Patrick Clancy broke three years of silence to sit down with 60 Minutes alongside his new wife, and CBS says neither of them received a dime, a denial that has done little to quiet critics online.
Clancy, the ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy, who strangled the couple's three children inside their Massachusetts home in January 2023, appeared on CBS's flagship newsmagazine on Sunday with Dr. Rachel Danis, his new wife. It was the first time Clancy had spoken to the press since the deaths of five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan.
A CBS News spokesperson told The U.S. Sun that claims the network paid Clancy or Danis for the interview were "false." The network has a long-standing policy against paying interview subjects, though it has acknowledged covering travel and lodging costs in certain cases.
That policy drew public attention in 2018, when adult-film actress Stormy Daniels chose 60 Minutes over competing outlets partly because CBS would not pay her, a fact she used to bolster her credibility when detailing an alleged 2006 encounter with Donald Trump. CBS has previously published explanations of its cost-covering practices, distinguishing between reimbursing a subject's expenses and cutting a check for the interview itself.
The interview itself was devastating in its detail. Clancy described the final days of his youngest son's life. Baby Callan, just eight months old, was airlifted to Boston Children's Hospital after the attack. Doctors briefly restored his heartbeat. The New York Post reported that the infant survived four days before dying in Clancy's arms.
Clancy recalled the desperate hope he carried through those days in the hospital:
"I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live. And I, I remember just thinking, Just gimme one. Just gimme one kid, and I would raise him as best I could."
The Washington Examiner noted that Callan did not die on January 24, 2023, the date widely reported at the time, but days later, while his father held him. That correction, delivered by Clancy himself on national television, added a layer of raw specificity to a case that had already gripped the country.
Clancy also admitted to battling suicidal thoughts in the aftermath. He told the interviewer he was "completely fine" with the possibility of not living to see his thirty-fifth birthday. He later relocated to New York City, seeking anonymity.
One of the most striking moments came when Clancy addressed his decision to forgive Lindsay Clancy, even though she never asked for it. He said he feared anger would consume him if he held on to it.
Fox News reported that Clancy attributed the killings to Lindsay's mental illness rather than malice:
"I saw headlines that say killer mom and baby murderer monster and none of them were accurate. I believed that it was her mental illness that caused that."
Lindsay Clancy's defense team argued she was not criminally responsible because she suffered from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings. Her trial ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. Eleven of the twelve jurors sided with the postpartum psychosis defense. One holdout juror, Michael Desronvil, refused to find her not guilty by reason of insanity.
Lindsay herself described her memory of killing the children as "dreamlike," similar to how a person remembers a dream after waking. Whether a retrial will be scheduled has not been publicly announced.
Clancy reserved some of his most forceful language for the online conspiracy theories that emerged after the mistrial, baseless claims that he was somehow involved in his children's deaths. He called them a direct harm to his children's legacy.
"It's deeply harmful to the legacy of my children. It is a huge distraction from what really matters here, which is perinatal mental health."
AP News reported that Clancy experienced a panic attack while testifying at trial, underscoring the personal toll the legal process exacted even on the surviving parent.
Dr. Rachel Danis, a fertility doctor, met Clancy at a running club in New York City after he relocated. The two married, and Danis is now pregnant with their first child together.
Danis spoke briefly about her role in Clancy's life:
"I can't bring his kids back, but if I can honor them and allow Pat to grieve, but also continue to honor them in the present, I guess that's all I can do."
Their decision to discuss starting a new family on national television, while the legal case that destroyed Clancy's first family remains unresolved, is what triggered the online speculation about payment. One user on X posted: "Is he getting paid for the interview? Is this advocacy for his civil suit and potential big pay day?" The nature and status of any civil suit were not confirmed in the CBS interview or by CBS itself.
CBS's flat denial, that Clancy and Danis received no payment, is straightforward. But the network's acknowledged practice of covering travel and lodging for interview subjects leaves a gap between "no payment" and "no financial benefit." Whether CBS covered any expenses for Clancy and Danis in connection with this particular interview remains unaddressed.
That distinction matters less for what it says about Clancy than for what it says about the economics of high-profile television interviews. Networks compete for exclusive access. Subjects weigh their options. The line between reimbursement and incentive is one the industry has never drawn with full transparency.
None of that changes what Clancy actually said on camera. A father described holding his dying infant son. He forgave the woman who killed his three children. He asked the country to focus on perinatal mental health instead of internet conspiracies. Whether CBS bought him a plane ticket to say it is a question about the network's practices, not about the weight of his words.
The people who lost the most in this story are three children who never got a vote on any of it. Everything else, the mistrial, the conspiracies, the interview logistics, is noise around that fact.