Dianna Russini, the former NFL insider for The Athletic who resigned in April amid revelations about her relationship with Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, announced Monday that she is returning to sports media with a new podcast called “The Russini Report,” produced for the offshore gambling company BetUS. The show will air weekly on Wednesdays.
The announcement came alongside Russini’s first interview since her resignation, published by People magazine, in which she described the past several months as painful but did not address the underlying facts of the scandal.
“The best way to describe what the last six months were like for me is heartbreaking,” Russini told People. “At the beginning of this, it was a nightmare.”
She went on to describe what she called an uncontrollable spread of false claims. “The lies became so out of control,” Russini said. “This was a runaway train, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Once [my husband and I] 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.”
Russini did not specify what statements she considered false, who made them, or what she says actually happened.
What The Athletic Found
The scandal began in April when Page Six published photographs showing Russini alone with Vrabel at an adults-only resort in Arizona. Russini initially said the encounter was a coincidence, telling associates she had run into Vrabel while on a hiking trip with female friends. She has not released photographs or other documentation supporting that account.
Additional photographs later surfaced showing Russini and Vrabel together over a span of at least seven years, dating back to her time covering the NFL for ESPN. Among them were images reportedly obtained by TMZ showing documents of a private boat rental by the two in Tennessee in June 2021, when Russini was roughly seven months pregnant with her first child. Other photographs reportedly show the pair in New York City six years ago.
Following an internal review, The Athletic concluded that Russini’s conduct violated the outlet’s ethics standards. “Russini’s relationship with Vrabel was in clear violation of The Athletic’s standards,” the outlet’s Mike Semel said in August. “Regardless of whether the relationship was romantic, it was a breach and should have been disclosed.”
In her resignation letter, Russini wrote that while The Athletic had initially supported her, media speculation afterward became “unmoored from the facts.” She said the coverage was “hurtling forward without regard for the review process The Athletic is trying to complete” and stated she had “no interest in submitting to a public inquiry.”
A New Chapter, Same Questions
Russini has since hired crisis manager Melissa Nathan, who has also represented actress Blake Lively. In the People interview, Russini said she hopes to serve as an example for other women in the industry.
“I really hope that I can be someone other women see: you can pick yourself up, get back in there and not be afraid,” she said. “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.”
Russini did not respond, in the published interview, to questions about the specific photographs, the Tennessee boat trip, or whether she disclosed her relationship with Vrabel to editors before reporting on his team’s personnel decisions, including its interest in receiver AJ Brown.
Her new podcast marks her first return to sports media work since the resignation. BetUS, the company backing the show, is not licensed to operate in any U.S. state.
