Some two decades ago when I was living in New York City, I had lunch with a woman from Connecticut who I had met online. The woman was elegantly dressed and gave the impression she was affluent, but there was something off about her that made me uncomfortable. The encounter lasted only an hour, during which the woman did most of the talking. When I said goodbye, it was with the expectation that I’d never see her again.
That wasn’t the case, as my instincts proved correct.
A few weeks after the encounter, I received an email from the woman suggesting we get together again. When I politely declined, she followed up with a more aggressive message saying she had feelings for me and that we were right for each other. When I rejected that advance, the woman followed up with several more messages, each time professing a growing love for me.
I ignored the increasingly desperate messages, which prompted her to pay me an unexpected visit around midnight during the work week. When I told the overnight doorman not to let her upstairs, he called back to say the woman wouldn’t leave. Not wishing to be responsible for a scene in my building lobby, I came downstairs and spent more than an hour persuading my unwanted guest to leave.
As I continued to reject the woman’s advances, she began leaving me ever increasing angry voicemails, some of them quite menacing. After a second late night unexpected visit to my apartment followed up with a threatening voicemail that I’d face serious consequences if I continued rejecting her overtures, I went to the police and sought a restraining order.
It was a very humiliating experience.
The detectives I spoke with told me my experience wasn’t uncommon, even for someone like me who no one would mistake for Brad Pitt. I recall there were some obstacles getting the restraining order and I’m fuzzy on whether I got one. What I do remember was the police telling me there wasn’t a whole lot they could do unless the woman committed a crime or harmed me.
Robert Kennedy Jr., who is still on some state presidential ballots, was possibly a victim of a woman who became obsessed with him. Unfortunately for Kennedy, the woman is a high-profile journalist, and her alleged antics possibly not only cost him his marriage, but also her engagement to another controversial journalist. Regardless of one’s political persuasion, I’m confident saying most of the U.S. public would find allegations circling Nuzzi distasteful, and reaffirm the dim view most Americans have of the legacy media.
It was recently reported that Kennedy had a sexting affair with Olivia Nuzzi, a 31-year-old political reporter who is 39 years his junior. When I first read about the story, I couldn’t believe that Kennedy would jeopardize his marriage to the actress Cheryl Hines of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame for Nuzzi, particularly given that she wrote a profile of him widely regarded as a “hit job.” Hines has stuck by Kennedy, despite his controversial views not playing well in the Hollywood circles she moves in.
Some seemingly credible evidence has emerged that Kennedy was victimized by Nuzzi, and that her claim of having a digital “relationship” with him was a figment of Nuzzi’s imagination. According to this Substack article by Jessica Reed Kraus, who has written favorably about Kennedy and considers him a friend, Kennedy insists that he only met Nuzzi once when she interviewed him for the unflattering profile she wrote for New York magazine.
According to Kraus, Kennedy subsequently blocked Nuzzi after she began sending him flirtatious emails and provocative photos. Kraus claims Kennedy unblocked Nuzzi on a few occasions after saying she had some important information to share about pending stories, but otherwise didn’t engage with her or encourage her sexting.
After reading this Wall Street Journal profile of Kraus, I’m impressed with her entrepreneurship, but I don’t instinctively trust her reporting. According to the Journal, Kraus is a former so-called “mommy blogger” who is now pulling in seven figures writing about presidential politics and favorable stories about Kennedy, Donald Trump, and others in the Republican orbit.
The Journal reported that Kraus’ followers include actresses Minka Kelly and Emma Roberts; comedian Sarah Silverman; Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard; celebrity divorce lawyer Laura Wasser; TV personalities Meghan McCain, Billy Bush and Melissa Rivers; and Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples.
What gives Kraus’ suggestion that Kennedy only met Nuzzi once some credibility is her claim that Kennedy has hired “security expert” Gavin de Becker, who she says is gathering evidence for civil litigation that Kennedy intends to file, as well as for potential criminal referrals.
“This had nothing to do with romance,” de Becker told Kraus. “(Kennedy) was being chased by porn” and repeatedly declined multiple invitations from Nuzzi for personal meetings.
Gavin de Becker was who Jeff Bezos turned to after the National Enquirer obtained photos of the Amazon founder’s penis that Bezos shared with Lauren Sanchez when the couple began courting. It was de Becker who alleged that National Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, was in cahoots with Saudi Arabia to harm Bezos and that the Middle Eastern country played a role in the Enquirer obtaining Bezos’ penis pics. The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins was among the few journalists to note that Saudi Arabia’s involvement was a very tenuous allegation, despite the legacy media extensively reporting the claim, including Bezos’ Washington Post.
Some of Kraus’ disclosures about Nuzzi are very damning, and if true shed an unflattering light on what, and how little, it takes to become a political reporter at a legacy media publication. According to Kraus, Nuzzi’s meteoric rise in political journalism began in 2013 while she was still enrolled at Fordham University, and briefly interned for the New York City mayoral campaign of disgraced Anthony Weiner.
Nuzzi subsequently wrote an unflattering profile of Weiner for New York’s Daily News, which prompted his communications director, Barbara Morgan, to call Nuzzi a “slutbag” and a host of other derogatory terms. Morgan was subsequently derided in Vanity Fair.
The Daily Beast apparently liked Morgan’s job reference, as Nuzzi left Fordham early to work for the trashy left-wing publication. Eventually, Nuzzi found her way to New York, a publication I once read religiously but stopped years ago because I found its journalism biased and substandard.
Kraus, who the Journal said is married to a stay-at-home dad caring for the couple’s four children, alleges that Nuzzi is notorious for using her wily charms to induce her subjects to engage.
“Olivia contacted me during a period of significant political upheaval in the last decade,” Kraus quotes an anonymous source she said had previous ties to the Trump administration. “We spoke several times and met in person. Two things stand out: She’s undeniably talented — but she was flirtatious with me, and not in a professional way.”
“I’m not saying she was inviting me to sleep with her, but working with Olivia is very different from any other journalist, male or female,” the anonymous source said. “There’s a fine line between sexual seduction and informational seduction — and she crosses it. All the time.”
Kraus claims she, too, was a victim of Nuzzi’s beguiling ways, befriending her because she was “kind and engaging” only to subsequently conclude that Nuzzi used her to gain access to Kennedy.
“It’s clear that (Nuzzi’s) initial curiosity toward Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gradually morphed into something more, to which I offered insight and proximity,” Kraus says. “It started with innocent questions about his character, policies, and public appearances, but soon escalated into an invasive fixation on his personal life. Olivia would ask me almost intimate questions about him and his relationships with staff and his wife after each campaign stop — who he was seen talking to, what his mood was like, and whether he showed any signs of flirtation. There was an undercurrent of fascination that went beyond journalistic intrigue, bordering on obsession.”
Underscoring the media’s incestuousness, Nuzzi was engaged to Politico reporter Ryan Lizza, who reportedly is in his 50s, and was fired from the New Yorker at the height of the cancel culture movement because of allegations of improper sexual misconduct. Lizza, who previously denied any wrongdoing, told the New York Times that he and Nuzzi are no longer engaged and that he no longer will write about Kennedy. Hines, Kennedy’s spouse, was reportedly seen without her wedding ring.
What struck me most reading about Nuzzi’s meteoric rise is how someone repeatedly embroiled in considerable controversy and damning innuendo managed to become a supposed superstar covering presidential politics, particularly given her limited experience. I was reminded of a comment that Ben Rhodes, a former senior Obama foreign policy aide, made to the New York Times about the caliber of U.S. journalists covering political campaigns.
“Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington,” Rhodes said. “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”