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.”In Nuzzi’s book, which comes out next month, she writes that the worm inside Kennedy’s brain — something that became a meme and easy late-night joke — wasn’t something she liked to think about, even though others found it “so funny.”“I loved his brain,” Nuzzi writes. “I hated the idea of an intruder therein. Others thought he was a madman; he was not quite mad the way they thought, but I loved the private ways that he was mad. I loved that he was insatiable in all ways, as if he would swallow up the whole world just to know it better if he could.”Other details about Nuzzi and Kennedy’s relationship have emerged. In a New York Times profile published Friday, it was revealed that Kennedy told Nuzzi he wanted her to have his baby and that he’d take a bullet for her. In other parts of the excerpt shared with Vanity Fair, Nuzzi writes about fleeing to the West Coast after the relationship becomes public. She writes that paparazzi reached out to her, asking to photograph her in exchange for her having control over her image.Nuzzi, who told The New York Times that she hasn’t spoken to Kennedy in more than a year, was engaged to another journalist during the time of the alleged sexting scandal. They are no longer a couple. Kennedy was and still is married to actor Cheryl Hines, who has her own book out now, “Unscripted.” HuffPost has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment. Kennedy has previously denied having a romantic relationship with Nuzzi. Close