Disgraced political reporter Olivia Nuzzi — who is ready to launch a tell-all ebook on her “sexting” affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — was accused by her ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza Monday of sleeping with former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford in 2020 whereas the pair of journalists had been relationship.
Lizza claimed he uncovered a secret love letter on resort stationery that proved his then-live-in girlfriend had been dishonest on him with Sanford — notorious for his personal extramarital affair — throughout his 2020 presidential marketing campaign in a Monday publication publish titled “Half 1: How I Discovered Out”.
The ex-Politico author who ended his engagement to Nuzzi after it was revealed she was concerned in a “sexting” relationship with Kennedy wrote that the invention got here when his sweetheart returned from what she informed him was a reporting journey, leaving her Herschel backpack tipped over beside the mattress.
Within the pile of notepads and papers, he discovered a web page that stopped him chilly, in response to the entry in his Telos Information publication.
“If I swallowed each drop of water from the tower above your home, I’d nonetheless thirst for you,” she had written in a observe dated March 5, 2020, in response to Lizza. Their house, he famous, had no water tower.
He wrote that one other web page named the recipient of the letter as “Mark,” which he stated confirmed what he feared: an alleged bodily relationship with Sanford, a presidential candidate she had profiled months earlier.
By early 2020, the pair had signed a contract to put in writing a ebook on the presidential race. Nuzzi was spending “an increasing number of time in South Carolina,” which Lizza believed was for reporting.
As an alternative, the scorned ex now claims she “secretly adopted him on the marketing campaign path” to pursue Sanford, allegedly sending him express pictures and messages whereas telling Lizza she was “coping with a disaster regarding her sick mom.”
He says she admitted the connection intensified, finally resulting in a sexual encounter at Sanford’s house the night time she went darkish and stopped answering messages, Lizza claimed.
“How might we write a ebook in regards to the presidential marketing campaign if Olivia had a sexual relationship with one of many candidates?” he wrote.
Days later, Lizza wrote that he phoned his agent and delivered the information.
“We have now a giant downside,” he recalled telling him. “Olivia is sleeping with Mark Sanford.”
Lizza says Nuzzi later informed him she had turn into “infatuated” with Sanford after their interview and couldn’t shake him from her thoughts.
He wrote that she described sending express pictures and messages because the obsession grew, and that she adopted the candidate on the path whereas claiming she was reporting on others.
Lizza claimed he had been “used to cleansing up Olivia’s messes,” together with what he describes as her earlier entanglement with MSNBC’s former host Keith Olbermann.
In line with Lizza, Nuzzi fled her New Jersey house to reside with the a lot older anchor.
Lizza wrote that Olbermann supplied her with luxurious garments, jewellery and housing earlier than she finally confided the connection to him and sought his assist to go away it.
Lizza claimed that Olbermann even paid Nuzzi’s school tuition whereas she attended Fordham College.
Lizza’s romance with Nuzzi ended after it was discovered that she was having a sexting affair with Kennedy whereas she coated his presidential marketing campaign.
In her forthcoming memoir, she wrote that Kennedy informed her “I really like you,” known as her “Livvy” and stated he would “take a bullet” for her.
Kennedy can be reported to have tried to calm her nervousness about an alleged mind worm with “Child, don’t fear” and “It’s not a worm.”
Nuzzi’s sexting affair with Kennedy detonated her profession, resulting in her exit from New York Journal and a yr of public silence earlier than resurfacing with a memoir and a brand new function at Vainness Honest.
The scandal additionally blew aside her relationship with Lizza, who stated she made false and defamatory allegations towards him whereas she briefly sought — and later withdrew — a protecting order accusing him of harassment and blackmail.
In the meantime, Sanford’s political profession has lengthy been outlined by his extramarital affair with Argentine journalist Maria Belén Chapur, which he initially hid by claiming he was “climbing on the Appalachian Path” earlier than disappearing for six days in 2009.
His private life remained turbulent afterward, together with repeated disputes together with his ex-wife, a trespassing grievance and the eventual collapse of his engagement to Chapur amid ongoing custody battles.
The Submit has sought remark from Nuzzi, Sanford and Olbermann.
