Richard Bradley (born Richard Blow; 1964) is an American writer and journalist.
Bradley graduated from Yale University in 1986, and began working at The New Republic in Washington, D.C., followed by Regardie's magazine. He thereafter earned a master's degree in American history from Harvard University. Bradley returned to Regardie's in 1992 as editor-in-chief, and became one of the original editors of George magazine in 1995.
His first book, American Son, about John F. Kennedy Jr. and George magazine, was a nonfiction bestseller, reaching #1 on the nonfiction New York Times Bestseller List. The book generated controversy because Bradley violated a confidentiality agreement by writing it.GQ magazine remarked that the book “oozed necrophilia,” and as David Carr recounted in The New York Times, “'Richard Blow' became a synonym for New York publishing ambition, the very portrait of a man who saw his chance and took it. Some critics noted that Mr. Bradley fired two George writers, Lisa DePaulo and Douglas Brinkley, for speaking to the press about their infinitely famous boss after Mr. Kennedy's death in 1999, and then turned around to write his own account.”
He changed his surname from Blow to Bradley (his mother's maiden name) prior to releasing his second book in 2005, Harvard Rules, about Harvard president Lawrence Summers. His 2008 book The Greatest Game is about the one-game playoff between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox on October 2, 1978.
In 2008, Bradley was named editor-in-chief for the 2009 re-launch of Worth magazine.
In November 2014, recalling his prior involvement with noted fabricator Stephen Glass while at George, Bradley was one of the first serious journalists to question the gang-rape story related in the December 2014 Rolling Stone article A Rape on Campus.