By Raquel Laneri Published Oct. 6, 2024

ESPN sideline reporter Lauren Sisler has written a book, “Shatter Proof,” about her father and mother dying of fentanyl overdoses mere hours apart.Tamara Beckwith

College football fans know ESPN sideline reporter Lauren Sisler for her sunny personality, incisive interviews and exuberant dancing during games — what she calls her “sideline shimmy.”

But the 39-year-old Birmingham resident has a painful history that she kept hidden for nearly two decades: When Sisler was in college, both her parents died of drug overdoses.

Her mom, Lesley, went first. She ingested an entire pack of fentanyl and was found unresponsive on the front porch of their Virginia home. Sisler’s dad, George, did the same hours later, his body found on the kitchen floor.

The night they died in 2003, police found empty prescription bottles with 348 OxyContin pills, 60 oxycodone pills and 82 other painkiller tablets. Later, Sisler’s aunt and uncle found wrappers and sticks from pain-relief suckers, as well as a razor blade and pill crusher under the sink. 

A lockbox where they kept a stash of super-strong fentanyl patches was empty: Mom and Dad had finished a two-week supply in a matter of days.

They had kept their addiction a secret from their children, the rest of their family and their community.

As Sisler told The Post: “Everyone was in absolute shock.”

But now she’s ready to tell the story. Her new book, “Shatterproof: How I Overcame the Shame of Losing My Parents to Opioid Addiction (And Found My Sideline Shimmy,” is a powerful, scary, but ultimately empathetic and redemptive look at prescription drug abuse.

Sisler was her boundlessly optimistic self when she met The Post last week on the High Line, talking about her 15-month-old son, Mason, and their plans for Halloween. Sisler was her boundlessly optimistic self when she met The Post last week on the High Line, talking about her 15-month-old son, Mason, and their plans for Halloween. (Sisler, who is married to John Willard, who owns a roofing company in Birmingham, Alabama, wants to dress Mason and the family’s yellow Lab, Magnolia, as M&Ms. “Wouldn’t that be cute?” she cooed in her Southern accent.) 

Over Coke Zeros at a Chelsea cafe, she got emotional as she explained her decision to come clean about her parents’ past.

“I realized that holding in their secrets and holding in the shame [they had surrounding their drug use] didn’t serve my parents well,” she said. “And it didn’t serve those around them well.

“And then as I started telling more people the truth, I realized that people who loved my parents didn’t think any differently of them. If anything, they found peace in knowing what happened, and they didn’t love them any less, didn’t love me any less.” 

The truth could even, she discovered, save lives.

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