Disgraced political reporter Olivia Nuzzi – about to release a tell-all book about her “sexting” affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – was accused on Monday by her ex-fiance Ryan Lizza of having sex with former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford in 2020 while the two journalists were dating.
Lizza claimed he discovered a secret love letter on hotel stationery during his 2020 presidential campaign in a Monday newsletter that revealed his then live-in girlfriend had cheated on him with Sanford — infamous for his own extramarital affair. titled “Part 1: How I Found Out”.
The ex-politico writer who ended his engagement to Nuzzi after it was revealed she was involved in a “sexting” relationship with Kennedy wrote that the discovery came when his lover returned from what she told him was a reporting trip and left her Herschel backpack next to the bed.
In the pile of notebooks and papers, he found a page that left him cold, according to the report in his Telos News newsletter.
“If I swallowed every drop of water from the tower above your house, I would still long for you,” she wrote, according to Lizza, in a note dated March 5, 2020. Their house, he noted, had no water tower.
He wrote that another page named the letter’s recipient “Mark,” which he said confirmed what he feared: an alleged physical relationship with Sanford, a presidential candidate she had profiled months earlier.
By early 2020, the pair had signed a contract to write a book about the presidential race. Nuzzi spent “more and more time in South Carolina,” which Lizza said was for reporting.
Instead, the scorned ex now claims she “secretly followed him on the campaign trail” to hound Sanford, allegedly sending him explicit photos and messages while telling Lizza she was “dealing with a crisis surrounding her sick mother.”
He says she admitted the relationship had intensified, eventually leading to a sexual encounter at Sanford’s home the night she went dark and stopped answering messages, Lizza alleged.
“How could we write a book about the presidential campaign if Olivia had a sexual relationship with one of the candidates?” he wrote.
Days later, Lizza wrote that he had called his agent and told him the news.
“We have a big problem,” he remembered telling him. “Olivia is sleeping with Mark Sanford.”
Lizza says Nuzzi later told him that she “fell in love” with Sanford after their interview and couldn’t shake him out of her head.
He wrote that she described sending explicit photos and messages as the obsession grew, and following the candidate’s trail while claiming she was reporting on others.
Lizza claimed he was “used to cleaning up Olivia’s messes,” including what he describes as her past involvement with former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann.
According to Lizza, Nuzzi fled her home in New Jersey to live with the much older anchor.
Lizza wrote that Olbermann provided her with luxurious clothing, jewelry, and housing before she eventually confided in him about the relationship and sought his help in leaving it.
Lizza claimed that Olbermann even paid Nuzzi’s tuition while she attended Fordham University.
Lizza’s romance with Nuzzi ended after it was revealed that she had a sexting affair with Kennedy while covering his presidential campaign.
In her forthcoming memoir, she wrote that Kennedy told her, “I love you,” called her “Livvy” and said he would “take a bullet for her.”
Kennedy also allegedly tried to calm her fears about a suspected brain worm with “Baby, don’t worry” and “It’s not a worm.”
Nuzzi’s sexting affair with Kennedy detonated her career, leading to her departure from New York Magazine and a year of public silence before she resurfaced with a memoir and a new role at Vanity Fair.
The scandal also destroyed her relationship with Lizza, who said she made false and defamatory accusations against him while briefly seeking (and later withdrawing) a protective order and accusing him of harassment and blackmail.
Meanwhile, Sanford’s political career has long been defined by his extramarital affair with Argentinian journalist Maria Belen Chapurwhich he initially covered up by claiming he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” before disappearing for six days in 2009.
His personal life remained turbulent afterward, including repeated disputes with his ex-wife, a trespass complaint, and the eventual collapse of his engagement to Chapur amid ongoing custody battles.
The Post has sought comment from Nuzzi, Sanford and Olbermann.
#Ryan #Lizza #claims #thengirlfriend #Olivia #Nuzzi #cheated #GOP #presidential #candidate #Mark #Sanford