Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy would have no problem hiring Dianna Russini after the fallout surrounding her alleged relationship with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel.
“No-brainer, if she wanted to work here, we’d do it,” Portnoy, 49, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting his memoir, Cancel Me If You Can, which was released Tuesday, June 30.
Russini, 43, resigned from her job as The Athletic’s senior NFL insider in April after photos emerged of her and Vrabel, 50, together at an Arizona resort. Russini and Vrabel were seen in subsequently published photos and videos dating back as far as March 2020, when they were photographed kissing at a New York City bar.
Vrabel has been married to his wife, Jen, since 1999. Russini married her husband, Kevin Goldschmidt, in September 2020.
While Portnoy acknowledged the optics of Russini’s relationship with Vrabel are “bad,” he also argued “an affair is not like a murder.”
Russini has never publicly admitted to having anything other than a professional relationship with Vrabel. Similarly, Vrabel has also never explicitly confirmed they had an affair.
“She’ll land somewhere, and you know, if people who have affairs are never allowed to work again in this country, you’re gonna lose a significant amount of the workforce,” Portnoy added. “It is obviously really sad, but at the same time, that’s not like a capital offense that should end somebody’s professional career.”
The New York Times reported on June 24 that Russini called herself “a former reporter” when texted about a potential interview. “This has had a significant impact on my life, both professionally and personally,” she told the Times.
An investigation into Russini’s professional conduct by her former employer remains ongoing.
“It’s going to take a few more weeks,” senior editor Steven Ginsberg told staff members on June 7, according to Page Six. “There’s just a lot to go through, and we obviously want to take our time and be careful doing that. We will update everybody when we get to the end of that. We’ve also said that if we find anything that needs to be corrected, we will correct it along the way.”
The Athletic launched their investigation on April 11, four days after the first photos of Russini and Vrabel were published.
In her resignation letter, Russini said she had “covered the NFL with professionalism and dedication throughout my career.”
“Moreover, this media frenzy is hurtling forward without regard for the review process The Athletic is trying to complete,” she wrote. “It continues to escalate, fueled by repeated leaks, and I have no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept.”
Russini added, “Rather than allowing this to continue, I have decided to step aside now — before my current contract expires on June 30. I do so not because I accept the narrative that has been constructed around this episode, but because I refuse to lend it further oxygen or to let it define me or my career.”
When it comes to Portnoy’s latest career move, he told Us that the idea for his book was born out of something very specific.
“I never really thought about books, but for some reason the thought — and it’s probably due to my age — but the thought of walking in an airport and seeing my book on a window or my book in a little bookstore appealed to me,” he explained. “I don’t think I knew how much work it would end up being, and I probably wouldn’t have agreed to do it again if I had to start over.”
He continued, “I’m glad I did it. It’s a pretty good memoir of a pretty crazy story, but yeah, I really think the end product appealed to me. It’s something we’ve never done. We’ve done a lot of other things, but books? Never. For whatever reason it captured my attention when it was brought to me.”
Cancel Me If You Can is available now wherever books are sold.
