Cheryl Hines’ husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has denied having an inappropriate “personal relationship” with New York Magazine correspondent Olivia Nuzzi.
“Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece,” a rep for Kennedy, 70, told NBC News on Friday, September 20.
Several hours earlier, New York Magazine published a public apology to its readers and cited that Nuzzi had failed to disclose a “personal relationship” with an unnamed subject she profiled in 2024 election coverage.
“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,” the magazine’s statement read.
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Neither New York Magazine nor Nuzzi publicly named Kennedy, but multiple other outlets including CNN and The New York Times reported that the subject was Kennedy.
In a statement to The Times, Nuzzi revealed that she had “some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal” earlier this year.
“I did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source. The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict,” Nuzzi’s statement added. “I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.”
Kennedy has been married to actress Hines, 58, since 2014. The couple met in 2004 at a celebrity ski fundraiser in Canada benefitting Kennedy’s Waterkeeper Alliance. Kennedy and Hines stayed friends for years. Their dynamic changed in 2010 after Hines finalized her divorce from ex-husband Paul Young. (Hines and Young share daughter Catherine.)
“I saw in the paper that Bobby was going through a divorce, too,” Hines recalled to The Hollywood Reporter in a January profile. “And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. We’re going through the same thing.’”
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The pair commiserated over their respective divorces — Kennedy was previously married to Mary Richardson Kennedy from 1994 to 2012 and Emily Ruth Black from 1982 to 1994 — at that year’s Waterkeeper Alliance ski fundraiser and “something clicked.”
“I saw him through different eyes,” Hines recalled to the magazine. “It was like, ‘Oh, you’re actually handsome.”
She added, “I liked that when we got together, we were from two different worlds. I liked that he wasn’t in the entertainment business. I liked that he was doing environmental law. And the Kennedy aspect? That didn’t seem to matter that much to me because he wasn’t in politics and his family was very warm and welcoming.”
Hines has not publicly addressed Kennedy’s recent scandal. Us Weekly has reached out for comment.
