Twelve years after her first appearance for the Milwaukee Bucks at the NBA draft lottery, Mallory Edens is returning to the stage in 2026.
Edens was 18 years old when she had the honor of being the Bucks’ representative just days after her father, Wes, bought ownership stake into the franchise.
Her appearance quickly went viral, something she characterized as “harmful” for misogynistic comments that would follow her.
Edens will again be the Bucks’ team rep for the lottery (2 p.m. May 10 on ABC), but she’s not just returning older, but also at a time while she is writing her own story and carving out her own career path following other experiences of brushes of fame along the way.
Who is Mallory Edens? Here’s what to know about her business career, her NBA draft moment, her dad, her connection to Aaron Rodgers and more:
Who is Mallory Edens?
Mallory Edens is one of four daughters to Bucks co-owner Wes Edens who first garnered significant attention when she represented the team at the 2014 NBA draft lottery.
For those in Milwaukee, she’s a frequent attendee at Bucks games with Wes, sitting court side opposite of the team bench. Mallory also joined in on the Bucks’ NBA championship celebration in 2021, including posing for pictures with the ownership group and Giannis Antetokounmpo in the locker room, and being in the parade.
“cheese curds & Larry O. your Bucks are NBA CHAMPIONS” she wrote on Instagram in July 2021 while featuring several photos of the festivities.
Mallory Edens attended Princeton University and in recent years the model has founded her own production company, Little Ray Media, whose mission is to “tell stories by and about women and girls.” She has produced two films.
Mallory Edens age
Mallory Edens is 30 years old.
On April 24, she posted a photo on Instagram with the caption, “in Malibu, another lap around the sun.”
Mallory Edens draft
This will be the second time that Mallory Edens will represent the Bucks at the draft lottery.
The first came on May 20, 2014, following the Bucks’ 15-win season. The Bucks entered that draft with the best odds to land the No. 1 overall pick. They ended up with the No. 2 selection, a pick they used to eventually draft Duke star Jabari Parker, whose career was marred by injuries.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, then yet the legend he would become for the franchise, was coming off his rookie season and was also in New York City for that draft lottery with Mallory and her sister, Madison.
But it was Mallory who got to be in the spotlight as the team representative.
Her appearance went viral on social media and she later recalled in a March 2026 interview with Bustle that the misogyny comments that came after that night such as being called “a trophy daughter, a future trophy girlfriend, and a future trophy wife,” led her down a path that made her want to write her own story.
Last year, while appearing on the “Unlike Me” podcast, Edens also said those comments made her “protective” of herself.
“I actually think people actually don’t know that much about me and I think that the biggest misconception — is just that they don’t know that much about me,” Edens said on the podcast. “I went really viral on the internet at a really young age and it put me in this place where I felt so protective of myself because the things people were saying online about me at that time felt so harmful.”
Stream the draft lottery on Fubo
Did Mallory Edens date Aaron Rodgers?
Mallory Edens and former Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers reportedly dated in 2023, according to People.com. But the magazine said it was “nothing serious at all.”
“It’s more than friends, but it’s casual,” People’s source said earlier that year. “He’s not looking to rush into anything. It’s low-key for now.”
The two never publicly commented on their relationship.
Edens and Rodgers had known each other for years prior to the reports of their relationship. The NFL quarterback regularly sat in the same courtside row at Bucks game as Mallory and her co-owner father, Wes.
Rodgers has since tied the knot with a woman named Brittani, whom he said he married in spring 2025. The two haven’t been seen together as Rodgers says his wife wants a private life.
Rodgers, a four-time NFL MVP and Super Bowl champion with the Packers in 2010, previously had high-profile relationships with celebrities Olivia Munn, Danica Patrick and Shailene Woodley.
Mallory Edens business career
Edens has been a model for several years and while doing it she tapped into other passions post-college, fueling what has become her production company, Little Ray Media.
In her interview with Bustle this year, Edens says it started with taking sketch writing and improv classes as well as screenwriting classes. Another experience came while sitting next to a development executive for a production company during a ‘Writing a Pilot’ class at UCLA.
“He was explaining his job to me,” she recalled, “and it was one of those light bulb moments in my life where I was like, ‘Oh, how do I get that job?’”
She did exactly that. She created Little Ray Media at 24 years old. “I wish I could tell you why I thought in my early 20s that I was capable of starting my own production company, because it seems a little bit insane to me in retrospect,” Edens told Bustle.
She produced the film, Bad Genius, in 2024 and last year her second movie, “Charlie Harper,” a romantic drama, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025. It’s set for a full release on Sept. 25, 2026.
Edens said in an Instagram post that “roducing this movie has been a labor of love. Proud of my team at Little Ray Media. Can’t wait to have it in front of an audience. I love it so much.”
Edens told Bustle of producing movies: “I really love producing, and I’ve found it so gratifying to have autonomy and independence over the kinds of stories we tell. I do think part of the reason that I love it so much is because I’ve been on the other side of stories about young women that really flatten them.”
After her first movie was released in 2024 she reflected on her journey in an Instagram post:
She called it “scary” because “starting your own business opens you up to such personal kinds of success and failure, and my favorite way of dealing with that vulnerability has been to keep our work to myself for the past couple years.” But she realized movies aren’t supposed to be released in secret.
“Anyway, cheers to blooming. Something.”
Mallory Edens book club: Little Library
Movies aren’t her only passion.
Literacy and reading are as well.
And in March, Mallory started Little Library, a book club directed by her production company, Little Ray Media.
In an Instagram post, Edens wrote: “If you know me, you know how much I love to read — and that curating books for people I love is sort of my dream job. Little Library is a space we’ve dreamed up to read together and share the stories we love, while also spotlighting the same kinds of bold, female stories and storytellers that we love to champion across our films at LRM.”
Mallory Edens and Drake
During the Bucks’ 2019 playoff run when the team was playing the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference dinals, she also became known for a “beef” with artist Drake.
During the series, Drake changed his Instagram avatar to a picture of Edens after Mallory wore a T-shirt featuring the likeness of Drake rival Pusha-T to one game.
Drake was courtside at games during that series and his antics became part of the outside storyline beyond the games.
Who is Mallory Edens’ dad?
Wes Edens, a billionaire businessman and private equity investor, is one of the co-owners of the Bucks. In 2023, he added the title of governor of the Bucks, a position he’s holding for five years, after one of his original co-owners, Marc Lasry, sold his shares of the franchise to Jimmy and Dee Haslam.
Wes Edens purchased his share of the team with Lasry in 2014 from former Sen. Herb Kohl.
In addition to his duties with the Bucks, Edens is the chairman and founder of the Fortress Investment Group and founder of New Fortress Energy.
Mallory Edens, who frequently attends games with Wes, talked about her dad and interest in the Bucks during her appearance on the “Unlike Me” podcast.
“I have such a deep respect for what the front office does,” she said. “And I love just getting to be a fly on the wall in their conversations. I always tell my dad exactly what I think all the time. We have a respectful banter about those things. So we’re not always on the same page but I always let him know exactly how I feel.
“I love basketball. I’m open minded about what my future holds.”
Mallory Edens near death experience
A year before she stepped onto the stage for the Bucks at that 2014 draft lottery, she had a near death experience when she fell off a horse and suffered four skull fractures after being kicked in the head on the way down.
In an Instagram post in 2023, she reflected on that day and the “borrowed decade” she went on to have.
“I’m grateful for this healthy body and healthy brain,” she wrote. “I’m grateful to know the feeling of impermanence in my bones – it feels like life. I’m grateful for my old lady soul. I’m so excited for the next ten. I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s all gravy, it always has been.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Who is Mallory Edens? Bucks owner’s daughter at NBA draft lottery
Reporting by Christopher Kuhagen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
