Journalist Ryan Lizza said he has split from fiancee Olivia Nuzzi in first comments since she was accused of having an affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Lizza, the co-author of Politico Playbook, released a brief statement in the Friday afternoon edition of the newsletter confirming he would no longer be covering the former independent presidential candidate.
The outlet’s 50-year-old Chief Washington Correspondent also confirmed he had broken off his engagement to 31-year-old Nuzzi.
‘Because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiancée, my editors and I have agreed that I won’t be involved in any coverage of Kennedy in Playbook or elsewhere at POLITICO,’ Lizza wrote.
As Washington woke up to news of the scandal on Friday morning, Playbook didn’t mention Status news’ Oliver Darcy’s story on the alleged affair.
But hours later in their Mediawatch section they covered the story, and included Lizza’s statement.
Olivia Nuzzi (left) shows off her engagement ring after Ryan Lizza’s (right) September 2022 proposal. He referred to her as his ‘ex-fiancée’ in a statement Friday afternoon
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Lizza was previously New Yorker’s Washington Correspondent but was fired due to allegations of ‘improper sexual conduct’.
His personal life has him back in the spotlight after Nuzzi, 31, admitted to having an alleged affair with RFK Jr., 70, that began after she visited his $7 million California home to write a feature article last November.
Nuzzi has said the relationship wasn’t ‘physical’ while New York Magazine is investigating the matter.
The journalists were considered a Washington power couple, with Lizza shooting to fame after he released a profanity-filled interview with ex-White House Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci in 2017.
Scaramucci had been quoted calling former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus a ‘f****** paranoid schizophrenic and a paranoiac’ as well as implying that Chief Strategist Steve Bannon ‘sucked his own c***.’
The Mooch also threatened to fire staff members in the article.
Critics noted that his interview was unnecessarily vulgar, especially for someone representing the United States and Scaramucci was subsequently fired from the job after just 11 days.
Soon after the release of this article, allegations about Lizza himself also emerged – leading to his own firing from The New Yorker.
Journalist Ryan Lizza suggests he has split with his ‘ex-fiancée’ Olivia Nuzzi in his first statement on claims she had an affair with former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
CNN, where Lizza also worked, launched an investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations but found ‘no reason to keep [him] off the air.’
Politico scooped up Lizza and announced he would be co-authoring its premiere newsletter, Playbook, starting a day before President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
He and Nuzzi were also co-writing a book about the 2020 campaign, but plans for that were scrapped.
Page Six reported in December 2021 that the publisher had iced the book after the duo wasn’t able to produce the kinds of scoops that sell tell-all political books.
Sources told the New York Post’s gossip column that while the couple was well sourced with people in former President Donald Trump’s orbit, those in President Joe Biden camp ‘don’t trust’ Nuzzi.
In September 2022, Nuzzi posted on her Instagram feed that Lizza, who was previously married, had proposed.
‘Fidanzati’ she titled the picture, Italian for ‘engaged.’
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