By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer
Three-time Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton says she
coped with depression and a troubled marriage by turning to a life of
prostitution.
In a series of posts to her Twitter account, Favor
Hamilton acknowledged working as an escort following a report Thursday
on The Smoking Gun website about her double life.
"I do not expect people to understand," Favor
Hamilton tweeted. "But the reasons for doing this made sense to me at
the time and were very much related to depression."
The Smoking Gun said the 44-year-old athlete has
been working for the last year for a Las Vegas escort service that
booked her for dates there, as well as in Los Angeles, Houston and
Chicago. The website said she charged $600 an hour for her services.
One of the country's best-ever middle-distance
runners, Favor Hamilton competed for the U.S. at the Olympics in 1992,
1996 and 2000 but did not win a medal. She won seven U.S. national
titles. She lives in Madison, Wis., where, The Smoking Gun reported, she
and her husband, Mark, live in a $600,000 home and appear to be in no
financial distress based on the website's review of court and municipal
records.
Favor Hamilton told the website that only her
husband was aware of her escort work, but that, "He tried, he tried to
get me to stop. He wasn't supportive of this at all."
The website reported that Favor Hamilton worked
under the alias "Kelly Lundy" but said she told some of her clients
about her true identity and suspected one of them leaked it.
Soon after the story appeared online, Favor
Hamilton released a series of tweets saying in part that she was "drawn
to escorting in large part because it provided many coping mechanisms
for me when I was going through a very challenging time with my marriage
and my life."
The Orange County Register reported that Disney
canceled a scheduled appearance by Favor Hamilton at the August 2013
expo during the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend.
A nine-time NCAA champion for Wisconsin, Favor
Hamilton is the namesake of the Big Ten's Suzy Favor Athlete of the Year
Award, given to the conference's top female athlete. Big Ten spokesman
Scott Chipman said the conference had no comment.
Favor Hamilton did not respond to a request from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Las Vegas police have no record of any arrests or
contact with Favor Hamilton, said Officer Laura Meltzer, a department
spokeswoman. No inquiry about Favor Hamilton was launched as a result of
the news reports, Meltzer said. Telephone numbers for the escort
service Hamilton said she worked for were not in service and attempts to
reach a company representative by email were not immediately
successful.
Favor Hamilton is a three-time outdoor 1,500-meter
national champion and a three-time indoor national champion - her last
title coming in 1999.
"As crazy as I know it seems, I never thought I
would be exposed, therefore never hurting anybody," she said in one
Twitter post.
In another, she says she is seeking psychological care for her problem.
She closes her series of tweets by saying, "I fully
intend to make amends and get back to being a good mother, wife,
daughter, and friend."
Copyright 2012 The
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