In a post 2016 world, we’re all sort of numb to scandal, but things just keep getting goofier. Last night, two separate sex scandals, both adjacent to the 2024 election, broke around the same time. One involves New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi and one-time-candidate/perennial bug man Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the other, North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.
Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr.’s Unethical Tryst
New York Magazine dropped a bombshell late Thursday, announcing to the world that Nuzzi, its Washington Correspondent, had admitted to editors that she had engaged in a “personal relationship” with a “former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign.”
“She is currently on leave from the magazine, and the magazine is conducting a more thorough third-party review. We regret this violation of our readers’ trust,” says the public statement made by New York Magazine
What did this personal relationship entail? Sexting, according to a source from The New York Post. In journalism, this isn’t a tricky grey area, it’s straight up unethical. Nuzzi wrote a profile about RFK Jr. in November of 2023. Around this time, Nuzzi and RFK Jr. spent a lot of time together in his Brentwood, California home and in and around Santa Monica. To her credit, Nuzzi did come clean to her editors. Not to her credit: the hypocrisy surrounding the whole situation.
In a 2015 piece, Nuzzi slammed Hollywood for constantly portraying the trope of female journalists sleeping with sources. Like The Dark Knight taught us, “You either die Olivia Nuzzi, or you live long enough to become Olivia Nuzzi.”
Or something like that.
I do feel for Nuzzi. RFK Jr. may not have the sheen of his father or his uncle John, but he’s still a Kennedy. Whether it’s one of his engrossing chats about the dangers of vaccines, or that time he was covered in bugs, the guy oozes a raw, sexual charisma that’s frankly fairly hard to resist.
And then there’s that voice! I could see myself risking it all. I could see anyone risking it all.
Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson Probably Wishes He Deleted His Internet History
This one’s a doozy. Annoyingly, the scandal revolving Republican North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson has more twists and turns than the first season of True Detective.
A CNN KFile investigation found that Robinson had made some fairly unhinged posts more than a decade ago on the porn site Nude Africa. This is Playboy, and we’re not against porn comments as long as they’re respectful, or at the very least, provide constructive criticism. Robinson’s were out there, to say the least.
In one post, he refers to himself as a “Black Nazi.” Egregious, but after making a career of being anti-trans, would it surprise you to know that he’s a big fan of transgender porn?
Every. Fucking. Time.
The comments were made between 2008 and 2012 under the username minisoldr, a handle Robinson has used frequently in online circles. Not great, but his Nude Africa profile uses his full name, as well as his email address. Other comments had Robinson praising Hitler, smack talking Martin Luther King, and admitting to peeping on girls in a public shower at the age of 14.
In a pre-Trump world, even one of these revelations would be enough to sink a campaign. But, because we live in the Devil’s Domain, Robinson is determined to stay in the race. In fact, he even took to X to deny the allegations, despite his digital fingerprints being all over them.
Could he still win? Will the party force him out to save its own skin? Who knows. It’s not even October yet, and the sex scandals are just getting more and more awful.
It’s not fun anymore!