Former MSNBC anchor Keith Olberman spilled details Tuesday about his “surprisingly mundane” relationship a decade ago with New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi and weighed in on the Robert F Kennedy Jr. nudes scandal.
“We had dogs and tattoos and rings, and like all relationships, it was very nice at the start. Then things happened, and we worked on it, and it ended,” Olberman said of their three-and-a-half-year relationship on his “Countdown” podcast Tuesday.
The journalist hasn’t spoken to Nuzzi — who was 21 when she began dating the then-55-year-old — since their break-up nearly a decade ago.
He claimed that he’s not the “Nuzzi Nudes News Network” on the episode of his iHeart radio podcast “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” but still addressed the scandal and spoke at length about their relationship — noting her parents’ initial and “understandable” shock at their 34-year age gap.
“Seriously, nearly all of the relationship was surprisingly mundane,” Olberman said.
He would spend every Christimas with her parents, often getting coffee with her dad, and Nuzzi even had a closet at his place, he said. They also got a dog “Stevie” together — and Olberman credits Nuzzi with awakening his lifelong love of dogs.
“She did some weird things during the three and a half years this lasted. I’m sure I did, too,” he admitted.
But he seemed to question claims that Nuzzi, 31, allegedly “bombarded [RFK] with increasingly pornographic photos and videos” according to a friend of the failed presidential candidate.
“Nothing I know about her then or now suggests Olivia would have kept sending a guy nude photos unless he wanted them,” Olbermann said.
“For whatever it’s worth, I can’t defend any of her journalistic choices here and I will not. But in the meta-view of who’s right — who’s wrong here, she’s not the one who’s wrong here,” he added.
Nuzzi has been placed on leave from her role as White House corespondent for New York magazine after her sexting relationship with Kennedy, 70, came to light last week.
The star political reporter has denied being the aggressor in the situation but admitted to the inappropriate digital communication that began after New York published a November feature she wrote about the then-White House hopeful.
“Sometimes she so missed the mark on the consequences of her actions that nobody around her would have said anything except how could you not know that?” Olbermann said of his ex and some of her questionable journalistic choices, noting the time she walked into a former Trump campaign manager’s home without an invitation and then told the Columbia Journalism Review about it.
Her journalistic choices aside, the podcast host said Nuzzi “will always have my support if she needs it.”
Olbermann, however, didn’t let the opportunity to make a joke on his ex’s predicament pass.
“I don’t want to go out on a limb here, but I am beginning to suspect she likes all old guys. I mean, she was going to marry one who was 20 years older than her,” he said, referring to her ex-fiance, Politico reporter Ryan Lizza.
Nuzzi and Lizza, 50, were engaged at the time of her alleged flirtationship with the married RFK Jr., but have since split.
“Also, I’m old. On the other hand, I’m not as old as Bobby Kennedy. I win!” Olbermann continued with a bousterious laugh.
“Son of a bitch is five years older than I am. Clears up a lot of my conscience.”
