Ryan Lizza shed further light on his ex-fiancée Olivia Nuzzi’s digital affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., revealing an alleged poem the politician sent the disgraced journalist.
In a follow-up Substack post, Lizza — who was engaged to Nuzzi between 2022 and 2024 — continued to call into question his ex’s ethics as a journalist, highlighting one questionable exchange that allegedly took place between Kennedy and the then-New York magazine reporter.
“’Yr open mouth awaiting my harvest,”’ Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services, had written to my then-fiancé,” Lizza alleged in Friday’s Telos News post. “‘Drink from me Love.’”
Per Lizza, Kennedy further penned: “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. ‘Don’t spill a drop.’ I am a river. You are my canyon. I mean to flow through you. I mean to subdue and tame you. My Love.”
Representatives for Nuzzi and Kennedy did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Lizza labeled the poem, “American Canyon,” seemingly taking a shot at Nuzzi’s upcoming memoir, which is titled “American Canto” and set to be released on Dec. 2.
“I wish I hadn’t been put in this position, that I didn’t have to write about any of this, that I didn’t have to subject myself or my loved ones to embarrassment and further loss of privacy,” Lizza added. “But Olivia has reignited a campaign of misinformation about what really happened, and Bobby, who has denied everything, is one of the most consequential policymakers in America. Unfortunately, I’m the only other person who knows everything. And while sometimes I wish I could unknow it, the least I can do is share the parts I believe you should know too.”
Lizza’s new Substack post follows Monday’s explosive tell-all, in which he accused Nuzzi of also having an affair with Mark Sanford, the former governor of South Carolina and onetime Republican presidential candidate, who she wrote about for a New York magazine piece in 2019. The controversy has since sparked a review by Vanity Fair, who tapped Nuzzi as their West Coast Editor in September.
Nuzzi’s lawyer Ari Wilkenfeld told The New York Times in response to the allegations: “In ‘American Canto,’ Ms. Nuzzi discusses the only instance in her long career as a journalist in which she had an improper relationship with someone she was covering.”
Prior to this controversy, Nuzzi made headlines for the sexting scandal with Kennedy, who she also profiled for New York. In a September 2024 statement, Nuzzi admitted to the relationship, saying it “should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict.” She’s gone on to write about the affair (though, did not name Kennedy directly) in her aforementioned memoir.
However, the alleged relationship has been denied by United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. He previously noted that he had “only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”
