Vanity Fair is cutting ties with West Coast editor Olivia Nuzzi, bringing an abrupt end to her brief tenure at the magazine as scrutiny intensifies over her relationship with profile subject Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The separation was announced Friday in a joint statement, which said the two parties “have mutually agreed, in the best interest of the magazine, to let her contract expire at the end of the year.”
Nuzzi, 32, was hired in September after a high-profile career at New York magazine, where she was celebrated for vivid, deeply sourced political reporting. But last fall, revelations emerged that she had engaged in a personal relationship with Kennedy — a subject of her reporting and now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. New York magazine fired her, citing her failure to disclose the relationship.
The controversy resurfaced this fall with the rollout of Nuzzi’s memoir, “American Canto,” in which she refers to Kennedy only as “The Politician.” Vanity Fair published an excerpt, but the book’s debut was overshadowed by a new series of posts from Nuzzi’s former fiancé, journalist Ryan Lizza. In his Substack writings, Lizza alleged Nuzzi had not only pursued a relationship with Kennedy but had also advised him politically — a violation of basic journalistic ethics. He also accused her of having an affair with another profile subject and published text messages from Kennedy to Nuzzi that he had intercepted, fueling media fascination and professional backlash.
The growing scandal left Vanity Fair in an increasingly uncomfortable position, especially as “American Canto” struggled commercially. By Friday afternoon, the memoir ranked 6,094 on Amazon’s bestseller list, receiving little enthusiasm from readers. Critics have been equally dismissive. Writing in The Atlantic, Helen Lewis mocked the work: “A tell-all memoir? Ha. This is a tell-nothing memoir.”
With the book faltering and the controversy showing no signs of fading, Vanity Fair moved to distance itself. Nuzzi’s contract will simply not be renewed, ending her time at the publication less than four months after it began.
