Who Is Olivia Nuzzi’s Ex-Fiancé? All About Ryan Lizza (and His Bombshell Cheating Claims)

Ryan Lizza is a political journalist who was previously in a relationship with Olivia Nuzzi.

The writers made their romance official in January 2018 and got engaged four years later in Italy. However, Lizza announced they had broken off their engagement in 2024 after Nuzzi was involved in an alleged sexting scandal with now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Reports of a relationship between Nuzzi and Kennedy, who has been married to Cheryl Hines since 2014, initially surfaced in September 2024. The allegations arose nearly a year after she spent time with Kennedy for a November 2023 profile in New York magazine. She was subsequently put on leave and told PEOPLE in a statement that their messages “turned personal” but added that they were “never physical.”

A year after the former couple’s split, Lizza brought up Nuzzi in his newsletter for Telos News, and alleged that she had an affair with South Carolina politician Mark Sanford while she was profiling him for a 2019 story in New York magazine. At the time, Lizza and Nuzzi were working on a political book together that they paused and later canceled. PEOPLE has reached out to representatives for Sanford, Nuzzi and Lizza for comment.

Now, Nuzzi is releasing her own book, called American Canto, on Dec. 2.

So, who is Olivia Nuzzi’s ex-fiancé? Here’s everything to know about Ryan Lizza and their former relationship.

Lizza is a political journalist

Lizza got his start as a journalist while studying at the University of California, Berkeley. During his last semester in college, he had his “first real experience” while interning at The Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, as he told Politico in 2019.

After graduating from school, he started working at The New Republic, where he covered several major political events — including Bill Clinton’s impeachment, the 2000 Florida presidential election recount and the 2004 presidential election.

Lizza also began contributing to The Atlantic, New York, Politico, The New York Times, CNN and GQ. In 2007, he continued covering politics as the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker and profiled Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Michele Bachmann, among others.

In 2017, Lizza’s career took a turn when he was fired from The New Yorker for allegedly participating in “improper sexual conduct,” a spokeswoman said in a statement to The New York Times. Lizza vehemently denied the allegations and said that the firing “was made hastily and without a full investigation of the relevant facts” and “was a terrible mistake.”

“I am dismayed that The New Yorker has decided to characterize a respectful relationship with a woman I dated as somehow inappropriate,” he said via email to the publication. “The New Yorker was unable to cite any company policy that was violated.”

Shortly afterward, CNN temporarily suspended him for a six-week investigation, but they later reinstated him. Lizza was also working at Politico and Rolling Stone at the time, and they followed in CNN’s footsteps.

Lizza left Politico in April 2025 and started his own newsletter, Telos News. He founded the company “to build a community of plugged-in news consumers who are as frustrated as he is about what’s happening in America and how it’s all being covered,” he wrote on the website.

He is a dad

Prior to his relationship with Nuzzi, Lizza was married to his former UC Berkeley classmate, Dr. Christina Gillespie. The pair tied the knot in 2004 in Washington, D.C., per their wedding announcement in The New York Times.

During their marriage, they welcomed at least two children together. He has kept his kids out of the spotlight but teased that they enjoy celebrating his birthday with him.

He told Politico about his birthday in 2019, saying, “My kids have a surprise planned for me in the morning and then Olivia is taking me away to some surprise destination.”

Lizza and Nuzzi were engaged from 2022 to 2024

Lizza and Nuzzi began dating no later than January 2018 when she posted a picture of them together on Instagram, per the New York Post. After four years of dating, Lizza proposed to Nuzzi in Italy.

During their two-year engagement, they both shared photos traveling together, attending events and showing off her dazzling engagement ring. Lizza and Nuzzi ended their engagement around 2024.

Lizza announced their split after her alleged sexting scandal with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. surfaced

In September 2024, Lizza confirmed that they had ended their relationship shortly after it was reported that Nuzzi allegedly engaged in an inappropriate “sexting” relationship with Kennedy.

Lizza shared the news in a Politico newsletter at the time and wrote, “Because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiancée, my editors and I have agreed that I won’t be involved in any coverage of Kennedy in Playbook or elsewhere at POLITICO.”

Earlier that month, Nuzzi’s employer, New York magazine, announced that it was suspending her after discovering that she had an alleged relationship with ”a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign.”

Reports later surfaced that the candidate in question was allegedly Kennedy, whom she interviewed for a November 2023 profile. Nuzzi later denied having any sort of physical relationship with her subject but admitted to having a “personal relationship” with the unnamed person.

“The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict,” she said in a statement to PEOPLE at the time. “I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.”

Around the same time, Nuzzi accused Lizza of hacking her personal devices and blackmailing her to stay in their relationship or he’d leak her and Kennedy’s alleged relationship. Lizza denied the allegations and claimed that Nuzzi “had been cheating on me with a married man for almost a year,” per a court filing obtained by CNN.

Nuzzi later dropped the request, and her attorney told PEOPLE, “Ms. Nuzzi has no interest in fighting a public relations battle.” In a November 2025 Telos News post, Lizza revisited the ordeal and described Nuzzi’s claims as “big fantastical falsehoods.”

“She orchestrated a plot with the help of a senior [President Donald] Trump official to try to have me imprisoned, and now she’s written what appears to be a largely fictitious and self-serving account about it all,” Lizza wrote of Nuzzi’s upcoming book, American Canto.

He accused Nuzzi of having an affair with politician Mark Sanford

In November 2025, Lizza accused Nuzzi of having an affair with South Carolina politician Sanford prior to her alleged sexting scandal with Kennedy. Lizza wrote in a Nov. 17 Telos News newsletter about how he learned of the alleged affair while she was profiling Sanford during his 2020 Republican presidential nomination campaign.

Lizza claimed that he discovered the alleged affair when he found an “unfinished love letter” Nuzzi wrote to Sanford that “included enough details to confirm a physical relationship and the hint of some kind of falling out.”

He wrote, “I was not a perfect partner, but the scale of Olivia’s betrayal was devastating. She had an affair with someone who would provide the maximum level of humiliation and personal and professional ruin, perhaps for both of us.”

Lizza alleged that Nuzzi told him that she was “infatuated” with the former South Carolina governor after interviewing him and that she had sent him “increasingly risqué pictures and texts.” He claimed that the two had a “rendezvous” at Sanford’s home in South Carolina when she told him that she was “dealing with a crisis concerning her sick mother.”

Lizza recalled that he and Nuzzi were working on a book together about the 2020 presidential election and made the decision to kill it after she “crossed a journalistic red line.” PEOPLE has reached out to representatives for Sanford, Nuzzi and Lizza for comment.