A leading political journalist at New York Magazine has resigned from the newspaper after it emerged that she allegedly had a personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the Kennedy dynasty who ran a high-profile independent campaign for the White House before supporting Donald Trump.

Olivia Nuzzi, who has written numerous long-form articles on US politics, including “RFK Jr,” violated the magazine’s standards for disclosing conflicts of interest, the magazine said in a statement.

“Our Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi admitted to the magazine’s editors that while covering the 2024 election campaign, she entered into a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign. This was a violation of the magazine’s standards regarding conflicts of interest and disclosures,” it said in New York.

It continued: “Had the magazine been aware of this relationship, she would not have continued to cover the presidential campaign. An internal review of her published work has found no inaccuracies or evidence of bias. She is currently on leave from the magazine, and the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review. We regret this breach of trust from our readers.”

In a statement, Nuzzi acknowledged the relationship, but said it was neither romantic nor physical and that it developed after Nuzzi wrote an article about Kennedy and his futile and ultimately doomed attempt to get into the White House.

Nuzzi said that “the nature of some communications between me and a former individual who was the subject of a news story became personal” earlier this year.

“During that time, I did not directly report on the issue, nor did I use her as a source,” she said. “The relationship was never physical, but should have been disclosed to avoid the appearance of a conflict. I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I disappointed, especially my colleagues in New York.”

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

RFK Jr. is the son of Robert Francis Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, nearly five years after the assassination of his brother and U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

RFK Jr. never got his independent 2024 campaign off the ground to challenge Democrats or Republicans, and his extreme stance on some issues, particularly vaccinations, did not help endear him to the American people at large.

Nuzzi has become a well-known American journalist and television pundit. One of her most recent contributions was an interview with Donald Trump, in which the former US president invited her to examine his ear, which had been injured in an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania. Of her experiences, she wrote: “Never before had an ear been through so much.”