RFK Jr. Didn’t Actually Have A Brain Worm, Olivia Nuzzi Writes In New Book

The now-health secretary reassured the journalist that doctors had confirmed the shadowy figure in his brain was not a worm.

Olivia Nuzzi, the political journalist who left her job at New York Magazine over her relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., details in her new book her distaste for any jokes about Kennedy’s brain worm.

In the excerpt from “American Canto” shared with Vanity Fair, Nuzzi, who only refers to Kennedy as the Politician and not by name, writes that she did not like to think about the worm in Kennedy’s brain and that sometimes he would joke about it with her. But she adds that he told her there wasn’t actually a worm in his brain.

“He made me laugh, but I winced when he joked about the worm,” Nuzzi writes. ”‘Baby, don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s not a worm.’ A doctor he trusted had reviewed the scans of his brain obtained by The New York Times, he said, and concluded that the shadowy figure was likely not a parasite at all. He sighed. It was too late to interfere with what had already vaulted from the sphere of meme to the sphere of screwy legend, but at least I did not have to worry about the worm that was not a worm in his brain.”

In a 2012 deposition reviewed by The New York Times, Kennedy said he had brain scans done after experiencing memory loss. While one doctor thought it was a tumor in his brain, another doctor told him there was a dead parasite in his brain. The doctor said the dark spot that showed up in the brain scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Kennedy said in the deposition.

In October 2024, Nuzzi and New York Magazine parted ways after it was revealed that she had a “personal relationship” with Kennedy, who is now the secretary of health and human services under President Donald Trump. The two reportedly began their relationship after Nuzzi wrote a profile on Kennedy that Kennedy at the time called a “hit piece.”