Mamdani's new safety advisor confessed serious pill addiction, turned to ex-NBA star for help

Zohran Mamdani

Mamdani's new safety advisor confessed serious pill addiction, turned to ex-NBA star for help

Tamika Mallory, who will help shape public safety policy, called ex NBA star for addiction help

Emma Bussey Fox News

Published

December 9, 2025 5:33pm EST

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New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s pick for his community-safety transition team battled a spiraling pill addiction that she claims at one point hit as many as 20 to 30 pills a day.

Activist Tamika Mallory, who will help shape public-safety policy for the incoming mayor, revealed earlier this year that she struggled with a serious dependency on prescription drugs before entering rehab.

She recounted her addiction while promoting her memoir, I Lived to Tell the Story, describing how she relied on the pills while holding a leadership position at the helm of national protest movements.

Mallory also turned to former NBA All-Star Jayson Williams for help, who now works in recovery and trauma services.

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Activist Tamika Mallory joins mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's transition team after overcoming a serious prescription drug dependency detailed in her recent memoir. (Marcus Ingram/Getty Images)

In one interview on "The Breakfast Club," she recalled calling Williams while pretending she was seeking guidance for a friend, before he confronted her and urged her to get real help.

"When I first contacted Jayson Williams, the NBA All Star, you know he is in the healing space after all the things we know he went through," she said.

"My first contact with him, I was kind of like, 'Hey, my friend is going through something, what can you tell me?'"

"He let me do that two times, two three calls. By the third call, he was like, 'Sis, I already know what it is. It's all good'."

In another February appearance on "The Angie Martinez Show," Mallory traced the beginnings of her addiction to stress, public pressure and a friend’s offer of Xanax.

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Mamdani has picked activist Tamika Mallory for his community safety transition team advisory role. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images)

"I cut them in half and started taking them. And then the next thing, you know, I learned that Percocets were even better, and I started taking those," Mallory described.

"And then I was up to 20 to 30 pills a day. I was sitting at dinner with a group of girls one night, and this young lady, had she been through it. She was like, 'you know, it's a dark hole, and it doesn't get lighter, it just gets worse. So you should stop'."

"But at that time, I was kind of like, Whoo, I'm sleeping. I'm feeling a little better. And she's like, actually, you're not doing well at all."

According to Mallory, the ability to function normally while using pills made the addiction especially dangerous.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced new executive orders Wednesday that could be viewed as a challenge to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. (Fox News Digital/Deirdre Heavey)

"Pill addiction is real because it’s silent," she told "The Breakfast Club," noting that people can appear stable while "taking pills to numb themselves."

Mallory, a single mother whose son’s father was murdered in 2001, eventually entered rehab and told her story.

"When I started to see how many people have the same experience, I knew it was time to release this story," she said.

Mallory's new role with Mamdani comes through Until Freedom, the activist group she co-founded.

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Mysonne Linen served seven years for armed robbery convictions in late 1990s taxi driver holdups. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images))

The organization announced that Mallory, human-rights lawyer Angelo Pinto and rapper-turned-activist Mysonne Linen will serve on the mayor-elect’s public safety and criminal justice transition teams.

"This is a testament to our decades of work advocating on behalf of Black and brown communities and our expertise in gun violence prevention, legislative advocacy and criminal justice reform," the group said on Instagram.

"We are building something different."

Mallory, a Harlem native, has been a major figure in left-wing activism, often aligning with police-abolition movements and once expressing hope that society could "one day abolish police."

She has also drawn scrutiny for her ties to Louis Farrakhan; the Women’s March anti-Semitism controversy; criticisms of the ADL and her anti-Israel remarks.

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Mallory has further faced criticism for comments about white women in politics and a social-media post praising Fidel Castro.

She rose to national prominence as a co-chair of the Women’s March, but after Mallory repeatedly praised Farrakhan she left the role.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Zohran Mamdani and Until Freedom for comment.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.

Mamdani's new safety advisor confessed serious pill addiction, turned to ex-NBA star for help