Journalist Olivia Nuzzi’s notorious “American Canto” is finally out, with its salacious details of her alleged sexting affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who is only referred to as “the Politician.” He’s not the only one who goes unnamed.
Here’s a guide to eight of the book’s blind items, complete with The Post’s guesses for who they’re about (though some of those people call the book a work of fiction).
The blind item: The actress who called Nuzzi ‘rapeable’
Nuzzi writes: “The executive invited members of the media to his home, near enough to the home of a former president that Secret Service lingered at the path to the door. The occasion of the dinner party was officially no occasion at all and unofficially an announcement that the executive was dating a movie star. She waltzed along the terrace holding a cicada in one hand and a vape in the other. I liked her instantly … The movie star, not a fraud at all, approached and grabbed my face. ‘Olivia, the secret to life is to be rapeable,’ she told me. ‘You are rapeable.’”
Educated guess: In 2021, the New York Times reported that Uma Thurman was then dating Bloomberg Media Group CEO Justin B. Smith and joined him for a party at his home in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, DC, where former President Barack Obama also resides.
The Post has reached out to representatives for Smith and Thurman.
The blind item: The ‘crazy’ funder
Nuzzi writes: The Politician’s “feud with the woman funding his campaign had become a more frequent drama. On a recent call, she had berated him, he said, ‘screaming like a banshee’ … He said he had been warned about her by the South African tech billionaire with whom she had reportedly had a drug-fueled sexual encounter while she was married to a different tech billionaire, but by the time he received the call that informed him she was ‘crazy,’ it was too late.”
Educated guess: Besides being Kennedy’s running mate during his independent presidential bid in 2024, Nicole Shanahan also spent more than $19M on his campaign, according to reports.
Married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin from 2018-2023, Shanahan was accused of an affair with Elon Musk — allegations she has called an “outright lie.”
“This is defamatory,” Shanahan told The Post. “I have no interest in vulgar political fantasia. Nor will I be reading such garbage.”
The blind item: The ‘dark-haired woman’ who attacked the Politician
Nuzzi writes: Both she and the Politician had “dodged knives wielded by dark-haired women whose eyes flickered with certain mania, with chemical imbalance and chemical manipulation, with a slippery hold of consensus reality. He told me about how he held a door shut and moved his hands out of the way as the tip of the blade stabbed through the wood. I told him about the high shelf where I would climb to stash the knives out of reach. The diamond at his iris. He had a scar in his eye … “
Educated guess: Kennedy’s estranged second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, committed suicide in 2012. According to Kerry Kennedy, her sister-in-law and “best friend,” Mary suffered from depression, and she reportedly struggled with alcohol and prescription drug use.
In an affidavit related to their custody battle over their four kids, RFK Jr. said that Mary once “hit me in the face with her fist … Her engagement ring crushed my tear duct, causing permanent damage.”
The woman from whom Nuzzi hid knives, apparently, is her late mother.
The blind item: The mentor who ratted out Nuzzi
Nuzzi writes: Her employer “had received the information [of her relationship with the Politician] from a woman who had mentored me, who had been a mother to me when my mother died, whose baby I had sung to sleep.”
Educated guess: Tech journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher confirmed to The Post that she “told NY mag editor David Haskell that he needed to investigate and talk to” Nuzzi about “sexual text messages” between the reporter and Kennedy — whom Nuzzi met when she famously profiled for the magazine.
The blind item: ‘The man for whom I worked’ — and his ‘organizational, reputational, and literal mistresses’
Nuzzi writes: Called to a meeting with her then-employers (New York Magazine), “I was met with narrow stares when I insisted the Politician and I were not sleeping together … ‘It doesn’t make a difference,’ the man for whom I worked said … the rumour was now stalking me like a drone … Containment lasted about three business days … The man for whom I worked was by then in Milan for Fashion Week. He managed his organizational, reputational, and literal mistresses over spotty service at the Fendi show. He called and told me that the man I did not marry had asked to speak to him and that he planned to do so. I protested.”
Educated guess: Late last year, New York Magazine editor-in-chief David Haskell spoke with Interview about having been at Milan Fashion Week when news broke of the alleged affair between “radically talented” Nuzzi and Kennedy.
Through a spokesperson for New York Magazine, Haskell declined to comment.
The blind item: Threats by the Politician to ‘the man I did not marry’
Nuzzi writes: “The Politician sent me a message he sent to the man I did not marry. It was a response, he said, to a threat he had received. In the message, the Politician accused the man of violating our privacy and stalking me. He told him if it continued, he would go to the FBI. He then referred to me as a stalker … ‘Sorry, I had to say that to exculpate myself,’ he told me.”
Educated guess: The man Nuzzi “did not marry,” of course, is her ex-fiancé, political journalist Ryan Lizza, who has been telling his own side of this story via his Substack — revealing a raunchy poem Kennedy allegedly wrote Nuzzi (“I mean to squeeze your cheeks to force open your mouth. I’ll hold your nose as you look up at me to encourage you to swallow.”). In American Canto, Nuzzi confirms its existence.
“The real story of these bizarre events will be described in detail in Part 5 and Part 6 at www.telos.news,” Lizza told The Post. “For now, please remember two things: Bobby is a pathological liar who still denies he ever had a relationship with Olivia, and ‘American Canto’ is a work of fiction.
The blind item: The wife
Nuzzi writes: “The story of the relationship had broken … ‘I need you to take a bullet for me,’ the Politician said … The deal he made with the president wrought personal complications; already, his wife had told him she would not be seen with him until after the election. Now she was in Milan reading the news, hysterical, he said.”
Educated guess: Kennedy has been married since 2014 to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actress Cheryl Hines, who writes in her own new book about being in Italy when she learned of the affair allegations.
The blind item: The former royal
Nuzzi writes: A Los Angeles paparazzo told her about watching for “a once-royal who had defected from a royal family.” The subject had “liked” previous photos because the photographer understood “optics”: “whether they are smiling or scowling in a photo can be the difference between a positive or negative turn in the tenor of the news cycle.”
Educated guess: LA + former royal = Prince Harry or, perhaps, Meghan Markle.
