The partner of New York Magazine political reporter Olivia Nuzzi, Politico’s Ryan Lizza, confirmed that the couple have called off their engagement in a commentary on the ongoing scandal surrounding her alleged relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Lizza, 50, addressed the rumors about Nuzzi’s alleged tryst with the former presidential candidate in a statement published in Politico PM on Friday afternoon.
“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 at POLITICO,” the commentary said.
According to their social media, Lizza and Nuzzi got engaged in Italy in September 2022.
It’s not clear how long the couple dated, but they were spotted together on Nuzzi’s Instagram as early as January 2018 – just a month after Lizza was kicked out of the New Yorker over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Nuzzi, 31, was placed on leave after she admitted to having “a personal relationship with a former individual relevant to the 2024 campaign during her coverage of the 2024 election campaign. This constitutes a violation of the magazine’s standards regarding conflicts of interest and disclosures,” New York Magazine announced Thursday.
The perpetrator in question was later identified as RFK Jr., with sources telling the Post that the couple had been sexting around New Years.
Nuzzi did not name the Kennedy offspring in her own statement, in which she acknowledged that “the nature of some communications between me and a former person who was the subject of the news coverage became personal earlier this year.”
She claimed there was never a physical relationship.
A spokesman for Kennedy denied the rumors, saying the married father of six had only met Nuzzi “once in his life,” when she did a profile of him for New York Magazine last fall.
