Political journalist Ryan Lizza has accused his ex-fianceé, the acclaimed magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi, of “catastrophically reckless behavior” in a year-long affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that led to the journalists’ breakup this summer, according to new court filings in an ongoing dispute between Lizza and Nuzzi.
In a filing this week in Washington, DC’s Superior Court, Lizza said Kennedy, the former presidential candidate and subject of a Nuzzi profile last year in New York magazine, had manipulated the journalist, telling her that he wanted to “possess,” “control” and “impregnate” her. Lizza, Politico’s chief Washington correspondent, said Nuzzi told him details about the relationship after he broke off their engagement in August.
The messy breakup between the two high-profile Washington journalists has led to continued questions about their work and ethics, especially related to coverage of the presidential election and the well-known Kennedy descendant.
The latest description of what happened — coming from Lizza’s side in court — recasts Kennedy as a manipulator whom Nuzzi should have distanced herself from after a “disturbing relationship” and who set in motion the fallout for both Lizza’s and Nuzzi’s work. Both journalists are being investigated by their respective employers and are on leave. A representative for Kennedy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Lizza told the court in filings CNN obtained that he did not threaten Nuzzi, hack her electronics, or stalk her — all of which she had accused him of doing in previous court filings. Lizza said he also did not disclose her relationship with Kennedy to her editors at New York magazine.
“Almost everything I know about her affair comes directly from Ms. Nuzzi herself,” Lizza wrote.
While Nuzzi previously secured a temporary protective order against Lizza, a brief hearing before a DC judge on Tuesday afternoon didn’t delve into the accusations the journalists have made in the case, though both Lizza and Nuzzi could be seen through the court’s video conference along with their lawyers. Nuzzi shook her head repeatedly as one of Lizza’s attorneys spoke to the judge.
A more substantive court hearing, which could include evidence and witness testimony, is set for mid-November.
An attorney for Lizza, Robert Barnett, declined to comment further on the court dispute.
An unnamed counsel for Nuzzi said in a statement that Lizza is still attempting to “harass and humiliate” Nuzzi.
“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,” the statement provided to CNN on Tuesday said.
The court previously granted Nuzzi’s request to bar Lizza from contacting her, distributing any electronic material he had taken without her knowledge, and to give her police protection to return to their previously shared home so she could collect her things. As is typical in domestic relations cases, a judge granted that order before Lizza was able to respond.
Lizza said Nuzzi’s version of the breakup that she articulated in court is defamatory and that he opposed the protective order.
“I was devastated when I learned of Ms. Nuzzi’s nearly year-long affair, and I ended our engagement over it,” Lizza wrote to the court, according to an October 11 written response he submitted following her accusations earlier this month. “From July 1 to mid-August, Ms. Nuzzi and I were in what she led me to believe was a monogamous, committed and loving relationship. … In mid-August I discovered that Ms. Nuzzi had been cheating on me with a married man for almost a year.”
Lizza laid out more of the timeline of their split, with him confronting Nuzzi about the relationship on August 17. In the days after, Lizza said she pleaded to reconcile, and the two spent some time together into September, according to his court filing.
He said Nuzzi admitted to an “affair,” telling Lizza over several conversations it was “toxic,” “unhealthy,” “stupid,” psychotic,” “crazy,” “indefensible,” and that she was aware of the “huge power disparity” between herself and the 70-year-old Kennedy, who is not referred to by name in the court filings. CNN has previously identified Kennedy as the person Nuzzi was involved with, though she has said the relationship wasn’t physical.
Lizza said that in his effort to help or protect Nuzzi from the Kennedy dalliance, he advised her to remove “reporting material” she had received from Kennedy for an article she had drafted for New York magazine.
“Including on our last day together, I told Ms. Nuzzi that I would help her get away from the disturbing relationship with her paramour, but that I seriously doubted that it was possible for us to have a future together,” Lizza wrote.
Lizza said he also told Nuzzi he thought she should pay back a publisher’s advance payment for a joint book project the two had planned, after their relationship fell apart.
He added in court it was the “second presidential cycle in a row where Ms. Nuzzi’s personal indiscretions have sabotaged our book project.”
Lizza didn’t include more details about what happened in 2020, though he wrote in court Nuzzi had a “previous affair” that year.
Hadas Gold contributed reporting
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