of the conspiracy theorist after news of their affair broke. “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece,” a Kennedy spokesperson told CNN.
A source familiar with the matter said the two had met multiple times, though they cautioned those meetings included public functions and maintained Nuzzi and Kennedy’s relationship was never physical.
This might go down in history as one of the stupidest things anyone has ever done professionally, personally, ethically and sexually. If you’re going to crash out over an affair, do it with someone worth the drama and actually get your rocks off. Instead, Nuzzi has now blown up her life and for what? To embiggen Kennedy’s campaign? To send her nudes to a chronic cheater and indiscreet a–hole? The fact that Kennedy bragged about it constantly is disgusting too. Speaking of, the NY Post had this exclusive:
New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi was “obsessed” with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after interviewing him in California, and pursued him via text to the point where he had to repeatedly block her, a source close to Kennedy’s camp told The Post.
“She went after him aggressively,” the source said Saturday. “She targeted him pretty hard. Bobby was blocking her continually. It was a little scary. She was obsessed with him. I think she still is.”
Nuzzi’s camp pushed back on allegations the situation was a “Fatal Attraction” type of scenario or that she instigated the relationship — but did not deny that the digital fling was tumultuous, suggesting both parties may have stopped texting each other at times.
“It’s absolutely untrue that she was the aggressor, but both parties were aware of how high pressure and high risk the circumstances were and for that reason their communication was very on and off,” a person with knowledge of the situation said.
“Olivia’s point of view is that to call this a relationship or affair is completely inaccurate. It was at most a flirtation,” another source close to Nuzzi said.
A friend of RFK Jr.’s said it wasn’t uncommon for women to throw themselves at Kennedy while on the campaign trail. The Post reported from Kennedy’s campaign launch in Boston in April 2023 noted the “hot MILFs” flirting with him that day.
No, this is so embarrassing. Even if this is BS, this is the narrative that Kennedy is pushing. You know, the guy who received the photos sent by Olivia Nuzzi. She just wrecked her career and her engagement to Ryan Lizza over a 70-year-man with a partially worm-eaten brain who is not only bragging about how she sent him nudes, but he’s telling people that he blocked her because she was pursuing him aggressively. What the hell.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, HBO screencap and Instagram.