The Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr. Affair Is Messier Than We Ever Could Have Imagined

[erronis]

https://www.theringer.com/2025/11/25/national-affairs/olivia-nuzzi-rfk-jr-ryan-lizza-explained-book-scandal
Brian Phillips

Inside the most important, and also least important, story of our time

(Maybe Too Much Information?)

There’s no way around it. If you read this article, you are going to have to imagine Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States secretary of health and human services, having an absolutely eyeball-melting orgasm. You’re going to have to imagine a sweaty, leathery man in his early 70s, the scion of the celebrated Kennedy political dynasty, bellowing like a Spartan as his body yields to the sweet, sweet release. Knees buckling. Sinews straining. What does it sound like when RFK Jr. bellows? I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s gritty. His normal speaking voice is basically a garbage disposal. When the big one hits, it must be like tossing a fork in.

I’m sorry for this, truly. I would protect you from these images if I could. But in the latest, grossest plot twist in the ongoing saga of RFK’s affair with the acclaimed political journalist Olivia Nuzzi, RFK appears to have written a poem to his lover about—and please remember that I hate my own life as much as you’re about to hate yours—his own ejaculation. He calls it “my harvest.” Lines from the poem were published Saturday on the Substack of Nuzzi’s ex Ryan Lizza, who is also a political journalist and who was engaged to Nuzzi at the time of the alleged affair. Lizza has launched a multipart Substack series chronicling Nuzzi’s infidelities, to counter what he claims are Nuzzi’s misrepresentations in her forthcoming memoir, which was recently excerpted in Vanity Fair, where Nuzzi currently works.

But hang on. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Have you been following this scandal at all? My sense is that of the people reading this, half will have no idea who Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza are, while the other half—sickos and journalists, but I repeat myself—have been bingeing the story for months and keep all the details on murderboards in their brains.

If you’re just joining us, welcome. Let’s take a minute to get you up to speed.

. . .

[jfz9580m]

1. Ewwwwww

Why is every story about this guy like this?

That said, there is a certain pleasure for us powerless losers to find in our unlovely pseudoelites.

Among the various things I resent about our surveillance society/Panopticon is not being able to pore over a trainwreck like this spitefully in total privacy while pretending to be above all that ..I am totally going to read that as trashy as it is. I refuse to be judged!

[erronis]

3. You're a better (worser?) person than me.

I have only proceeded a couple more paragraphs until I thought I'd wait till the sun came over the yard-arm.

I wonder if there is a requirement for a poster to have read the entire cited article before passing it on.....

[jfz9580m]

6. Definitely worse ;-/

I am in defiant “bread and circuses” mode. I figure if these creeps are going to rob society blind, the rest of us should at least get our money’s worth.


You didn’t miss much🤮. But if you want equally loathesome if more readable pieces:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/13/summers-epstein-messages/

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/17/summers-epstein-wing-man-woman-described-as-mentee/

Something is seriously wrong with all these people.

(And while it is a relatively minor offence compared to all the rest, who writes like this?
“ y r u no like me?”. I consider it one of DU’s many positives that I have yet to see even one poster here substitute “y” for “why”, “r” for “are” etc.

I am myself guilty of a slew of offences wrt poor writing, but that’s the most grating style of writing I see online. Creepiness aside, how is this guy a Harvard Professor? Harvard should be ashamed of itself. “Harvard, y r u so coy?”)

[erronis]

9. Good for The Crimson for publishing what it did.

And I guess, for Harvard for allowing it. I think I remember times when Harvard tried to have hard editorial control but that may have been another publication, another place.

Sad to see an old man so desperate for what Epstein marketed. Guessing there are a lot of old men in politics, finance, etc. that are wondering...

[Prairie Gates]

2. Hell is other people

[oasis]

4. RFK jr. speaking voice "a garbage disposal".

[PatSeg]

5. Well, I did know who Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza are,

but I didn't know about Nuzzi's relationship with RFK Jr. I think I'd rather not know.

[Shellback Squid]

7. I was eating

[erronis]

8. Sorry! I should have put a big bold warning in the title!!!

[Blue Owl]

10. Can't spell "FREAK" without an R, F, or K

[choie]

11. I don't know who is more despicable

Lizza for publishing this crap or Nuzzi and RFK and their cheating on their partners. May be a tie.

[DavidDvorkin]

12. That is a wonderful piece of writing.

[erronis]

13. And that is really why I excerpted this. I wasn't familiar with Brian Phillips before

and I've started looking at more of his writing.

There are some great talents out there/here.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. Same here

I'd never heard of him before.

[allegorical oracle]

16. Worthy of a pulp novel award, were it fiction. Could it be possible that RFK Jr. is doing

some of his brain-greasing "stuff" again -- like in his Harvard days?

[Cha]

15. My question as always ... Where's

Hines in all of this garbage?

[erronis]

18. That's an interesting question. Probably smarter than the rest and keeping quiet?

I can't imagine being connected to the piece-of-trash rfkjr in the first place, and living with his character deformities? Maybe living in the stratosphere robs most of these people with enough oxygen to think rationally.

Tickled my curiosity - here's a bit from The Washingtonian (https://washingtonian.com/2025/11/24/crisis-pr-experts-have-advice-for-olivia-nuzzi-and-ryan-lizza/)

Cheryl Hines

How she’s handling it: Hines is standing by her husband and saying very little about the scandal. This month, on a press tour for her new memoir, she refused to answer questions about RFK Jr.’s alleged affair. “If anyone in this story is a victim, Cheryl Hines has an opening to be,” one PR professional said, “but she’s choosing not to be a victim, so I think she’s going down with the ship.” The other added that while Hines seems to be copying her husband’s approach of “letting it all happen around her,” that’s less successful for her because “nobody understands where she’s coming from.” When you write a memoir, they explained, “the idea is to try to help people understand you better, and that’s not what happened here: We don’t know what’s going on inside their marriage, no one understands what she’s still doing with him, or how she’s tolerated what she’s tolerated. And nothing she’s done with her book has cleared that up.”

[Cha]

19. Oh wow... Well now I

know... RF Jr can do no wrong in the eyes of Cheryl Hines, who writes a Memoir. And doesn't live in reality.

TY

[MakeThemCry]

17. Ryan Lizza is butthurt

I get it, she's a sexy woman.

However, he should have kept it to himself.

There's no good guy in this story, everyone is coming up shitty.