The Reported RFK Jr.–Olivia Nuzzi “Relationship” Casts New Scrutiny on All Journalists

Even though he’s bowed out of the 2024 race for the White House, the headlines about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. keep coming. The latest scandal involving whale-beheading, bear-dumping, Trump-endorsing RFK, Jr., is an allegedly inappropriate relationship with New York magazine’s Washington, D.C. correspondent Olivia Nuzzi, which has kept Kennedy in the news after the alleged sexual assailant ended his presidential campaign (though he remains on some state ballots, including Wisconsin’s).

The new reports, which broke Thursday evening, are just the latest in shocking Kennedy-related headlines, along with his aggressive emu roommate, Kennedy’s ongoing attacks on life-saving vaccines, and the notorious brain worm. After Vanity Fair reported that a former babysitter has accused Kennedy of sexually assaulting her, Kennedy responded, “I am not a church boy.”

The reports regarding Nuzzi—which Kennedy has neither confirmed nor denied—come at a dangerous time for the mainstream media, the credibility of which has faced increasing attacks in recent years. It doesn’t help that pop culture depictions of real journalists suggest that unprofessional relationships are stock in trade.

According to Status’s Oliver Darcy, New York magazine placed 31-year-old political reporter Nuzzi, 31, on leave after she “allegedly engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a reporting subject.” Though neither New York nor Nuzzi named that person, unnamed sources told Darcy—which the New York Times corroborated—that it was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whom Nuzzi profiled last November (prior to the reported beginning of the relationship). Nuzzi, who did not respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment, told Darcy via a statement that “earlier this year, the nature of some communication” she had with “a former reporting subject turned personal.”

Puck News reports that Nuzzi sent nude photos of herself to Kennedy, who since 2014 has been married to Curb Your Enthusiasm actor Cheryl Hines. Nuzzi had until recently been engaged to journalist Ryan Lizza, now at Politico, whom The New Yorker fired in 2017, following alleged sexual misconduct.

Regarding Nuzzi, Kennedy “bragged” to friends about the pictures, the Daily Beast reports. The boast reportedly made its way to David Haskell, New York’s editor-in-chief. In a meeting on September 13, Haskell confronted Nuzzi, who eventually admitted to it. According to Nuzzi, “The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict.” She didn’t report on the subject or use them as a source, she says, but she still extended an apology “to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.”

In a statement, a Kennedy spokesperson said, “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.” According to a spokesperson for New York, “the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review” of Nuzzi’s reporting, even though an initial “internal review of her published work has found no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias.”

“We regret this violation of our readers’ trust,” the New York statement concludes.

Nuzzi, a widely respected reporter who has always been a magnet for attacks on social media, is facing a reputational crisis. Journalists are typically scrupulous about even the appearance of a conflict of interest. It’s a truth often ignored by Hollywood, where rom-coms such as Runaway Bride and 27 Dresses suggest that reporter/subject relationships are the rule, not the exception.

But the outcry over the 2019 Clint Eastwood movie Richard Jewell illustrates how problematic that trope is when it’s transferred from fiction to reality. In the film based on Atlanta’s 1996 Summer Olympics bombing, real-life Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs—who is played in the movie by Olivia Wilde—engages in a sexual relationship with the investigation’s lead agent. In the film, it’s pitched as a taken-for-granted part of the business, but the reaction by the journalism community was swift.

Scruggs, who died in 2001, was “reduced to a sex-trading object in the film,” the AJC said at the time of the film’s release. “Such a portrayal makes it appear that the AJC sexually exploited its staff and/or that it facilitated or condoned offering sexual gratification to sources in exchange for stories. That is entirely false and malicious, and it is extremely defamatory and damaging.”

Though Warner Brothers, the studio behind Richard Jewell, stood by the film, news outlets, including the Washington Post, called the film out for inventing the relationship. Scruggs would never even consider a breach of that nature, the AJC wrote at the time, saying that she was too proud of her reputation and ethics to make such a misstep.

As the American media faces a whole new level of distrust and attacks, the ethical line between journalist and subject could not be more important to keep clear.