New England Patriots
“This was a runaway train, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
Ahead of the debut of her new weekly football show on BetUS, NFL reporter Dianna Russini discussed what the past six months have been like for her after photos of her and Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel went viral.
“The best way to describe what the last six months were like for me is heartbreaking,” Russini said in an exclusive story for People magazine. “At the beginning of this, it was a nightmare.”
Russini did not acknowledge Vrabel by name as part of her interview with People, or shed any light on the nature of her relationship with the Patriots head coach.
But she said both she and her husband deleted their social media accounts to escape the regular news cycle during the spring.
“The lies became so out of control,” Russini told People. “This was a runaway train, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Once we realized nothing was going to stop this, it became unhealthy for us to read it because it wasn’t helping us heal. It was piling on and adding to what we were already dealing with.”
Vrabel and Russini’s relationship became one of the top storylines of the NFL offseason, with both Vrabel and Russini, who are married to other people, initially pushing back against those initial photos released by Page Six — which featured the pair interlocking fingers and embracing at a resort in Sedona, Arizona.
“These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable,” Vrabel said in April. “This doesn’t deserve any further response.”
But Vrabel later admitted that he ‘failed to ‘meet the standard that I hold myself to’ while meeting with the media later that month — shortly after Page Six released a new batch of photos that showed Vrabel and Russini appearing to kiss at a New York City bar in 2020.
Vrabel ultimately skipped Day 3 of the NFL Draft in April in order to seek counseling with his family.
Russini stepped down from her role at The Athletic less than a week after those first photos were initially published. In September, The Athletic released the findings of an investigation regarding Russini — noting that her relationship with Vrabel was “a violation of company policy” and that it should have been disclosed.
“One of the hard parts about this was that a lot of the work I was doing and the things that I’ve accomplished got lost,” Russini told People. “It quickly went from just one moment that people felt was true, and erased years of work.”
Russini is now set to launch “The Russini Report,” a one-hour NFL show that will air every Wednesday on BetUS TV’s website and on X at noon. According to People, her first two guests will be Pro Football Hall of Famer Bill Parcells and radio personality Damon Amendolara.
She will also write an accompanying column to the BetUs TV series, while also making appearances on the “Nobody’s Safe” podcast with sports radio host Jon Weiner.
“The way I’m going to approach stories is going to be very different now,” Russini said. “I have an understanding and an empathy that I didn’t have before. I would do stories in the past at the best of my ability, and sometimes now I reflect on those, and I don’t know if I always thought about how much this would affect not just the player, but a team, an organization, the players’ families.”
“Now that I’ve been in the center of this attention and understanding that this wasn’t just something that shook me, it affected my 94-year-old grandmother, my cousins, family members I haven’t even spoken to in years,” she adds. “It just had a really lasting effect, and I don’t necessarily know if I ever really thought about that as much as I should.”
For Russini, getting back to work and focusing on football offers a chance at a fresh start after an eventful spring and summer.
“I really hope that I can be someone other women see: you can pick yourself up, get back in there and not be afraid,” Russini told People. “Because if you just do the work — and I hope to continue working at a high level — that’s all that’s going to matter. And I hope that quiets the noise.”
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