USA Today said it cut ties with a sports reporter after she criticized Dianna Russini, who resigned from the Athletic following the surfacing of photos of her hugging New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel.
“USA TODAY Sports has ended its contractor relationship with Crissy Froyd effective immediately,” Lark-Marie Antón, a USA Today spokesperson, said in a statement posted to the publication’s X account. “Her recent statements do not reflect our commitment to professionalism or uphold our principles of ethical conduct.”
Russini resigned from the Athletic on Tuesday after the photos, published by Page Six, sparked an internal investigation. The former senior NFL insider said in a letter to executive editor Steven Ginsberg that the controversy presented “self-feeding speculation that is simply unmoored from the facts.”
Froyd, who covers the NFL and college football, celebrated Russini’s resignation on X and suggested Russini was “told to submit this” or would “get fired instead.”
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. We know who you really are and what you’ve been up to for years,” she claimed on X. “It does so much detriment to women in sports who have done things the right way.” (Russini did not respond to an immediate request for comment on Froyd’s claim.)
Froyd did not respond to an immediate request for comment on USA Today’s decision.
“I regret zero of what I said and stand beside it,” Froyd posted on X on Thursday. She said she has “been very transparent and did nothing wrong” and pointed to a column by USA Today sports columnist Nancy Armour that said Russini’s actions “put credibility of all women in sports at risk.”
“Be bold and speak out,” Froyd wrote on X. “Will it make a martyr out of you? Maybe. But some things are worth it and some are not. This was.”
