The Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr. Affair Is Messier Than We Ever Could Have Imagined

[erronis]

https://www.theringer.com/2025/11/25/national-affairs/olivia-nuzzi-rfk-jr-ryan-lizza-explained-book-scandal
Brian Phillips

Inside the most important, and also least important, story of our time

(Maybe Too Much Information?)

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.

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