The reporter whose career was derailed over an alleged affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims in a new tell-all that the two exchanged I love yous.
Olivia Nuzzi, 32, writes in her forthcoming book that the Kennedy scion, 71, even expressed a desire to be the father of her child.
Those bombshell revelations paint their relationship, which has been downplayed by the married Trump Cabinet official, as more serious than previously known.
The New York Times, which obtained a copy of Nuzzi’s book, wrote, “She loved his eyes, ‘blue as the flame.’ She loved that ‘the sight of something as trivial as a rose’ could move him to tears. She loved his insatiable appetites and his ‘particular complications and particular darkness.’”
It continued, “But she said ‘I love you’ only after he said it first. He called her ‘Livvy’ and wrote her poems. He said he wanted her to have his baby. He promised to take a bullet for her.”
Nuzzi’s memoir, American Canto, never mentions President Donald Trump’s health and human services secretary by name—but everyone knows who she is referring to. Word of their alleged affair, which Kennedy denies, rocked Washington in late summer 2024.
The former New York magazine reporter, who was fired over the scandal in October 2024 and split from her fiancé, described her fling with Kennedy as emotional and “digital” in nature.
Nuzzi said she and Kennedy met in 2023 for a magazine profile about his presidential candidacy. She alleges that their relationship started from there.
Kennedy, who has been married to the actress Cheryl Hines since 2014, has said their meeting for the magazine article, which he called “a hit piece,” is the only time he has interacted with Nuzzi. He has denied ever being romantically involved with her, and he and Hines have remained together.
Nuzzi alleges in her memoir that she and Kennedy were so close, she would even watch him floss his teeth and they spoke about their drugs of choice.
The Times wrote, “Kennedy told her that he still uses psychedelics, and even smoked dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a powerful drug on which people are known to have what feel like near-death experiences. She told him she ‘liked uppers. I told him that I took Adderall.’”
They also chose “favorite parts” of each other, the Times reports.
Kennedy allegedly chose Nuzzi’s mouth. She says she chose his nose.
“I love him, I thought,” writes Nuzzi. “Oh no. I love him so much.”
The Times reports that Nuzzi, a former Daily Beast reporter, wrote her memoir in secret in Los Angeles, often on her phone while hiking. She announced in September that she had been hired as the West Coast editor of Vanity Fair—her first gig in journalism since her firing.
Kennedy did not immediately address the claims made in the book, which Nuzzi says will hit bookshelves on Dec. 2. He did not respond to a request for comment.
