New York magazine politics reporter Olivia Nuzzi’s partner, Politico’s Ryan Lizza, confirmed the pair had called off their engagement in a comment about the ongoing scandal over her alleged relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Lizza, 50, addressed the rumors about Nuzzi’s supposed tryst with the former presidential candidate in a statement published in Politico PM Friday afternoon.
“Because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiancée, my editors and I have agreed that I won’t be involved in any coverage of Kennedy in Playbook or elsewhere at POLITICO,” the comment read.
Lizza and Nuzzi became engaged in Italy in September 2022, according to their social media.
It was not clear how long the couple dated, but they pictured together on Nuzzi’s Instagram as early as January 2018 – just one month after Lizza was ousted from the New Yorker over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Nuzzi, 31, was placed on leave after she confessed “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,” New York magazine announced Thursday.
The subject in question was subsequently named as RFK Jr., with sources telling the post that the pair was sexting around the new year.
Nuzzi did not name the Kennedy scion in her own statement, in which admitted that “the nature of some communications between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal” earlier this year.
The relationship was never physical, she claimed.
A spokesperson for Kennedy denied the rumors, saying that the married dad of six only met Nuzzi “once in his life,” when she profiled him for New York magazine last fall.