Olivia Nuzzi's Reported Affair Partner Before RFK Jr. Inspired A Wild TV Character

If Olivia Nuzzi had a penny for every time she was rumored to have had an affair with a questionable public figure, she would have two pennies. Although that isn't a lot, it's still weird that it's happened twice. Shortly before Olivia Nuzzi became known as the woman at the center of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s affair scandal, she had a reported dalliance with Mark Sanford. The former South Carolina congressman was such a controversial politician that he even inspired a character on "Parks and Recreation," the beloved TV show that Chris Pratt thought would be cancelled after just one episode. Speaking on "Pablo Torre Finds Out," in November 2025, the popular sitcom's creator, Mike Schur, confirmed that Sanford had indeed served as the muse for the character of Councilman Bill Dexhart. 

As he explained, "[Dexhart] was based entirely on Sanford, who at the time we thought was the funniest version of those guys because the lie was so outrageous and just so egregious." They cast Kevin Symons to play the fictional politician because he bore such an uncanny resemblance to Sanford. The fictional politician was a notorious figure who consistently got into sex scandals and then brazenly told the public outrageous lies to make up for it. 

Meanwhile, Dexhart's real-life counterpart was embroiled in his own high-profile sex scandal. Amid a headline-making, days-long disappearance from the public eye in June 2009, Sanford's staff claimed he had randomly decided to hike the Appalachian Trail in Argentina. However, when The State caught him at an Atlanta airport, Sanford reasoned that he'd abandoned his trek for a more "exotic" pursuit, aka a mistress (via The Guardian).

Mark Sanford is one of the many politicians with a strange past of age gap relationships and affairs. Appearing at a press conference just days after his mysterious disappearance, the South Carolina congressman revealed that he'd engaged in an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman. Sanford only dug himself into a deeper hole by making a candid admission to the Associated Press shortly afterward. "There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn't have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line," he confessed. To add more salt to the wounds of the controversial politician's then-wife of 20 years, Sanford referred to his mistress as his "soulmate." 

Later, we learned the mysterious woman in question was Maria Belen Chapur, a journalist who was notably 11 years the former congressman's junior. Ultimately, the Republican signed off on his divorce papers in 2010 and then popped the question to Chapur in 2012. However, their relationship didn't stand the test of time either, and the couple parted ways in 2014. In 2020, he fell for Olivia Nuzzi, another prominent reporter who was significantly younger than him. 

In a post for Telos News, Nuzzi's ex-fiancée, Ryan Lizza, disclosed that she had told him that she had become "infatuated" with Sanford, who was 32 years her senior, after interviewing him for a profile in 2020. After sending the congressman several NSFW texts, she apparently flew down to his South Carolina home to start their physical relationship. Sadly, Lizza learned of the affair after discovering risqué love notes Nuzzi had written to the controversial politician.