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The political reporter who has written a book about an alleged digital romantic relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the campaign trail was accused by her ex-fiancé on Monday of having a romantic relationship with former South Carolina Gov. and Congressman Mark Sanford.
Olivia Nuzzi, the journalist who parted ways with New York Magazine last year over the explosive revelations, reportedly had an intimate relationship with Kennedy, whom she covered for the publication. She’s now published a book about their alleged digital romance without explicitly naming Kennedy.
The scandal led to the end of Nuzzi’s engagement to Politico’s chief Washington correspondent and Playbook co-author at the time, Ryan Lizza, who has since left the outlet.
Lizza, who now runs an independent publication on Substack, shocked the media industry with a post that claims Nuzzi had a romantic relationship with another subject of her reporting.
POLITICAL REPORTER WHO HAD ALLEGED ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH RFK JR. SPEAKS OUT
Journalist Olivia Nuzzi was accused by her former fiancé Ryan Lizza of cheating on him with former South Carolina Gov. and Congressman Mark Sanford. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Lizza claimed that in 2020 he had found something on a piece of stationery spilling out of Nuzzi’s backpack in the Georgetown townhouse they shared that would “alter the course of our lives.”
“We were under contract to write a book about the presidential campaign. The primaries were in full swing, and it felt like we were falling behind on our project. But there was one bright spot. Olivia was spending more and more time in South Carolina, from where she had just returned, which was a good thing, I thought, considering how politically important the state was,” Lizza wrote.
“In the fall, she had published, in New York Magazine, a profile of a long-shot but intriguing presidential candidate, and he continued to be a helpful source,” he continued, later noting it was Sanford. “Maybe this book would come together, after all.”
But before the book could be finished, Lizza said he found a note his then-fiancé wrote that said, “If I swallowed every drop of water from the tower above your house, I would still thirst for you.”
“I flipped to another page and saw a name and the first line of an unfinished love letter to him that included enough details to confirm a physical relationship and the hint of some kind of falling out,” Lizza continued. “My heart stopped when I realized who he was.”
OLIVIA NUZZI EXITS NY MAGAZINE FOLLOWING RFK JR RELATIONSHIP REVELATIONS
Ryan Lizza and his ex-fiancé Olivia Nuzzi. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Nuclear Now)
Lizza explained that the recipient was a “a famous politician, 32 years older than Olivia, and well-known for a sex scandal,” as well as the subject of a recent profile she’d written about a presidential candidate.
“She later explained to me that she became ‘infatuated’ with him after their interview, that she couldn’t get him out of her head, and that as her obsession intensified, she sent him increasingly risqué pictures and texts, secretly followed him on the campaign trail when she told me she was out covering other candidates, and fantasized about a rendezvous, which was consummated at his home in South Carolina one night after she went dark on me and made up a story about how she was dealing with a crisis concerning her sick mother,” he wrote.
Lizza wrote that he knew the relationship was over and the “book project was dead” at that point.
“I called my agent. ‘We have a big problem,’ I said. ‘Olivia is sleeping with Mark Sanford,’” Lizza wrote.
Fox News Digital reached out to Nuzzi and Sanford for comment but did not immediately hear back.
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Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, seen here in 2019. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Sanford was a popular second-term Republican governor in 2009 when his week-long disappearance at the time made national headlines.
It was later revealed that Sanford was out of the country, having an affair with an Argentinian woman. The episode ended his marriage and tainted his political career, although he didn’t resign.
He later won back his old South Carolina congressional seat in a 2013 special election — defeating Stephen Colbert‘s sister Elizabeth Colbert Busch — and was re-elected in 2014 and 2016.
Eventually a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, Sanford lost his 2018 primary to a GOP challenger. He went on to briefly challenge Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination, but his campaign lasted only two months.
Nuzzi, who is now an editor for Vanity Fair, profiled Sanford for New York Magazine in September 2019, headlined, “Is Mark Sanford’s Quest for the Mythical Reluctant Trump Voter Noble or Pathetic?”
Vanity Fair did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital.
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A Kennedy spokesperson previously denied any sort of physical relationship had occurred and said he had only met Nuzzi once. She has maintained that she never had a physical relationship with him but did engage in “personal” communications. Kennedy is married to actress Cheryl Hines.
As the scandal played out, Lizza was initially placed on leave from Politico after Nuzzi accused him of blackmail and harassment. She ultimately withdrew a protective order against Lizza, who was welcomed back to Politico with a diminished role before he bolted to start a Substack called Telos.
Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
