***WARING: The following article contains graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised.***
Brittany Romano, a self-described freelance journalist covering the Lindsay Clancy murder trial in Mᴀssachusetts, said she is receiving death threats after a video appeared to show her smiling and winking at a camera during court proceedings.

TMZ reported that Romano — who, according to her website, is “an NYC-based editor” — was removed from her Vanity Fair ᴀssignment due to the footage.

Romano, who reportedly said she grew up with Clancy, appeared to be standing in the courtroom gallery when she was captured smiling and winking on camera.

The video spread online and drew criticism because the trial is centered around the murders of Clancy’s three children.

Romano later took to Instagram to defend herself.

“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,” Romano wrote in an Instagram post that featured multiple slides.
“I live with my own mental health struggles,” she added in one of the slides.”
Romano said she’s been told she should issue an apology. She also said she’s received death threats, adding that others have urged her to kill herself.

“I have nothing to apologize for. What I have actually received are message telling me to slit my wrists, threats to kill me in my sleep, and a resource of ways to kill myself, sent by people who claim they are defending Lindsay’s mental health,” Romano wrote. “If you actually believed a woman’s mental health mattered, you would not hand another woman a method, you would not treat suicide as a punishment, and you would not claim to protect one woman’s humanity while stripping another woman of hers.”
Romano also reportedly said her father had told her to smile more when she appeared on television and that she was playing to the camera for him.

According to TMZ, a spokesperson for Condé Nast, which is Vanity Fair’s parent company, said the publication had been considering a personal essay by Romano about her connection to Clancy.

The company said it decided not to move forward with the piece after what it described as conflicts with its editorial standards and processes, per TMZ. It also notified the court that Romano was no longer credentialed by Vanity Fair, the media outlet noted.

Romano disputed the report.

“I am a credentialed, freelance journalist, and Vanity Fair allegedly told TMZ they revoked my access over the smile, which is absurd, since I never had a contract with them for a piece to begin with,” Romano wrote on Instagram.”

Clancy has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges stemming from the January 2023 deaths of her three children. Her lawyers argue she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors contend she was criminally responsible.