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Malika Andrews was granted a restraining order against a man who has been harassing her and other ESPN colleagues over the last year. Andrews began fearing for her safety after the man sent threatening messages and allegedly visited the network's Los Angeles facility.
According to TMZ Sports, Andrews filed a restraining order against Ahmed Abubakar last week. Abubakar is a 41-year-old resident of New Jersey and has been allegedly harassing the ESPN presenter, as well as Stephen A. Smith and Molly Querim.
Abubakar was reportedly arrested last month for showing up at Qerim's house in Connecticut. He also harassed Andrews through the phone this summer after he found her unlisted phone number. It's still a mystery to Andrews how Abubakar got her number.
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Ahmed Abubakar's alleged messages towards Malika Andrews were disturbing. In the photo below, Abubakar cursed Andrews for getting money from him and threatened to sue her. He also directed derogatory remarks, and it's definitely a scary situation.
TMZ Sports added that Abubakar did the same to Molly Qerim and Stephen A. Smith. A judge granted Andrews a restraining order against Abubakar, who cannot come within 100 meters of her and several other ESPN employees like Smith and Andrews' fiance, Dave McMenamin.
The harassment began on X, formerly known as Twitter, in Sept. 2022. Ahmed Abubakar constantly threatened ESPN personalities to the point that he got hold of Malika Andrews' phone number, as well as Molly Qerim's private address.
To exacerbate matters, Abubakar was allegedly in Los Angeles recently. Based on his Instagram account, Abubakar posted a photo of ESPN's LA office in May.
A look at Malika Andrews' journalism career
Malika Andrews started her journalism career working for The Beacon in Portland in 2017.
Andrews has a communications degree from the University of Portland and had her internship at the Denver Post. Before working at ESPN in 2019, she was with the Chicago Tribune.
Andrews became a sideline reporter for ESPN during the NBA bubble in the 2019-20 season in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also began appearing on ESPN's main shows like "Around the Horn," "Get Up," "NBA Countdown," "The Jump" and "SportsCenter."
The Oakland native started covering the NBA Finals for ABC in 2021 and was promoted to NBA Finals host this summer. She will take over from Mike Greenberg, who agreed to leave the job to focus on "Get Up" on ESPN and "Greeny" on ESPN Radio.
