"Tell Tom Brady I'm Sorry." Q&A With the DeflateGate Courtroom Sketch Artist

Jane Rosenberg has been a courtroom sketch artist for decades, having drawn scenes from high profile cases such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as well as others involving celebrities such as Woody Allen, Martha Stewart, and John Gotti.

On Wednesday, she was tasked to do courtroom sketches for Wednesday's settlement hearing in the ongoing #deflategate saga. Her sketch of Tom Brady in the courtroom went viral almost instantly, and not all of the attention was flattering. Many people on social media criticized her depiction of the quarterback. VICE Sports spoke to her over the phone as she was leaving the courthouse and first experiencing the bizarre whirlwind of everything that comes with her painstaking work being turned into a viral meme. It was yet another bit of nonsense from a whole case full of nonsense. Rosenberg was just doing her job and certainly wasn't looking for the attention.

Rosenberg seemed a bit flustered on the phone as she was dealing with having unexpectedly become part of the day's news.

What kind of response have you seen to the sketch so far?

Well I haven't seen any. People are emailing me and calling me and trying to interview me. I don't do Twitter or Facebook so social media is not my thing. But obviously it's gone viral. Some people are like sending me snippets though––things, complaints, that I made him look like Lurch or whatever. Tell Tom Brady, I'm sorry. He's a very good looking guy and if I didn't make him look good enough, I'll try harder next time.

When you are doing the sketches, how realistic do you try to make it look? And how much are you just trying to capture a mood?

I'm working very quickly. Obviously I have a lot of pressure on me, and it's time pressure. It's lucky if I have a few minutes. So I'm just trying to grab onto something, just as quick as I can. Now, this Tom Brady thing, I did this whole wide shot with a million people in it. And everybody's focusing on that one little fraction of the whole picture, of Tom Brady. But it's really a big wide composition. There's a lot of people and the whole courtroom in it.

When you have a case like this with a highly recognizable person, do you feel any more pressure?

Yes, I do. I do feel more pressure. It's horrible. You hate that. Especially when they're good looking, that's the worst. I'd rather do famous terrorists or something.

Do you plan on looking up any of the reaction when you get home?

I don't know. I don't do Twitter. I don't even know if I could. I don't know how I'm going to see it all. I'm sure it's horrible. Maybe I'll be depressed tomorrow, who knows? Right now I'm not reacting.

Does it bother you if people are making fun of it or anything like that?

Does it bother me, people making fun of me? I don't know. It hasn't sunk in yet. I might be very depressed. I'm my biggest critic, myself. So I feel terrible when I do a bad sketch. So when the whole world is criticizing me, I might just kill myself. Or I might just laugh it off. Who knows?