Olivia Nuzzi has lost her job at New York Magazine in the wake of an undisclosed affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had been an ongoing subject of her reporting. News of that affair broke on Sept. 19.
On Sept. 30, Nuzzi filed an extraordinary claim in Washington D.C. Superior Court. She alleged that Ryan Lizza, her ex-fiancé and fellow star reporter (for Politico), had “explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me [and the affair] to destroy my life, career, and reputation—a threat he has since carried out.”
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Lizza hit back on Oct. 11 in his own court filing: “Her allegation of [me] trying to blackmail her back into our relationship is a disgraceful lie contradicted by the most basic facts.” Lizza is on leave from Playbook while they investigate whether his knowledge of Nuzzi’s affair (from mid-August) affected his reporting for them.
Harry Lambert joined Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee on the latest edition of The Daily Beast Podcast to break down the scandal that has electrified D.C. and led to the apparent downfall of one of its most gilded couples.
Harry: The thing about this story is there are three parts to it.
There is the story of their respective journalistic careers: they came from inauspicious backgrounds and scaled the heights of D.C. media. Then there’s the catalyst which broke them up, which is the RFK Jr. affair.
And then there is, to me, the most fascinating question of all that’s relatively unexamined, and that is the court filings that they have both now put through D.C. Superior Court. Those filings present two completely different pictures of this entire affair.
Olivia Nuzzi’s account has been quite well reported. She describes Ryan Lizza as a jealous and abusive ex who blackmailed her, or attempted to blackmail her, into staying with him when he found out about the RFK Jr. affair. That took up all the media attention for two weeks after these claims were filed and became public on Sept. 30.
Lizza offered a brief denial at the time, but he didn’t get into any details—until last week, when he counter-filed. And his counter-filing offered a completely different archetype: instead of the jealous ex, he described himself as an innocent man who has been framed, who has been wronged by his former fiancée.
Joanna: Framed for what?
Harry: Well, he says he’s been framed for, first of all, leaking news of the affair. Nuzzi claims that Lizza was the one who leaked that into the media. He says that’s completely untrue.
He says he’s been framed for threatening her with physical violence, a claim she made in her filing. He says he never did so. And he says he’s been framed for stealing her devices and taking materials from her phone.
Joanna: That’s presumably the [explicit] texts that she was exchanging with RFK Jr., as part of this “digital” affair.
Harry: Right. But the fascinating thing about this is the big difference between the filings.
Lizza’s is full of detail and Nuzzi’s is not. Lizza’s is full of direct quotes and Nuzzi’s is not.
Joanna: Direct quotes from where?
Harry: Well, theoretically—we don’t know because we’re not seeing the actual evidence—but theoretically from texts that Nuzzi had sent him.
The timeline Lizza describes is that after he found out about the affair in mid-August, they tried to stay together for a month. And Nuzzi very much wanted to stay with him, which is completely different to what she said in her filing.
Lizza says that he didn’t want to stay with her in the end, and by mid-September, they broke up. And just a few days later, the story came out.
Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza in 2023.
Tasos KatopodisAnd then, to his great shock and surprise, Nuzzi blamed him in this extraordinary way in this D.C. court filing.
This is yet to be adjudicated, but I think it’s really important to note that you can file anything in a court filing. You don’t have to reach any level of proof to do so. And it’s a great way to defame someone, frankly. And Lizza may have been defamed.
He certainly thinks he has, and he stood ready to tell the judge why he’s been falsely accused last week, but the judge delayed their hearing until Nov. 19.
Joanna: And he’s now been suspended from his job at Politico in the meanwhile.
Harry: Yes. It’s important to say that Nuzzi says his claims are wrong. So you have two sides warring with each other. But I think the interesting thing, talking to the Nuzzi camp about this, is that I’m not sure they’re going to offer a point-by-point rebuttal to Lizza’s claims, as he did to the allegations in her filing.
It seems like, from her perspective, she’s already achieved her purposes: Lizza’s now in the mud here, with her and RFK Jr., and and that’s that.
But I think that may be a very unfortunate situation because there is a truth here. Both filings can’t be true. Someone’s been deeply wronged here.
