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Vanity Fair has cut ties with its recently appointed West Coast editor, Olivia Nuzzi, as controversy intensifies around her past romantic relationship with Robert F Kennedy Jr.
In a joint statement issued on Friday, the Condé Nast-owned magazine and Nuzzi confirmed that they “have mutually agreed, in the best interest of the magazine, to let her contract expire at the end of the year.” Nuzzi had only joined the publication in September, making her exit particularly abrupt.
The decision comes at a time when scrutiny around Nuzzi has grown following renewed attention on her past relationship with Kennedy, who now serves as Health Secretary under Donald Trump.
Although the affair originally surfaced in late 2024, it has once again become a talking point in Washington, especially after fresh details appeared in Nuzzi’s newly released memoir, American Canto.
Here’s what we know about Nuzzi and the scandal surrounding her sudden departure.
Who is Olivia Nuzzi?
Olivia Nuzzi, 32, is a well-known political journalist who has built her reputation by interviewing some of the biggest names in American politics, including Robert F Kennedy Jr, President Donald Trump, and former President Joe Biden.
She landed her first major job at The Daily Beast in 2014 while still a student at Fordham University. By 2017, she had moved to New York Magazine, where she became its Washington correspondent.
Over the years, Nuzzi has also written for Politico, The Washington Post, GQ, and Esquire, building a strong portfolio of political reporting.
Her troubled relationship
Much of the scrutiny around Nuzzi stems from claims made by her former fiance, journalist Ryan Lizza.
Nuzzi and Lizza began dating in 2018 and got engaged in 2022. The two were even supposed to co-author a book on the 2020 election, a project that ultimately never happened.
Their relationship fell apart last year, after Lizza publicly claimed that Nuzzi had cheated on him with RFK Jr., whom she had been profiling during his 2023 presidential campaign.
The situation escalated in September 2024, when Nuzzi filed a restraining order against Lizza, accusing him of hacking her devices, gathering material to blackmail her, and threatening physical harm. She later withdrew the petition amid a wave of countersuits between the two by December.
Lizza, now 51, currently runs an independent publication called Telos on Substack. His career includes prominent roles at CNN, Politico, The New Yorker, and GQ, along with contributions to The New York Times and New York Magazine.
However, his professional life has also seen turbulence, he was fired from New York Magazine in 2017 after the outlet investigated a sexual harassment allegation. Subsequent reviews of other complaints of “improper sexual conduct” at CNN, Politico, and Rolling Stone allowed him to continue working at those organisations.
The controversy
The release of Nuzzi’s memoir, American Canto, last week pushed the controversy back into the spotlight.
As part of the book’s rollout, The New York Times profiled her on November 14, while Vanity Fair published an excerpt on November 17. In the book, she refers to RFK Jr. as “The Politician” and describes her former fiancé, Ryan Lizza, as “the man I did not marry.”
Just a day after the excerpt was published, Lizza began releasing a series of essays on Telos, alleging deeper misconduct. He claimed Nuzzi’s relationship with RFK Jr was far more entrenched than she had disclosed, and accused her of serious breaches of journalistic ethics.
In his first essay on November 18, Lizza alleged that Nuzzi had a similar affair in 2020 with Mark Sanford, another presidential candidate she had profiled.
Later, in an essay published on November 27, he claimed Nuzzi acted as a kind of political fixer for RFK Jr, performing “catch-and-kill” operations to uncover and suppress unflattering information about him.
“As she later revealed to me during hours of conversations, Olivia did this regularly throughout 2024: canvassing sources who trusted her, obtaining their opposition research on Bobby, and then feeding it directly to the candidate,” he wrote.
That essay also accused her of deeper involvement with the campaign, writing memos, shaping media strategy and even using a hidden recorder to eavesdrop on plans inside the Trump campaign.
Nuzzi has rejected these claims completely, dismissing Lizza’s allegations as “fiction-slash-revenge porn.”
The decision by Vanity Fair to let her contract expire came just days after the book’s release, which has received poor reviews and minimal traction.
The seriousness of the accusations appears to have shaken the magazine. While Vanity Fair had some awareness of her past relationship with RFK Jr, the alleged scale of it, as described in Lizza’s essays, reportedly caught the publication off guard.
In her own statement, Nuzzi said she has decided to step down. “I love Vanity Fair, and this decision was made out of respect for the staff and faith in the future of the publication," she said.
With input from agencies
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