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.
At the most basic level, the facts are these: In 2024, RFK Jr. reportedly had an affair with Olivia Nuzzi, then a political writer for New York magazine. Nuzzi, who's 39 years Kennedy's junior, met Kennedy while profiling him for a New York cover story in 2023. At the time, Nuzzi was engaged to then–Politico writer Ryan Lizza (z's recognize z's). RFK was, and bafflingly still is, married to the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines.
New York fired (sorry, "parted ways" with) Nuzzi after news of the affair became public, and as more details have emerged over the past year, the scope of the scandal has widened to encompass political corruption, journalistic malpractice, lizards, Dante's Divine Comedy, Malibu, $15,000 worth of Cartier jewelry, shocking press releases, surprise investigations, naked presidential candidates (more than one), Kennedy assassinations (more than one), and also Keith Olbermann for some reason. Let's join hands—not you, Mr. Health Secretary, you keep your hands to yourself—and go forth to examine a tale that both encapsulates this dystopian moment in our politics and epitomizes the many, many ways America can make you say, "What the fuck, oh no" in 2025. We've still got it, baby.
And, yeah—I'm going to quote more of the poem. I just need a minute first. It's that horrifying.
OK, first: Who are these people?
Choose your fighter:
RFK Jr.: You know who he is. Congratulations, and also I'm sorry. Trump's health secretary. He’s 71 years old. White, but sun hardened to a fine oaken brown. Son of beloved Democratic politician Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for president in 1968. Nephew of beloved Democratic president John F. Kennedy, who is 108 years old and living in New Jersey.
RFK Jr. ran for president in 2024, first as a Democrat, then as an independent, before dropping out and endorsing Trump in a move that was definitely based on principle and not on a desperate addiction to attention and power. Described by his cousin Caroline Kennedy as "addicted to attention and power." Now devotes his life to a frankly malevolent quest to undo decades of advances in public health. Has a striking and unusual habit of getting into farcical mishaps with exotic animal corpses. Absolutely the Frasier Crane of exotic animal corpses. At one point, a worm lived in his brain. The condition proved fatal (for the worm).
Does he yearn? He yearns. Marriage can't seem to constrain a man whose soul has eagle's wings. Freedom, like love and bird flu, should be allowed to spread unchecked.
Olivia Nuzzi: Former New York political reporter. Current Vanity Fair West Coast editor (for now; more on this in a minute). She’s 32 years old. Born on January 6, yikes. Recently called "the modern iteration of a Hitchcock blonde" by The New York Times. Made her name covering Trump for The Daily Beast in 2016; became one of the most famous political journalists in the country after being hired as New York's Washington correspondent at the age of 24. Known for writing voicey, insidery, entertaining profiles of national political figures; also, at one point, for a tendency to cultivate Twitter friendships with far-right influencers, even adopting their rhetoric in a whoopsy-ironic way. In 2018, entered Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski's home office without permission after Lewandowski left the door unlocked. Later in 2018, was invited to interview Trump in the Oval Office.
Before becoming famous, was in a relationship with the much older ESPN and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who, according to her ex-fiancé, "paid for her to attend college, outfitted her in Tom Ford and Hervé Léger dresses and some $15,000 worth of Cartier jewelry," and covered her rent. Olbermann's responses to these reports:
Never accuse Keith Olbermann of overspending on the college student he was dating in his 50s.
As a teen, under the name "Livvy," Nuzzi tried to launch a music career by releasing a Myspace single called "Jailbait." "I've got no shame," one of the lines goes. You will never trick me into saying anything about this.
Ryan Lizza: Nuzzi's post-Olbermann boyfriend and ex-fiancé. He’s 51 years old. In appearance and demeanor, gives "smooth wonk." Longtime political journalist, first at The New Republic, then for a decade at The New Yorker, then at Politico. Now has his own Substack. He was dropped by The New Yorker in 2017, at the height of #MeToo, after reports of sexual misconduct. Few details were ever released; other media organizations, including CNN, where he's a longtime contributor, investigated the reports and declined to take action against him. Divorced.
How did the world find out about the love triangle?
Through a newsletter that rocked the journalism world to its core (group texts). On September 19, 2024, the former CNN reporter Oliver Darcy revealed in Status, a daily briefing email focused on media news, that New York had placed Nuzzi on leave "after learning that the star journalist had allegedly engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a reporting subject." That subject? A stack of weird rocks in human clothing—sorry, I mean RFK Jr., whom she'd profiled the previous year.
And New York fired Nuzzi for this breach of professional ethics?
Not immediately. There was a month of dithering about who'd known what when and who'd put what where, and at one point "a person with direct knowledge of the matter" told CNN that the relationship was "emotional and digital in nature, not physical." This somehow sounded more incriminating than actual sex, but no one knew precisely what it meant. Eventually, the narrative crystallized that Nuzzi and RFK had reportedly had some enthusiastic FaceTime sex but never actually slept together, which, hey, sure, who knows.
Attention then turned to the extent of Nuzzi's reported breach of journalistic ethics. Nuzzi herself stated that “I did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source” during the course of the affair. But the fact remained that she'd continued to report on the 2024 presidential race while evidently in a relationship with a man who was then still a candidate. She'd written one of the most explosive stories of the whole election cycle, about the efforts of Joe Biden's aides to hide his declining mental acuity, at a time when her alleged emotional and digital lover stood to benefit from it. She'd also reportedly lied to her editor when first confronted about her indiscretions. In October, a little over a month after placing her on leave, New York issued a statement announcing that the magazine and Nuzzi had mutually agreed to separate.
And she was still engaged to Lizza at this point?
No. Nuzzi and Lizza had been together since 2018 and engaged since 2022, but they split sometime before the RFK affair became public. Lizza announced the end of their engagement the day after the news broke; a few days later, she asked a court to issue a restraining order against him.
Wait, a restraining order? What??
Oh, yes. In her court filing, she accused him of trying to blackmail her into staying in the relationship. He had, she stated, hacked her devices, spied on her, and threatened to release information that would destroy her career. The couple had been contracted to cowrite a book about the 2024 election but lost that contract when news of the affair broke; Nuzzi further said that Lizza had threatened "physical violence" against her “to coerce me to agree to assume his share of financial responsibility” in returning their advance money to the publisher.
Lizza, denying the details in the court filing, accused Nuzzi of "shamelessly using litigation … as a public relations strategy." Nuzzi withdrew the application for a permanent restraining order shortly before a court hearing at which, according to Lizza, "she knew her lies would be exposed." Every entry in this FAQ could end this way, but in this case especially: yikes!
Speaking of "yikes," weren't we supposed to hear more about this RFK orgasm poem?
Please don't make me type it. I will, I promise I will, just … not yet.
OK, but in general, it seems like we're talking a lot about Nuzzi and not much about the older and vastly more powerful married politician in the relationship. Why is this a scandal for her but not for him?
I wonder about this, too! Nationally, RFK has faced very little blowback for his reported decision to get down on FaceTime with a woman less than half his age. Why is that? Garden-variety sexism is surely part of it, but misogyny hasn't stopped sex scandals from bringing down male politicians in the past. My guess is that the biggest reason is the ethics of journalism angle. Nuzzi is a reporter who broke one of the cardinal rules of reporting, and it's mostly other reporters who are talking about the story. And Nuzzi was already a divisive figure among journalists: admired for her talent, criticized for her perceived narcissism and indifference to scruples. In every friend group, there's one person whom the other friends keep a separate text channel to complain about. Now imagine if that friend had a video-sex affair with the nation's leading vaccine denier.
Another possible factor: Maybe everyone assumes that RFK is such an unprincipled egomaniac that it's pointless to try to hold him accountable in any normal human way. Trump logic!
Was Nuzzi banished from the journalism industry after the scandal broke?
Yes … for almost a whole year. Then, this past September, Vanity Fair hired her. She also got a book deal. Cancel culture claims yet another victim!
Were there any mitigating circumstances that made the industry more inclined to give her another shot?
Sort of. For years, the thing with Nuzzi was that however frustrating her behavior might be, almost everyone agreed that she was a good writer. Yes, her vibe was chaotic. Yes, she seemed untrustworthy. "But the writing!" people said. "She's talented! The writing is good!" No one was going to confuse her with Joan Didion as a stylist, but her profiles were fun; they fizzed.
As recently as a few weeks ago, people were still saying this. And if she'd just kept her head down and concentrated on doing good work, she might have been able, gradually, to win back the respect she'd lost.
But that isn't what happened?
Friend … that is NOT what happened.
What did happen?
This November, when the wisest PR strategy would have been to lie low and be normal, Nuzzi sat for a glammed-up profile, complete with a moody black-and-white photo spread, in one of the biggest newspapers in the country.
Oh, no.
Oh, yes. She had a book to promote, after all. The piece, titled "Olivia Nuzzi Did It All for Love" and published in The New York Times, opened online with a giant looping video of Nuzzi driving a Mustang convertible in Celine sunglasses, her pale hair whipping in the wind. The writer, Jacob Bernstein—the son of Nora Ephron and the renowned Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein, because why not—called her "a Lana del Rey song come to life." The piece portrayed her love for (I cannot stress this enough) RFK Jr. as passionate and sincere. It was so over the top, so spiritually inflamed by its subject, that some people thought it was parodying Nuzzi: a journalist who'd gotten horny for her source being profiled by one pretending to be horny for his. That isn't what was happening, though. Bernstein's tone was, evidently, 100 percent sincere.
But after that things calmed down, right?
They absolutely did not.
What??
A few days after the profile, Nuzzi’s first book excerpt appeared in Vanity Fair, and on the same day, November 17, Ryan Lizza surprise dropped a Substack post stating that she'd cheated on him with a second presidential candidate.
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Right? Let's take the book excerpt first, because believe it or not, it might be the more deranged development. Nuzzi's memoir, which comes out on December 2, is called American Canto. Is that a Dante reference? Let's check with The New York Times:
Nuzzi, 32, lives in a tiny house in the heart of Malibu where lizards crawl into her kitchen and the King James Bible and “The Divine Comedy”—two books she was reading while she was writing “American Canto”—sit on her dining room table.
Yep, that’s a Dante reference. The book excerpt … it is bad. It is so bad. Bernstein's profile says that she typed most of the book on her phone while hiking near Malibu, and the nicest thing I can say is that I hope that's true. The press materials suggest that American Canto focuses on the reality-distortion field around Trump, but the excerpt mostly gives the impression of a writer lost in the reality-distortion field of her own celebrity, convinced that her most self-indulgent instincts are her most profound.
I mean, look at this:
He desired. He desired desiring. He desired being desired. He desired desire itself.
Look at the way she refers to Kennedy only as "the Politician" and at the merciless clunkiness of artlessly repeated words:
"I would take a bullet for you," the Politician said. He always said that. "Please don't say that," I said.
It goes on:
From his mouth the bullet theoretical launched the bullet possible.
Do bullets launch? Does the theoretical differ significantly from the possible? Anyway, you get the idea. Or you will, if you imagine another 300-odd pages of this.
Forget the sex; the real scandal here is the crime against language. We may be facing the biggest plot twist in this entire story: What if Nuzzi isn't a good writer after all? What if, as a friend texted me this week, the true hero of this 15-act opera is whoever was editing her pieces at New York?
OK, but you said something about Lizza taking to Substack to reveal an affair with a second presidential candidate?
Yes. Mark Sanford. Republican. Former governor of South Carolina. Briefly stepped forward as a Trump challenger before stepping back again after few noticed he'd stepped forward in the first place. Was the inspiration for Councilman Bill Dexhart, the sex-obsessed politician on Parks and Rec. That's not a joke; he really was. Nuzzi profiled him in 2019. How Lizza found out about the reported affair isn't entirely clear. Remember how Nuzzi accused him of hacking her devices and threatening to release information that would destroy her career? He says that the incriminating papers just sort of, like, fell out of her backpack one day in 2020, leaving him no alternative but to release the information, five years later, after she apparently cheated on him with someone else.
The post, which is called "Part 1: How I Found Out," doesn't name Sanford until the very end. Lizza makes you think that he's talking about RFK, and then, boom, last line, it was Mark Sanford all along. And at Sanford’s house, too. Not just on video chat this time. The subset of people who'd been following this story lost their minds when this post dropped. Slate reporters were climbing lampposts. Journalists were flooding the streets like Eagles fans after the Super Bowl.
Unfortunately, Lizza's post, like Nuzzi's excerpt, is undermined by its writing. Lizza leans on a running metaphor that treats some bamboo in his courtyard as an emblem of the uncontainable corruption that Nuzzi, in his telling, brought into Lizza's life. “The invasive bamboo, which grows like a cancer, and if not tamed, would march through the entire courtyard and kill everything," etc. And the metaphor, bamboo-like itself, keeps spreading.
But like … did Nuzzi actually sleep with former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford while reporting on him?
No one knows! Lizza's post offers few details and no evidence. On the one hand, the RFK scandal suggests that it's possible. On the other hand, Lizza is down so, so bad, and I trust the "These papers just fell out of her bag!" line about as far as I trust Mark Sanford's campaign promises, whatever they might have been. So I'm not terribly inclined to take Lizza's word as gospel. Vanity Fair is investigating his claims. Yikes!
You mentioned that Lizza's Substack post was headlined "Part 1." Was there a Part 2?
Yes. It was published on November 22. That's the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. No one does petty like an aggrieved political journalist.
What was in it?
I don't want to tell you.
It was the poem, wasn't it?
Shut up.
Was it the poem?
OK, fine! Yes! It was the poem.
The poem about RFK ejaculating.
That one, thank you, yes!
Don't you think it's time to share the poem?
I—oh God. I guess I have to share the poem.
Sure.
OK. Here is the love poem RFK Jr. reportedly wrote to Nuzzi. Lizza doesn't quite say how he obtained it—papers were always falling out of bags in that house, so who knows—but he does say that it helps explain why Nuzzi and Kennedy "plotted to destroy me." (Ahem: What?) The poem, or at any rate the section of the poem Lizza quotes, begins as follows:
Yr open mouth awaiting my harvest.
I can't tell you how much time I've spent thinking about that "Yr." Why "Yr"? Why not "Your"? WHAT THE HELL IS "YR"? Is it a Sonic Youth homage? A nod to the West Yorkshire bus system of the 1980s? Does RFK love Desus and Mero? Was he trying to type with one hand (ew)? I will be haunted by that "Yr" for the rest of my life.
The poem continues:
Drink from me Love.
I mean to squeeze your cheeks to force open your mouth. I’ll hold your nose as you look up at me to encourage you to swallow.
Hang on. This part doesn't sound like a poem at all. It sounds like prose … blow job prose.
‘Dont spill a drop’.
Why is this line, alone among all the lines of the poem, in quotes? Why single quotes? Why is there an apostrophe in "I'll" but no apostrophe in "dont"? Hush. Don't ask. Literature operates by its own rules.
I am a river You are my canyon.
I mean to flow through you. I mean to subdue and tame you. My Love.
Woof. That's the poem. On the plus side, at least it doesn't mention bamboo.
So the poem is the lowest point in this entire affair, right?
Incredibly, no. There's also this: In his Substack post, Lizza claims that he learned (forgive me) what felching is from another literary missive he says Kennedy penned for Nuzzi.
The consequence:
But the felching … that was definitely the lowest point, right?
Still no! In the same Substack post, Lizza mentions in a totally unsubstantiated, weirdly casual aside that Nuzzi spent "late 2023 and all of 2024" actively working to further RFK's political goals. He claims she wrote campaign strategy memos for him, conducted "catch-and-kill operations on his behalf," and committed "other journalistic transgressions that have still not been disclosed." In journalism, a "catch-and-kill operation" is one that ferrets out potentially damaging reporting with the aim of stopping its publication, whether by legal threats, bribery, or coercion. If Nuzzi, while reporting on the presidential race for New York, was secretly doing this sort of dirty work for a candidate, then the issue is not at all ambiguous: She should never work in journalism, in any capacity, again.
But that's not all. If she did it, there's also the question of when Lizza found out she was doing it. Did he know at the time? Did he know while Kennedy was being confirmed as health secretary and enacting his ruinous agenda? If he did and sat on the news until he decided that its disclosure would do maximum damage to Nuzzi, then he should never work in journalism again, either. Lizza is self-employed. If his own story is true, he should, in all decency, fire himself.
And here we are. It's not just that fame and power corrupt; it's that they corrupt, often, in the most garishly stupid of ways. They are the river. You are the canyon. They will subdue and tame you, no matter how many lizards crawl on the King James Bible in your kitchen, no matter how desirously you desire the desire of desiring desire. Like bamboo, they will grow over everything, but especially your brain, your integrity, and your conscience. It's hard out there for the people it's easy for. Thanksgiving is coming soon, and I'm grateful every day for the vital work student journalists are doing in this country. It's needed desperately; if this story is anything to go by, we can't expect much from the adults.
