"Vanity Fair is parting ways with West Coast editor Olivia Nuzzi amid ongoing controversy over her relationship with profile subject Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while she was the Washington correspondent for New York magazine. A joint statement Friday from the magazine and Nuzzi said that they "have mutually agreed, in the best interest of the magazine, to let her contract expire at the end of the year." She had been hired as its West Coast editor in September."
"She reflected on their relationship and the fallout from it in the memoir "American Canto," which refers to Kennedy as "The Politician" and ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza as "the man I did not marry." It was excerpted in Vanity Fair but competed for attention with a series of Substack posts by Lizza that contained embarrassing allegations. Their feud quickly gripped media insiders as Lizza alleged that Nuzzi had an affair with another profile subject and had given Kennedy political advice, both considered off limits for journalists."
"Lizza even posted salacious, cringeworthy text messages from Kennedy to Nuzzi that he had intercepted. Nuzzi denounced her ex-fiance's posts, in a Substack interview with Emily Sundberg, as "fiction-slash-revenge porn." Friday's announcement came only days after the publication of "American Canto," disdained by critics and apparently of little interest to the reading public. The book ranked just 6,094 on Amazon.com's bestseller list as of Friday afternoon. Critics were harsh: "A tell-all memoir? Ha. This is a tell-nothing memoir," wrote Helen Lewis."
Vanity Fair and Olivia Nuzzi have mutually agreed to let her contract expire at the end of the year. Nuzzi was hired as West Coast editor in September after previously working as Washington correspondent for New York magazine. Nuzzi had an intense personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while profiling him; New York fired her for failing to disclose the relationship. Nuzzi recounted their relationship in the memoir American Canto, which refers to Kennedy as "The Politician" and included excerpts in Vanity Fair. Former fiancé Ryan Lizza posted Substack allegations and intercepted texts, prompting public controversy and harsh critical reaction to the memoir.
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