New York Magazine has placed its star political reporter, Olivia Nuzzi, on leave after she admitted a potentially compromising relationship, allegedly with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The magazine said in a statement posted on its website on Thursday night that Nuzzi, the magazine’s Washington correspondent, had acknowledged to the magazine’s editors that “she had engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign.”
The magazine said the relationship was “a violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures.” An internal review of Nuzzi’s work found “no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias,’ the magazine said. “She is currently on leave from the magazine, and the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review.”
Nuzzi confirmed in a statement to The New York Times that “some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal” earlier this year, but she said the relationship was not physical.
Olivia Nuzzi arrives for the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on April 29, 2023. Nuzzi has been placed on leave by New York Magazine after disclosing a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign.
Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
Neither the magazine nor Nuzzi named Kennedy in their statements, but the media newsletter Status, which first reported on the alleged relationship, as well as the Times and CNN reported that the relationship was with Kennedy.
Status, citing a source close to Nuzzi, reported that a relationship developed after she published the Kennedy profile in November. A representative for Kennedy told Status after publication of its story that Kennedy denied a romantic relationship with Nuzzi.
A spokesperson for Kennedy, who is married, told the Times that he “only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”
A spokesperson for Kennedy has been contacted for comment via email. Nuzzi and New York have also been contacted for comment via email.
Kennedy, 70, ended his independent run for president in August. He has endorsed former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, and been appointed to Trump’s transition team should he win November’s election.
Nuzzi’s statement said that during the course of the relationship, she “did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source.”
She added: “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.”
Nuzzi was hired as New York Magazine’s first ever Washington correspondent in 2017, and has since become known for her deeply reported features and exclusive interviews. A recent piece saw her examine Trump’s ear, which was grazed by a bullet when a gunman opened fire during a July rally in Pennsylvania.
She penned a profile of Kennedy in November that said his campaign had the potential to turn “the presidential race upside down.”
Her career in political journalism began when she was a teenager, when she was a columnist for a New Jersey politics blog.
As a 20-year-old student at Fordham University in 2013, Nuzzi interned for Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign. She later described her brief stint with the campaign in a first-person article that was put on the cover of the New York Daily News, where she wrote that Weiner often called interns Monica, a reference to former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
She left Fordham before graduating to take a job with The Daily Beast, where she covered presidential campaigns and Trump’s rise. She has also written for Politico, The Washington Post, GQ and Esquire.
She was included on Forbes‘ 2018 30 Under 30 list.
In 2022, Deadline reported that Nuzzi was working on a satirical drama that follows a young reporter in Washington, D.C. for AMC. That year, she made a cameo in an episode of the television show Billions as herself. More recently, she released a six-part documentary series called Working Capital with Bloomberg.
She got engaged to Ryan Lizza, Politico‘s chief Washington correspondent, in September 2022.
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