Lisa Guerrero spent one season as the sideline reporter for ABC’s Monday Night Football broadcasts. It was a year that led her down a dark path and resulted in clinical depression.
According to Andrew Marchand at The New York Post, Guerrero developed suicidal thoughts after being bullied and criticized for being a one-and-done MNF reporter.
A former LA Rams cheerleader, actress and model, Guerrero never wanted the job alongside Al Michaels and John Madden to begin with, according to The Post. Yet her agent, Ken Linder, and MNF executive producer at the time, Fred Gaudelli, talked her into taking the position upon the premise that it would not be an “X’s and O’s” sideline job.
Viewers and industry members built a narrative that Guerrero was just a cheerleader/model and wasn’t qualified for the sideline role despite her nearly decade-long work as a sportscaster.
Marchand reports that after a few mistakes on air, Guerrero began throwing up before games and lost eight pounds during the season. Her relationship with Gaudelli also became unhealthy.
“I was terrified,” Guerrero told The Post. “People at home probably looked at it as, ‘She’s scared of the job. She’s intimidated by Monday Night Football.’ I wasn’t afraid of the job. I was afraid of [Gaudelli]. I was afraid of him screaming at me after every game and during the game. I cried every game. It was awful.”
Marchand tells the story of one night, about a year after she was taken off MNF, while driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, Guerrero turned on sports radio to hear the hosts laughing as they read a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column that trashed her name and called her MNF’s “biggest liability ever.”
“I considered killing myself,” Guerrero told The Post.
Thankfully she called her dad who helped her understand that there was life for her after MNF.
Guerrero took that advice to heart and worked her way into role at Inside Edition where she is currently an investigative reporter.
Examining her success in this role, The Post notes a 2012 report by Guerrero that led to a Nebraska man being tried and found guilty of intentional child abuse that led to a 2-year-old’s death. It also highlights her 2019 interview with preacher Kenneth Copeland about his wealth, which has more than six million views on YouTube.
Guerrero is in a vastly different place today than she was that night on the Pacific Northwest Highway.
“I wake up and pinch myself every day,” Guerrero told Marchand. “I can’t believe I get to chase bad guys every day for a living. I get to make a difference in people’s lives and I get to make change happen. I get to be a victim’s advocate.”
