New York Magazine correspondent Olivia Nuzzi repeatedly denied accusations of a sexting fling with former presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. when pressed by her boss, according to a report.
The magazine’s editor-in-chief David Haskell reportedly confronted Nuzzi after catching wind of rumors about a tryst between the two, according to the Daily Beast.
However, after getting grilled on it, she ultimately fessed up to having a rapport with the Kennedy scion that grew personal.
New York Magazine, Haskell and Nuzzi declined to comment to The Post.
Kennedy’s spokesperson on Sunday denied another claim in the Daily Beast report — that he unwittingly tipped off Nuzzi’s boss by boasting to his buddies about having intimate photos of Nuzzi.
“That is absolutely false,” Kennedy’s spokesperson told The Post — adding that RFK Jr. did not boast about having photos of Nuzzi.
The spox didn’t comment on whether Kennedy actually received intimate photos of Nuzzi.
Last Thursday, New York magazine announced it had placed the 31-year-old journo on leave pending a third-party investigation into the situation.
The outlet called the ordeal a “violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures” and noted it conducted an in-house review of Nuzz’s work and “found no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias” in her published work.
Sources previously told The Post that Nuzzi and Kennedy, 70, hadn’t been good at hiding their flirtation.
“They weren’t being particularly careful. There’s a reason New York mag found out,” one source said.
Nuzzi, the magazine’s star political reporter, has been largely quiet about the specifics of the apparent tryst with Kennedy.
During much of the months-long correspondence, Nuzzi had been engaged to Ryan Lizza, the chief Washington correspondent for Politico and author of the outlet’s flagship newsletter, Politico Playbook. Lizza revealed in a statement published by Politico that he called off the engagement.
Kennedy, who is married to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Cheryl Hines, has faced accusations of being unfaithful in the past, including that he kept information for 43 rumored mistresses in his cellphone.
Hines had her 59th birthday on Saturday.
The Post has reported extensively on Kennedy’s alleged philandering, including details from three of his diaries.
Amid the scandal, Kennedy was not seen at a wedding in Hyannis Port, Mass., over the weekend where Grace Kennedy Allen — the granddaughter of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy — was set to tie the knot.
He was later spotted with a wedding ring, while Hines was not, as Page Six previously reported.
Both Nuzzi and Kennedy have been tight-lipped about the specifics of their private exchanges, though they have downplayed some of the rumors.
“The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict. I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York,” Nuzzi said in a statement.
“Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece,” a spokesperson for the scion previously said.
Some sources have disputed Kennedy’s assertion that he and Nuzzi only met once, though there doesn’t appear to be concrete evidence that claim is false.
Her piece in November 2023 based on the interview she conducted with Kennedy was titled, “The Mind-Bending Politics of RFK Jr.’s Spoiler Campaign.”
“It’s all anybody is talking about,” a New York Magazine source previously told The Post.
Sources have given conflicting accounts of who was the “aggressor” in the flirtation between Nuzzi and Kennedy.
“She went after him aggressively,” one source close to Kennedy told The Post. “She targeted him pretty hard. Bobby was blocking her continually. It was a little scary. She was obsessed with him. I think she still is.”
But Nuzzi’s camp denied that.
“It’s absolutely untrue that she was the aggressor, but both parties were aware of how high pressure and high risk the circumstances were and for that reason, their communication was very on and off,” a source defending Nuzzi rebutted to The Post.
Another source in Nuzzi’s orbit also told The Post that “Olivia’s point of view is that to call this a relationship or affair is completely inaccurate. It was at most a flirtation.”
Nuzzi is an acclaimed reporter who was named among Forbes’ “30 Under 30” in 2018 and won the “NEXT” award from the American Society of Magazine Editors in 2019.
