Why everyone in the United States is talking about Olivia Nuzzi and her “American Canto” The scandal that mixes gossip, politics, and journalism is becoming increasingly intricate
On December 2, American Canto, the autobiographical book by well-known journalist Olivia Nuzzi, will be released in the United States. Last year, the author found herself at the center of a scandal intertwining gossip and politics, which stirred the entire media sector of the country. In September 2024, it emerged that Nuzzi, who at the time was working for the New York Magazine and was covering the presidential election campaign, had had a relationship with Robert Kennedy Jr., a well-known and controversial figure in U.S. politics, about forty years her senior. In American Canto, Nuzzi recounts her version of this story.
In the United States, the case resurfaced after the publication of a lengthy excerpt from American Canto in Vanity Fair, where the journalist now works after leaving New York Magazine because of the incident. The magazine had announced that Nuzzi had violated its conflict-of-interest standards, given that in 2023, when Kennedy Jr. announced his presidential candidacy, she had written an in-depth article about him.
Why the case is drawing so much attention
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The matter has returned to the center of public debate in the United States also because Ryan Lizza, another well-known American journalist and Nuzzi’s former partner at the time of her relationship with Kennedy Jr., claimed that in 2020 she had had a similar relationship with another presidential candidate, Republican Party member Mark Sanford. Lizza recounted the moment he realized Nuzzi was cheating and the end of their relationship: the two, for example, had been working together on a book, whose publication was later canceled when he discovered she was involved with someone else.
The case had a significant impact on Nuzzi’s popularity and professional career, while the same cannot be said for Kennedy Jr., who in the meantime had withdrawn from the presidential race and, after endorsing Trump, soon became Secretary of Health in his administration.
Who Olivia Nuzzi and Robert Kennedy Jr. are
Olivia Nuzzi was born in 1993 in the United States, and before dedicating herself to journalism, she worked in politics, collaborating in 2013 on Anthony Weiner’s (Democratic Party) campaign for mayor of New York. She then began writing for the Daily Beast, covering Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016. Later, Nuzzi became the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine. Over the years, Nuzzi has become a rather well-known journalist in the U.S. media landscape (she has written for Politico, GQ, and the Washington Post, among others), also because she managed to secure exclusive interviews with politicians considered very reluctant to give statements, including Trump himself in 2018.
Robert Kennedy Jr., nephew of former president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is 71 years old and was active in the Democratic Party for many years before moving closer to the U.S. conservative movement. In this context, he became a prominent figure among anti-vaccine circles, supporting various conspiracy theories or anti-scientific positions, generating considerable embarrassment for the Trump administration.
