Reporter, 31, placed on leave over ‘non-physical’ relationship with RFK Jr

Robert F Kennedy Jr had an affair with a political reporter whom he invited to his mansion and took hiking in the mountains for a feature on his presidential campaign.

Olivia Nuzzi, the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, admitted on Thursday that “the nature of some communications between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal”. She has been placed on leave from the outlet.

Ms Nuzzi, 31, did not mention Mr Kennedy, 70, who is married to Cheryl Hines, the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress, by name, but sources confirmed to US media the subject of the affair. Mr Kennedy did not deny the relationship, which Ms Nuzzi insists was not physical, and said he only met her once.

Mr Kennedy and Ms Nuzzi are believed to have started communicating at the start of the year while she was engaged and he was married.

The relationship between the pair is understood to have begun shortly after Ms Nuzzi penned a 4,300-word profile on Mr Kennedy in November 2023, while he was still running to be president as an independent, Status news reported.

Ms Nuzzi is considered to be one of the most seasoned political correspondents in the US, having written for The Washington Post, Politico, GQ, and Esquire. She was personally invited by Donald Trump for an exclusive press conference at the White House in 2018.

Asked about their relationship, a Kennedy spokesman said: “Mr Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”

The “hit piece” involved Ms Nuzzi visiting Mr Kennedy’s $6.6 million (£5 million) mansion in Brentwood, California, which he shares with Hines, his third wife. During their interview, Ms Nuzzi and Mr Kennedy drove around the area with his dogs and went hiking together in the Santa Monica mountains.

The New York Magazine piece featured in-depth analysis of Mr Kennedy’s persona, mannerisms and political beliefs. In a personal account, Ms Nuzzi highlighted Mr Kennedy’s “chill disposition”, which she said was the “rest of the political world’s simmering panic attack” as she pointed out his position in the polls.

A spokesman for New York Magazine said it had found “no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias” in her reporting, while a source told Status news that Ms Nuzzi did not use Mr Kennedy as a source in any of her reporting on the upcoming presidential election.

The revelations have led to accusations that she “puffed up” the candidate before he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump last month.

In an resurfaced interview Ms Nuzzi did with The New York Times in March after the relationship allegedly began, she suggested political commentators may be “purposefully ignoring” the fact that the presidential election is a “three-man race”.

“A majority of Americans say they are unhappy with another ‘lesser of two evils’ contest, and they’re in luck, as they have a range of third-party candidates to choose from,” Ms Nuzzi said.

“One of those candidates, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is polling competitively, especially among young people, and he’s steadily gaining ballot access across the country.”

More comments also resurfaced from Ms Nuzzi in which she criticised the depiction of female reporters in movies. In 2015, she wrote on Twitter: “Why does Hollywood think female reporters sleep with their sources?”

In her statement, Ms Nuzzi said the relationship “should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict”, adding: “I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologise to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York”.

The Washington correspondent had been engaged to Ryan Lizza, a Politico reporter, since 2022, but the pair called off their marriage “in the last few weeks”, sources told the New York Post.

Mr Kennedy, who has been married to Hines since 2014, has previously acknowledged “numerous infidelities” throughout his marriage to Mary Richardson to “keep my sanctity”. In diary entries obtained by the New York Post, he said his “lust demons” were his “greatest defect”.