Olivia Nuzzi is no stranger to controversy. The ex-New York magazine reporter became notorious in the 2024 scandal over her alleged sexting affair with a presidential candidate she was writing about — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the Secretary of Health. It looked like the end of her journalism career, yet she landed on her feet with her new gig at Vanity Fair and her new memoir American Canto. But now Nuzzi’s story is taking an even more bizarre turn, with reports that she once had a secret life — as an aspiring teenage pop star, under the name Livvy. In 2009 when she was 16, she dropped a faux-Britney banger called “Jailbait.”
Subtle, it’s not. “16 will get you 20,” Livvy sings. “A teenage queen right in front of you/Illegal dream, killer to pursue.” She pants about “craving sin,” over the synth-disco beats, boasting, “Bad things happen when you hear my name/Deny your attraction but I’ve got no shame.” In the chorus she belts, “Jailbait! You try too stay away, but you can’t obey!”
Yes, the song is ghastly, much worse than you’d expect. Is it real? Too soon to tell. Is this whole story crazy? No doubt. So let’s dig into the bizarre mystery of that insanely bad, quite possibly fake Olivia Nuzzi song.
You have to take Livvy with a grain of salt, since this story is so sketchily sourced, even the New York Post had a spasm of conscience and put “apparently” in the lede. (And this from the paper that just gave us the instant-classic headline “The Red Apple” after Zohran Mamdani’s election, with the tag, “On your Marx, get set, Zo!”) Nuzzi made a strangely equivocal statement to the Post, with her spokesperson saying, “This was a satirical prank from when Olivia was a child actor and was never meant to be taken seriously.”
On her supposed MySpace profile, from 2009, she’s glammed up in the style of an American Apparel ad: purple headband, black bracelets, tank dress, thigh-high boots. Another photo shows her in a white lace chemise over a black bra and leather pants, with a pair of handcuffs dangling from her wrist. She describes herself as “a visual, conceptual artist with an addiction to pop music.”
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Any trace of Livvy has been wiped from the internet — the only digital footprint is an item in the music blog PopJustice, from February 2010. “‘Jailbait’ is about the role of the underaged, hyper-sexualized girl in society,” Livvy explains. “That girl who takes half naked photos of herself in the mirror with her camera phone. It’s about pornographic ideals infiltrating our collective consciousness — this obsession with youth and beauty. I’m not saying that any of this is wrong, I’m simply stating that it is. This song is me coming to a societal realization.”
The MySpace page is a hell of an artistic manifesto, explaining the whole Livvy concept. “Creating a multi-media character for herself, Livvy has dreamed up ‘Emockative: the Life of a Pop Object,’ a short film series shot on the streets of downtown New York City.” She portrays “the life of a loyal disciple of pop culture who has given up conventional life and engulfed herself in a world made of plastic.”
There’s excellent reason to have doubts about how real this is. The recording doesn’t exactly scream “2009” at you (no AutoTune!) and it sounds like a post-collegiate adult singing. The Livvy photos look more like a Real Housewife than a ninth-grader. Listen to a song made by an actual teenager in that era, like Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” and it sounds out of time.
Nobody can say for sure how authentic this is, since it’s incredibly easy to make up a hoax like this. You could invent the Livvy character in a coffee break, with an AI track and faked screen shots from a conveniently deleted MySpace. (No Livvy Twitter — in 2009? Dubious.) In a blindfold test, you’d have to admit, you would not guess “Jailbait” was by an authentic teenager. You’d figure it was a comedy-minded adult trying to do a ham-fisted sketch about sexed-up teen-pop stars. I mean, this was almost a decade after Andy Dick was on MTV with his brilliant Britney/Xtina parody character Daphne Aguilera. “Jailbait” sounds exactly like Daphne’s TRL anthem, “Naughty Baby Did a No-No.”
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“Jailbait” is purportedly from late 2009 or early 2010, taking a ride on a disco stick, heavily influenced by Lady Gaga (the year’s big breakout artist, with hits like “Poker Face” and “LoveGame”) and Britney (in her Circus era, with “Womanizer,” “3,” and “If U Seek Amy”). PopJustice quips that she “makes Ke$ha sound sentient. If this were a NYC wanna-be club kid making her own single at the end of the 2000s, you might expect to hear the influence of LaRoux (“Bulletproof”) or the Ting Tings (“That’s Not My Name”) or the Knife (“Heartbeat”), the music playing in the parties she was fantasizing about getting into, though there’s no trace on “Jailbait.” The music sounds like a terrible Brooklyn electro indie-sleaze band opening for Crystal Castles or Yachts at Studio B, then rushing home to make sure the Tivo caught Gossip Girl.
The PopJustice piece doesn’t interview Livvy, and makes no claim to verify her identity. It just quotes the email she sent them. “‘Offensive,’ ‘vapid,’ ‘frothy,’ ‘bubblegum,’ ‘outrageous,’ ‘morally bankrupt’ and ‘undeniably infectious’,” she wrote. “These are just some of the words that have been used to describe ‘Jailbait,’ and the not-yet-legal mind behind it, sixteen year old singer/songwriter, Livvy.”
“Jailbait” seems to prophesize her future persona, which has been well-documented in the gossip columns. Nuzzi was profiling Kennedy for New York when their alleged sextingship began, during his ridiculous presidential campaign, which led to his current gig as Secretary of Health, at which he sucks. She was 31, he was 71 and married to Cheryl Hines (yes, Larry David’s ex). Kennedy denied the whole thing, but Hines has a new memoir discussing the scandal. Meanwhile, Nuzzi has her own memoir American Canto, with her poetic musings on their bad romance. “He desired,” she writes. “He desired desiring. He desired being desired. He desired desire itself.” Oh, it goes on.
“Jailbait” also seems to prefigure her alleged relationships with TV journalist Keith Olbermann, who met her in her teens and put her through college, and disgraced South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, most famous for disappearing on the job and showing up a week later in Buenos Aires with his side squeeze. “Jailbait” seems to foreshadow the gossip when Livvy sings, “Bad things happen to those who prey/A basic instinct to die another day/16 will get you 20, lust criminally/Irresistible, that’s whey they call me…jailbait!”
On her MySpace page, she compares herself to legends from all over pop history. “The day that Madonna released ‘Erotica.’ The day that Andy Warhol made his first film. The day that Freddie Mercury sang his last note. The day that Judy Garland conceived Liza Minnelli. The day that Britney Spears told you to hit it one more time. The day that Cher first met a sequin. The day that Candy Darling took her last breath. The day that Mick Jagger first strut across a stage. The day that Pamela Anderson was introduced to silicone. The day that David Bowie sang ‘Lady Stardust.’ The day that Michael Jackson first slipped on a white glove… was the day that Livvy was born.”
So who is she? “Livvy is a sixteen year old singer, songwriter and actress. A former Wilhelmina model, she has appeared in various commercials, films, television programs and print ads since her start in the business at the age of five. Influenced by pop stars, rock stars, rap stars, movie stars and tabloid stars – Livvy is prepared to explode onto the music scene and dominate the pop world.”
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LIVVY is a pop chorus.
LIVVY is a rock ballad.
LIVVY is a hip hop beat.
LIVY is the past.
LIVVY is the future.
LIVVY is now… and she’s about to blow your mind.
Pop gave me life
Olivia Nuzzi definitely went on to fame, though maybe not the kind she was aiming for as a teenage pop star or actress. We may never learn who exactly Livvy is or where she came from. But for Nuzzi, who knows — it just might be a career highlight.
