Olivia Nuzzi’s Ex Says She Was ‘Elated’ When RFK Jr. Affair Became Public: ‘She Was in the Best Mood’

Olivia Nuzzi was allegedly “elated” after her digital affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became public, according to her ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza.

Lizza released Part 5 of his retelling of Nuzzi’s controversial relationship with United States Secretary of Health and Human Services for his Substack, Telos News, in which he claimed his ex used him as a scapegoat after word of the alleged affair went public.

Per Lizza, he tried to give Nuzzi a heads up that her boss at New York magazine would soon learn of her inappropriate correspondence with Kennedy, who she covered for the outlet.

“I assured her it would happen and that it would happen very soon,” Lizza wrote on Wednesday. “Olivia shut down the conversation. She insisted that nobody would ever find out. She insisted that there was no conflict anymore because Bobby wouldn’t be an important political figure going forward, which was, of course, absurd. She screamed at me to never bring it up again.”

Yet, according to Lizza, his “mission” failed, given Nuzzi was placed on leave at New York and later exited the publication altogether. Lizza claimed Nuzzi and her agent, Rachel Adler, tried to kill the initial story at Status by allegedly telling the reporter who broke it that the article would send her “lunatic ex-fiancé into a fit of rage and endanger Olivia.”

Representatives for Nuzzi did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment. However, last week, Nuzzi hit back at Lizza’s Telos News posts, blasting them as “obsessive and violating fan fiction-slash-revenge porn” meant to “harass, humiliate and harm” her.

“The story was a global tabloid sensation, with pictures of Olivia and Bobby plastered everywhere,” Lizza recalled. “And the next day, Olivia was … elated. According to three people who either spent time with her or talked to her, Olivia was in the best mood they’d seen in weeks. The explanation for the high was that, behind the scenes, she and Bobby were working together again.”

Lizza goes on to claim that Nuzzi and Kennedy “actually coordinated their statements” to Status, which was a shift in the pair’s relationship. (For the record, Kennedy has denied having a sexting relationship with Nuzzi.)

“Up until then, Bobby had been ghosting her,” Lizza said. “So Olivia, according to her friends, was ecstatic to be back in touch, even if it was for the narrow purpose of protecting him and humiliating her.”

However, Lizza said “the Bobby high was short-lived” and alleged that Nuzzi, Adler and Matt Dornic officially turned their attention to him as a scapegoat for the drama.

“The truth did not matter,” he went on. “It somehow had to be my fault that she was suffering any consequences for her recklessness — carrying on with a presidential candidate she was covering and using as a source, defrauding me as a business partner and co-author in a $1 million joint book project she had detonated, vaporizing my privacy and jeopardizing my career as a journalist.”

Lizza called the attacks “a sophisticated and largely covert campaign of revenge,” all so that there would be another villain in the saga. He alleges he tried to diffuse the situation by pleading with Nuzzi over text to stop with the vilification.

“Please stop doing what you are doing and tell Rachel to stop,” he allegedly wrote at the time. “If you continue to lie about me, I will be forced to correct the record and tell the truth about what happened.”

He added: “I am always here to talk to you, reset, turn down the temperature and get us back to a place where we are civil and respectful with each other. Please, Olivia. I am not your enemy, and I will never be your enemy no matter what you think.”

Lizza noted that an hour-and-a-half after sending this text he received a call from Kennedy, who later said he “butt dialed” him.

“That mood soured when I realized what had happened,” he noted. “Bobby had apparently been forwarding my contact info to his security adviser, a terrifying individual with a terrifyingly appropriate name, Gavin de Becker, who was a mysterious, alleged billionaire with a bio akin to a Bond villain.”

Read Lizza’s full account here.

The post Olivia Nuzzi’s Ex Says She Was ‘Elated’ When RFK Jr. Affair Became Public: ‘She Was in the Best Mood’ appeared first on TheWrap.