D.C.’s Scuzziest Media Scandal Marches Toward Its Inevitable Conclusion

Politics reporter Olivia Nuzzi is out at New York Magazine, a month after news broke about an improper relationship between Nuzzi and presidential candidate and all-out weirdo Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Since that news, first reported by Oliver Darcy in his Status newsletter, every new revelation has gotten seedier and uglier than the last. There are reports of leaked nude photos and hacked phones, restraining order claims and counterclaims from Nuzzi and ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza of Politico, and more.

Now, New York released a statement on its site explaining that the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine was hired to independently investigate Nuzzi’s work and found no evidence of inaccuracies or bias. Still, given, well, everything, “the magazine and Nuzzi agreed that the best course forward is to part ways.”

All this means is that we lurch ever closer to what feels like a foregone conclusion: Nuzzi getting hired at Bari Weiss’s publication The Free Press, or going on some sort of “I’ve been canceled” tour, or generally cashing in on the self-inflicted scandal in ways that will make all the struggling journalists out there who manage to not sext their sources reach for the whiskey.

“Nuzzi is a uniquely talented writer [ed. note: debatable] and we have been proud to publish her work over her nearly eight years as our Washington Correspondent,” the New York statement read. “We wish her the best.”