Crissy Froyd says she has changed locations multiple times because she no longer felt safe after speaking out about Dianna Russini and Mike Vrabel. On the Mike Drop podcast with Mike J. Asti, Froyd said keeping people guessing about where she was had become part of staying protected.
That account is drawing fresh attention now because Froyd says the backlash did not stop at criticism online. She lost a freelance position at, and she described the experience as leaving her with a constant undercurrent of anxiety. For readers following the Dianna Russini story, that makes the dispute look less like a fleeting media flap and more like something with a personal cost that has lasted well beyond the first wave of posts and photos.
The sequence behind it started in April, when photos published on April 7 showed Russini and Vrabel together at a resort in Sedona, Arizona. Additional images later surfaced showing them allegedly kissing at a New York City bar in March 2020, while TMZ separately reported on a private boat trip in Putnam County, Tennessee, in June 2021 that involved Russini being visibly pregnant. Russini resigned from The Athletic on April 14, and Vrabel later stepped away from the Patriots on the third day of the 2026 NFL Draft to seek counseling with his family.
Froyd said she expected other reporters to speak up with her, but mostly found herself alone. She said major outlets have not said much about either Russini or Vrabel, while The Athletic remains in the middle of an internal investigation. That leaves the biggest unanswered question where it has been for weeks: whether the review produces anything public, or whether the matter simply fades while the personal fallout stays with the people who chose to talk.
Froyd, who also announced she is going to law school for criminal defense, has now become part of the story she criticized. Her remarks suggest the price of speaking out in this case has been more than professional blowback, and the investigation still underway is the only formal process left that might explain how much of the damage was ever contained.
