Ryan Lizza ― the ex-fiancé of Olivia Nuzzi, the New York magazine political reporter who was put on leave after it came to light that she’d had an inappropriate relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ― has fired back at Nuzzi’s claims that he tried to blackmail her, calling the allegations a “last-ditch effort to salvage” her reputation.
According to a Oct. 14 filing, Lizza, a Politico journalist, found out in mid-August that Nuzzi had been having an affair with Kennedy for “almost a year,” according to The Daily Beast. Lizza wrote that Nuzzi admitted to the affair, and that she told him it was a “toxic,” “unhealthy,” “stupid,” “psychotic,” “crazy” and “indefensible” relationship with “a 70-year-old ‘sex addict’ who told her he wanted to ‘possess,’ ‘control,’ and ‘impregnate’ her.”
Lizza’s filing is in response to Nuzzi accusing Lizza of orchestrating a blackmail campaign against her. Nuzzi alleged that Lizza “explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career, and reputation ― a threat he has since carried out,” according to the September lawsuit as obtained by CNN. Nuzzi also alleged that when she wouldn’t get back together with Lizza, he hacked her personal electronics and tried to get media outlets to publish personal information about her.
Lizza denies those allegations in his court filing.
“No device of Ms. Nuzzi’s was ever hacked to learn any of this information,” Lizza wrote. “Almost everything I know about her affair comes directly from Ms. Nuzzi herself.”
Lizza said that after Nuzzi told him about the affair, he asked Nuzzi to move out of their home, but Nuzzi tried to convince him to stay with her.
“Her allegation of [me] trying to blackmail her back into our relationship is a disgraceful lie contradicted by the most basic facts,” Lizza wrote in the filing. “Ms Nuzzi’s own recklessness is solely responsible for the public ridicule, humiliation and professional damage she says she has suffered.”
A judge granted Nuzzi a no-contact order from Lizza earlier this month.
Nuzzi did not respond to a request for comment, but her lawyers told The Daily Beast: “We reiterate what Ms. Nuzzi said in her request for a protective order: That Mr. Lizza’s intent is to harass and humiliate Ms. Nuzzi and that he is utilizing the press to do so — some of the very issues that drove Ms. Nuzzi to file for a protective order in the DC Superior Court. Filings such as this, full of salacious and irrelevant claims that we will not dignify with a response, further his efforts, as described in her initial filing for the protective order. Her only objective in seeking intervention from law enforcement and the court is to ensure her safety and be left alone.”
Once Nuzzi’s relationship with Kennedy came to light last month, she was put on leave from New York magazine while the publication tried to determine if her reporting on the 2024 election was fair given her relationship with a former presidential candidate. Nuzzi and Kennedy’s relationship reportedly began after Nuzzi profiled Kennedy for New York magazine. Nuzzi said the relationship was never physical.
Lizza also denied in his court filing that he was the one who informed New York magazine about the affair.
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“At every turn, I counseled Ms. Nuzzi to make decisions that would help her and that would limit the damage and embarrassment to her, to me, to our families, to our respective journalistic institutions, and to the family of the person with whom she had an affair,” Lizza wrote.
“I pleaded with her to break off all contact with her paramour,” he wrote. “I strongly urged her to remove reporting material from him that she included in a draft of her most recent article. (She removed the material and later admitted to a mutual friend that the decision may have saved her job.) While we were together in New York, I pleaded with her to go to her editors and disclose her affair before they found out about it on their own. (She refused.)”