‘Green Dress Lady’ speaks out after backlash over smiling at Lindsay Clancy trial
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide and the death of children, which some readers may find distressing.
A reporter who was seen smiling into the camera during the Lindsay Clancy trial has spoken out following a backlash which saw her lose her job.
The Clancy trial, which is currently in its third week, has made headlines across the globe.
The former nurse is standing trial over the deaths of her three children - Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan - in January 2023.
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Her defence team do not deny that Clancy killed the three infants, but have argued that she was not criminally responsible as she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and severe mental illness at the time.
The prosecution have alleged that Clancy planned the killings.
On Monday (24 August), the trial resumed after the defence rested its case on Friday.
During a CourtTV livestream the camera panned across a row of journalists in the gallery of the courtroom, who largely wore sombre expressions on their faces apart from reporter Brittany Romano, who was wearing a green dress and flashed a large smile and appeared to wink into the camera as it swept past.
The clip showing Romano's smile quickly went viral on social media with people questioning why she appeared to be so upbeat ahead of the trial, which has heard harrowing testimony from witnesses.
It was later reported that Romano had been working on a piece for Vanity Fair, but after the clip went viral the publication was quick to distance itself.
In a statement to the New York Post, Vanity Fair said: “We were interested in the prospect of a personal essay by Brittany Romano about her experience growing up with Lindsay Clancy.
“Yesterday, after clear conflicts with our editorial standards and processes, we informed Romano that we were not moving forward with her essay and informed the court that she is no longer credentialed by Vanity Fair.”
Now the reporter has responded to the backlash on Instagram, where she said ‘a smile is not a crime, telling a woman to slit her wrists is’.
In a long statement, split across several shots in a carousel, she wrote: "I smile through anxiety. I smile when I'm uncomfortable. That is not indifference, it is a nervous system managing strain the only way it knows how."
She also said other members of the press had been smiling in the clip but that she was singled out for smiling for ‘three seconds’.
Romano said she had ‘fought for two years to cover the Lindsay Clancy case honestly’ and wanted to centre the piece on women’s mental health.
“I have been told, repeatedly, to take accountability and apologise, when I have nothing to apologise for,” she continued.
Romano then went on to highlight some of the horrific messages she had received telling her to kill herself sent by people ‘who claim they are defending Lindsay's mental health’.
She finished by urging people to focus on the case, the verdict, and the family involved but to ‘leave [her] expression out of it’.
Claire Reid