Who is Olivia Nuzzi, the star reporter involved in the RFK Jr. sexting scandal?

new York The magazine's star political reporter, Olivia Nuzzi, is at the center of a sensational report that surfaced Thursday that alleged she had a personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the failed presidential candidate who is nearly four decades her senior.

News of the affair spread like wildfire. The scandal was all the more exciting because Nuzzi, 31, Was engaged, while 70-year-old Kennedy has been married to actress Cheryl Hines since 2014.

She also profiled Kennedy for a high-profile story in the magazine in November 2023.

Nuzzi is not unemployed because of the scandal – new York decided instead to put his star correspondent in Washington on leave – but her engagement to Politico's Ryan Lizza is over.

“Because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiancée, my editors and I have agreed that I will not participate in any coverage of Kennedy in Playbook or elsewhere,” Lizza said in his only statement on the matter.

Nuzzi and Lizza, 50, split “recently” after getting engaged in September 2022, sources told the ^ “New York Post: The New York Post”.

It is unclear how long the couple has been together, but photos of Lizza on Nuzzi's Instagram date back to January 2018. That was shortly after he New Yorkers on suspicion of “inappropriate sexual conduct.”

Nuzzi's relationship with Kennedy is said to have begun sometime earlier this year, although the journalist insisted that the relationship was merely “digital in nature.”

Kennedy has distanced himself from the scandal, but has not openly denied that he and Nuzzi engaged in “sexting,” as a source described the relationship to the New York Post.

“Mr. Kennedy met Olivia Nuzzi only once in his life for an interview she requested that resulted in a defamatory article,” a Kennedy spokesman told CNN.

This scandal is not the only time Nuzzi, a New York native and Fordham University graduate, has made headlines. She first attracted national attention in 2013 when she wrote about her treatment by Anthony Weiner while working on his New York mayoral campaign.

She wrote a blog post for NSFWcorp about the experience, claiming that Weiner referred to her and other interns as “Monica” in reference to Monica Lewinsky. A few days after the blog was published, she was paid by the New York Daily News to write a follow-up article that ran on the front page.

New York Daily News

Weiner and his team were outraged by the stories. Barbara Morgan, a spokeswoman for the campaign, called Nuzzi a “bitch,” “shithead,” “t–t” and “shit” in an interview with Talking Points Memo.

Morgan later apologized, claiming she thought the interview was off the record, but the comments only drew more attention to the scandal—and thrust Nuzzi even further into the spotlight. She was hired by the Daily Beast in 2014 while still attending Fordham.

Nuzzi covered the political rise of Donald Trump and was listed by Forbes as one of the 25 “most influential” people in the news media in 2016. Two years later, the magazine included Nuzzi on its annual “30 Under 30” list.

Alexander Tamargo/Reuters

Nuzzi, then still in his mid-20s, left the Beast in 2017 to take a job at new York that would mean she was based in Washington. The scandal followed her to the Beltway, and in 2018 she admitted to entering the office of Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager, to take a photo without permission. Lewandowski claimed she also stole a photo album.

“You know, I just went into the house because nobody answered the door,” she said of the incident, adding that she went on the advice of her boyfriend, who told her it was illegal.

“I just thought 'f–k',” she said The Hill.

The incident, however, was only a brief setback for Nuzzi's career. Later in 2018, she was invited to the Oval Office to speak with Trump and has since landed one major interview after another.

She made headlines again when she reported how she was thrown out of the courtroom of Trump's hush money trial for taking photos from the side room of the trial.

But Nuzzi managed to meet with Trump again in the summer, just weeks after he had barely survived the first attempt on his life. The article was new YorkIt was the cover story on September 9 and focused on Trump's ear, which seemed to be healing incredibly quickly for someone who had been shot there.

Nuzzi, who normally posts avidly on X, has been quiet on the platform since September 13. On the other side of the scandal, Kennedy – a known womanizer and notorious cheater – was confronted on Friday with an ugly story of his own that has nothing to do with the scandal.

The post reported that it had obtained a diary from 2001 in which Kennedy documented the dozens of women he slept with that year and on which days, complete with first names and occupations. He was married to Mary Richardson Kennedy for seven years at the time.

Reuters

The tabloid newspaper wrote that Kennedy was apparently surprised by the alleged discovery.

“A post “When a reporter asked Kennedy about the diary on Friday, he was initially met with six seconds of stunned silence,” the newspaper wrote.

Kennedy finally replied, “I don't think you could have a diary or journal of mine from 2001. I have no comment on that. I don't have a diary from 2001.”