Magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi is on leave over an alleged relationship with RFK Jr.

A star
political reporter has been placed on leave after admitting a personal relationship with a subject, whom reports have identified as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The magazine
that Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi had violated its standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures by engaging in a relationship with a “former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign” while reporting on the election.
“Had the magazine been aware of this relationship, she would not have continued to cover the presidential campaign,” it wrote.
editor in chief David Haskell said in a
Friday morning that editors learned of the relationship “a few days ago” and immediately “took her off the 2024 campaign.”
He said an internal review of Nuzzi’s published work since December found “no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias” that require corrections. The magazine is engaging an unnamed independent third party to more thoroughly review her 2024 stories, which Haskell said will “influence our final disciplinary decision.”
“As I made clear to Olivia, she had created at the very least the appearance of a conflict, and, by choosing not to disclose this to her editors, had violated our policies and potentially damaged our readers’ trust,” Haskell wrote.
Nuzzi, 31, has profiled political figures and chronicled presidential campaigns since joining the magazine’s staff in 2017.
She is known for her deeply reported features, in which she herself has at times become part of the story — like a 2019 story about
and a
in which she entered the office of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski without permission.
Her recent stories include a
about a Democratic “conspiracy of silence to protect” then-candidate President Biden and a
that was one of the magazine’s
last week. Those have now been updated with a link to the magazine’s Thursday note at the top of the page.
Nuzzi also wrote a lengthy
in November 2023 — when he was running for president as an Independent — in which she recounts accompanying him on a hike with his dogs, driving together with his dogs in a beat-up minivan (“the death machine smells so bad I thought I might pass out after about 15 seconds riding shotgun”).
Oliver Darcy’s media newsletter
, which
the Nuzzi news on Thursday, cites an unnamed source as saying the alleged relationship didn’t begin until after that profile was published. Nuzzi told the magazine that the relationship began in December 2023 — “after we had published her November profile” — and ended toward the end of August, Haskell wrote in his internal email.
Nuzzi said in a statement shared with several outlets, including CNN and the
, that “earlier this year, the nature of some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal.”
She said she did not directly report on the subject or use them as a source during that time.
“The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict,” Nuzzi added. “I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at
.”
She did not identify the source, but several outlets, including
named Kennedy.
Kennedy, 70, has not commented directly on the reports. But a spokesperson for the politician, who is married to actor Cheryl Hines, told CNN and NBC News that he “only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”
Kennedy
and threw his support behind Trump in August. Shortly afterward, Trump named Kennedy to his
.
Kennedy, who rose to prominence as an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, ran a third-party campaign dominated by a series of stunning personal revelations: A
; he was the person who
10 years ago; he didn’t eat a dog as reports suggested,
.
Most recently, Kennedy said onstage while campaigning for Trump in Arizona last week that a federal law enforcement agency is investigating him for
two decades ago. Kennedy’s daughter Kick recounted the incident in a 2012
that resurfaced in recent weeks.
The AP reports that Kennedy declined to elaborate when reporters at the event asked about the investigation, saying the mainstream media only wants to talk to him about “gossipy nonsense.”