Exploring Olivia Nuzzi's Short-Lived Music Career

AKA "Livvy"

UPDATE: You can hear Livvy’s “Jailbait” here (c/o X user @/wkbdyb).

UPDATE II: According to a spokesperson for Nuzzi, “This was a satirical prank from when Olivia was a child actor and was never meant to be taken seriously.” So yes, it’s real.

As any hustler will tell you, overnight success usually takes 10+ years. If you can reinvent yourself, you can rewrite your narrative. Mad Men’s Don Draper started as a whore’s son slopping pigs on an Illinois farm. Julia Fox began her career as a downtown art scene jack-of-many-trades. And Olivia Nuzzi was once recording music as little-known pop singer Livvy (the same moniker that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. allegedly used for her).

In 2010, the intrepid future reporter and media scandalmonger was e-mailing outlets like Pop Justice seeking PR coverage of her song “Jailbait” which is about…you know what, just read this:

The actual MP3 appears to be lost to time, though there are ongoing efforts to unearth it. I found the lyrics in their entirety and they include such gems as: “Craving sin, we walk a fine line/A game I win, that word I define/A teenage queen, right in front of you/Illegal dream, killer to pursue.” There are entries for three other songs called “Flatline” “Put U In A Trance” and “Sensation.” It’s giving 2000s Kesha × “Slave 4 U”-era Britney × audible rage-bait. At 16, Nuzzi was attending high school in Middletown Township, New Jersey. Two years later, she was enrolled at Fordham University and poised to date Keith Olbermann — a man 34 years her senior making, per his words, “an f-ton” of money:

Viewed through that lens, “Jailbait” becomes foreshadowing. Who among us had the savvy as college-bound suburban teens to ensnare a sugar daddy in our intended professional field? Not me, that’s for sure. The MySpace music page for Livvy’s been preserved via web archive, and we are enriched as a society for it.

…the bird and the bee, Santigold and La Roux? I’m uncomfortable with the realization that Olivia and I could’ve vibed as teenagers. We might’ve surfed Pitchfork together on the library computers, lamenting negative Goldfrapp and She & Him reviews. Or maybe she would’ve played lacrosse and bullied me on the bus. We’ll never know. If you’re in possession of the “Jailbait” MP3 and/or insights into Ms. Nuzzi’s early creative endeavors, please let me know (rossiferous@gmail.com or respond directly to this e-mail). And yes, I do think her whole…thing merits the kind of coverage that only Gawker 1.0 could deliver. I yearn for the ancient texts…

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One Last Thing

Just making sure everyone’s seen the legendary opening of Coco’s Def Comedy Jam set from 1996:

Coco’s based in Detroit and still works regularly as a stand up. Book her or follow her work via Instagram.

OK thanks bye!