Ryan Lizza lashes out at Olivia Nuzzi after she withdraws suit
A former DC power couple continues its ferocious explosion.
Olivia Nuzzi, the star reporter whose FaceTime affair with RFK Jr. was sensationally exposed in September, had asked a court for a restraining order against her ex-fiancé, fellow Beltway journo Ryan Lizza.
Nuzzi, who until last month was New York Magazine’s DC correspondent, claimed that Lizza had “explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career, and reputation.”
She also claimed that he had tried to blackmail her into staying with him.
But on Tuesday, she withdrew her application, with her attorney saying that she had “concluded she will garner the greatest protection by disengaging from this process,” and claiming that she’s “increasingly worried for her physical safety and well-being.”
But Lizza fumed in a statement to Page Six that Nuzzi had simply been “shamelessly [using] litigation with false and defamatory allegations as a public relations strategy.”
“On the eve of a [court hearing to make the order permanent] at which she knew her lies would be exposed, she has taken the only course available to her and withdrawn her fabricated claims,” Politico Playbook writer Lizza said.
Nuzzi began a relationship with the former presidential candidate (and husband to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Cheryl Hines) after profiling him in October last year. As Page Six has previously reported, the pair had an intense romance in which they had “incredible” FaceTime sex and even told each other they were in love, but never actually met in person, sources said.
(Kennedy — who dropped out of the race to endorse Donald Trump and is now heading the president-elect’s “Make America Healthy Again” program — has denied the affair.)
The former Daily Beast phenom was put on leave by New York Magazine in September after editors discovered the affair, though it said at the time that an initial review had found no inaccuracies or bias in her work.
In October, the magazine released a statement saying that an independent review, “reached the same conclusion,” but that “nevertheless, the magazine and Nuzzi agreed that the best course forward is to part ways.”
In his Tuesday statement, Lizza, who proposed to Nuzzi in 2022, said: “Olivia lied to me for almost a year. She lied to her editors. She lied to her readers. She lied to her colleagues. She lied to reporters. And she lied to the judge in this case.”
He added, “I said I would defend myself against her lies vigorously and successfully, and I am fully prepared to do so. But for now, I’m pleased this matter is closed.”
Responding to Lizza’s statement, Nuzzi’s lawyer, Ari Micha Wilkenfeld told us, “Ms. Nuzzi has no interest in fighting a public relations battle.”
