Olivia Nuzzi really thought she was going to get away with it, I think. She thought she was going to have some kind of affair with Robert Kennedy Jr., leave Washington, get a book deal and a job with Vanity Fair, and become the Millennial Joan Didion. Instead, she’s been exposed as a thoroughly trashy, unethical, batsh-t crazy dumbass who can’t write her way out of a paper bag. Her affair-memoir, American Canto, came out last week to terrible reviews. Nuzzi’s ex-fiance Ryan Lizza has been writing Substack essays describing the real story of Nuzzi’s affair with Kennedy and how far over the ethical line she crossed. Lizza is the one spilling the real tea, and he’s clearly out to destroy Nuzzi’s journalism career. Which, fair enough. Lizza isn’t an honest broker, but I agree with him that Nuzzi needs to be blacklisted from journalism. Well, good news on that front. Vanity Fair is letting go of Nuzzi.
Vanity Fair and Olivia Nuzzi said they have agreed to part ways following new revelations and allegations about an affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and her behavior while reporting on him. Nuzzi and the magazine said in a statement that they “mutually agreed, in the best interest of the magazine, to let her contract expire at the end of the year.”
Nuzzi wrote a profile of Kennedy in 2023, when she was New York magazine’s Washington correspondent. The magazine parted ways with her in late 2024 after news of her relationship with Kennedy prompted an investigation into her work. Her new book, titled “American Canto” and detailing her affair with an unnamed politician—along with a series of scathing Substack posts published in recent weeks by her ex-fiancé, longtime political journalist Ryan Lizza—have revived questions about her ethical conduct as a journalist.
Nuzzi signed on earlier this year as Vanity Fair’s West Coast editor. It was a short-term contract that expires at the end of the year, according to people familiar with its terms. The publication said at the time that she would be focusing on “events, industries, and culture of the Pacific region, as well as writing for the magazine.”
“American Canto” was published Tuesday. Ahead of the book’s release, Nuzzi landed a profile and photo shoot in the New York Times and a book excerpt in Vanity Fair. Reviews of the book have been overwhelmingly negative.
The investigation into Nuzzi’s work at New York magazine, conducted by the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, found “no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias.”
I am still hung up on the fact that New York Magazine chose to cover its ass rather than effectively investigate Nuzzi’s serious ethical breaches. Given all of the evidence Lizza compiled in a short time in 2024, it makes New York’s investigation look purposefully weak and oblique. Which worked in Nuzzi’s favor – she looked like she had been cleared of all serious ethical lapses, which is why she was able to move on with such ease to Vanity Fair, not to mention scoring that book deal. Speaking of her lack of ethics, last week, Ryan Lizza published a campaign-strategy memo written by Nuzzi last year, written on behalf of Robert Kennedy’s campaign. As Nuzzi promoted her dumb book last week, she was asked about the strategy memo and this is what happened:
By a certain point, however, all thresholds for mutual self-destruction had been willfully abandoned. On Tuesday, Ryan published a “strategy memo” that he claims Olivia wrote for R.F.K. Jr., in June 2024, in which she offered media advice, called him “the best candidate,” and signed off with an emoji-laden “I love you.” In a statement, Olivia told me this was “yet another lie and attack intended to harm my efforts to resume my professional life.” When asked to clarify if she had written the memo in question, Olivia told me: “I did not write him or anyone on or associated with his campaign a campaign memo.” When asked to clarify if she was the author of the text that Ryan had published, she did not provide an on-the-record answer.
My god she’s stupid. So she did write the strategy memo only she doesn’t consider it a “campaign memo,” and why are you violating her privacy and harassing her about her profound ethical lapses when she’s trying to sell a book about those ethical lapses and her relationship with Kennedy?
Oh, and she also victimized herself during a Zoom interview with the Bulwark. No one feels as sorry for themselves as white women who have been caught doing something despicable.
Photos and screencaps courtesy of Ryan Lizza’s IG and The Bulwark video.
What an arrogant and ignorant person. Her desperation for attention and the need to center herself in the political world isn’t even unique original. I hope she now’s that she’s just an a c-level influencer and nothing more. She used her basic looks and political position to literally f*ck her way to “success.”
Trashy. Trashy. Trashy.
I can’t stop comparing the sharp quality of the interviewer’s image compared to the incredibly out of focus image of Nuzzi. Why do people do this? As a “journalist”, surely she has a better webcam/camera than that? Whenever I see such overuse of filters and “soft” focus images I always assume that the people who use them look really rough in reality.
She will soon reinvent herself as a MAGA spokesperson, like so many white women who have been exposed and launched new careers based on victimhood.
P.S. She sounds like a ditzy teenager: “It was like, like…”
Heads should roll at both the New York Magazine and Vanity Fair.
Totally agree. If either publication gives a rat’s ass about journalistic ethics, that is. She can always continue her career on “Only Fans”, IMHO.
In the excerpts and reviews, it’s very clear that one of the themes of the book is how violated and “raped” – her words – she felt in the aftermath. She actually described being hung out to dry by RFK jr and the media with nearly identical language to what happened to Lara Logan. Coupled with her trumped her supporting from Monica Lewinsky on Instagram and telling an interviewer she just hopes people look at the book differently in 20 years, it’s very clear she’s aiming for the Lewinsky arc. She thinks she’s a victim ahead of her time. She keeps claiming Lizza invaded her digital and physical privacy and uses the language of sexual violence to describe it. It goes without saying she is not Nearly in the same position as Lewinsky was. It’s disgusting but that’s clearly her goal.