“Monday Night Football” alum Lisa Guerrero is getting real about her time as a sports journalist in the early 2000s in her new memoir “Warrior,” most significantly revealing that she had a miscarriage during an on-air live football game.
After experiencing an intensifying pain in her abdomen during a game as a sideline reporter, “I pushed through and did my reports,” Guerrero wrote in an exclusive excerpt of her memoir shared with People on Wednesday. “When I felt a dampness between my legs, I thought, ‘Oh, I got my period.’ And then I remembered I was pregnant. I was having a miscarriage! I could feel blood leaking.”
Though the officials’ bathroom was in the tunnel right behind Guerrero, when she informed her assistant that she was headed to the restroom, he looked at the journalist like she was “insane” and said, “They’re about to throw to you.”
Guerrero then pushed through her “excruciating” pain to deliver her live report, though she felt “dizzy and nauseated.” She even reminded herself to stand up straight as MNF’s executive producer Freddie Gaudelli would reprimand her for bad posture on their Wednesday phone calls.
“As soon as I finished, I raced off to interview a coach,” Guerrero recalled. “Then I headed to the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, I couldn’t believe the blood pouring out of me. It had soaked through my pants. I shoved a bunch of paper towels in my underwear.”
During the traumatic moment, the longtime “Inside Edition” reporter says she went into “autopilot” mode, with “the only thought thought that crossed [her] mind [being] that [she] could get through the rest of the game as long as [she] buttoned up my long winter coat.” Though she now realizes she should have gone to the hospital or sat out the rest of the game, in the moment it never occurred to Guerrero to tell anyone about what was happening to her.
After the game was over, Guerrero went straight to the plane instead of meeting with Gaudelli as was previously scheduled, where she changed clothes and dumped her pants and underwear in the trash.
The recollection marks just one of the many painful incidents Guerrero sheds light on her in book, as male reporters made derogatory remarks about her body, clothes, posture and sexual exploits.
“I looked into the mirror and didn’t recognize the pale, gaunt, scared, and so very tired woman who stared back at me,” Guerrero recounted.
“Warrior” will be released Jan. 24.
