Were Kara Swisher and Olivia Nuzzi Friends? Kara Told Management About Olivia's Affair With RFK Jr.

In November 2023, New York Magazine's D.C. correspondent Olivia Nuzzi interviewed RFK Jr. for a story. Shortly after, they started exchanging emails and texts and began what could be called a "digital affair." Olivia claims they never had sexual intercourse, but also spent enough time with him to see him brushing his teeth, per New York Times reporting.

The affair was eventually exposed, and Olivia was put on leave from New York Magazine. She moved to Los Angeles, California, and wrote a book, American Canto, about her affair with someone only referred to as "the politician."

In the book, Olivia describes Kara Swisher as her mentor. Were they really friends?

Kara Swisher, who is an editor at New York Magazine and hosts the podcasts On With Kara Swisher and Pivot, is the person who reported Olivia's inappropriate communication with RFK Jr. to New York Magazine leadership.

She said, "She just needed to come clean, and she never did. It was a betrayal of the audience," per the New York Times.

The relationship itself was not enough to get Olivia suspended from the magazine, but her failure to disclose it was what did her in.

Although Kara eventually reported Olivia, it seems they at least previously did have a mentorship relationship and a mutual respect for each other.

When Olivia was reporting on the 2024 presidential race, she said that Biden's performance in a debate against Trump was like Weekend at Bernie's. This comment garnered anger and criticism from Democrats, but Kara defended Olivia's reporting.

She said, "Everything she said about Biden was true. Her writing was over and beyond the best political reporting out there."

Olivia and Ryan Lizza were living together and engaged to be married when Olivia's affair with RFK Jr. began. She eventually told Ryan about it and thought that he was the one who made the information public.

When Olivia left New York Magazine in Oct. 2024, she filed a protective order against Ryan, claiming he'd hacked into her devices to find dirt on her and spoil her reputation, per the New York Times.

Ryan denied this and said she had made "false and defamatory allegations" and "refused to defend" them. Olivia did not provide evidence that he hacked her.

She eventually dropped the suit, saying Ryan had "successfully exploited the media interest in these proceedings to create an even bigger spectacle."

In Ryan's substack, he wrote about what he knew of Olivia and RFK Jr.'s relationship, saying that RFK Jr. went through a cycle of "love-bombing" Olivia by showing intense emotional closeness and then withdrawing affection and blaming Olivia for "making" him feel that way.

"Bobby eventually came to control Olivia by using his affection like a faucet that he turned on or off whenever he wanted," he wrote.

He also wrote that Kara had "cracked the case" on Olivia's relationship with RFK Jr.

He said, "In early September 2024, I received a message from a friend, a prominent journalist. We were neighbors, and she knew that Olivia and I had split up, but she didn’t know the full story. Now something had changed. I stared at the three letters she texted me: 'RFK.' Kara Swisher had cracked the case."