Journalist Lisa Guerrero said she was reporting live on the sidelines of ‘Monday Night Football’ in 2003 when she felt an intense pain in her stomach mid-broadcast.
‘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,’ Guerrero wrote in an excerpt that People obtained from her upcoming memoir, ‘Warrior,’ out Jan. 24.
Guerrero opened up about the ‘negativity and cruelty’ she experienced during her one season on the ‘MNF’ sidelines in her new book. But Guerrero said her experience was worse than anyone knew.
‘I could feel blood leaking. The officials’ bathroom was in the tunnel behind me,’ Guerrero recalled, adding that she told her assistant that she was going to the bathroom. ”He looked at me as if I were insane. ‘They’re about to throw to you.”
Guerrero said she faced harsh bullying from the public, who criticized everything from her clothes to her posture, including her ‘MNF’ executive producer Freddie Gaudelli. With that in mind, Guerrero said she went on with her report despite her medical emergency.
‘I delivered my live report. I was dizzy and nauseated but reminded myself to stand up straight,’ Guerrero recalled. ‘During our Wednesday phone calls, Freddie would ream me out for bad posture. The pain was excruciating. I heard myself mispronounce a player’s name and knew I’d hear about it later. As soon as I finished, I raced off to interview a coach. Then I headed to the bathroom.’
Guerrero’s full excerpt:
‘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. It never occurred to me to tell anyone. It never occurred to me that maybe I should have gone to a hospital or, at the very least, sat out the rest of the game. The only thought that crossed my mind was that I could get through the rest of the game as long as I buttoned up my long winter coat. That way, no one would see the blood. It was as if I were on autopilot. Get back on the sideline. Interview the coach. Listen to Freddie’s directions.’
When the game ended, I was supposed to go to the production truck to talk to Freddie. Instead, I headed to the plane. In the bathroom [on board], I changed clothes, and dumped my underwear and pants in the garbage can. I looked into the mirror and didn’t recognize the pale, gaunt, scared, and so very tired woman who stared back at me.’
In an interview with People, Guerrero said her miscarriage wasn’t caused by one person or one negative comment. ‘It was a culmination of the entire season of negativity and cruelty. It was really cruel,’ she said. But those reasons contributed to her decision not to share her miscarriage publicly.
‘People who knew what was going on with Freddie and who read how I was being treated in the media already looked at me with such pity,’ Guerrero said. ‘I was a shell of myself. And I felt such shame and embarrassment that the last thing I was going to say is, ‘Oh, and by the way, I just had a miscarriage.’ Most of my best friends will learn about it by reading the book.’
In a statement to the New York Post, Gaudelli said Guerrero’s ‘memory of that season and mine are quite different.’
“I always tried to be Lisa’s biggest advocate, starting from the moment that I hired her,” he told The Post. ‘This is the first time I’m learning of her pregnancy, and I’m sorry that she struggled through that difficult time without the full support of the team surrounding her.’