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Scott Miller has spoken about how he ran an escort agency during one of the darkest chapters of his life as his drug addiction spiralled following the breakdown of his marriage to Charlotte Dawson.
The Olympic silver medallist makes the admission in the second episode of ABC's Deep End: The Scott Miller Story, set to air on Monday night.
He opens up about the years after his sporting career unravelled and the destructive path that ultimately led him to prison.
After his marriage to Dawson ended in 2000 and a string of injuries brought his elite swimming career to a premature end, Miller said he felt abandoned by the sport that had defined his life.
His experimentation with recreational drugs after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics gradually escalated into a crippling addiction.
Following an earlier drug-related court matter in 2009, where he pleaded guilty to supplying 12 ecstasy tablets to a friend and other drug offences including possessing a stolen pill press, Miller said he found himself under severe financial pressure and turned to an unlikely business venture in an effort to save his parents' home.
Scott Miller has spoken about how he ran an escort agency during one of the darkest chapters of his life as his drug addiction spiralled following the breakdown of his marriage to Charlotte Dawson. Miller and Dawson are pictured on their wedding day in April 1999
After his marriage to Dawson ended and a string of injuries brought his elite swimming career to a premature end, Miller said he felt abandoned by the sport that had defined his life
For three years, he helped run a Sydney escort agency employing several women with his then-girlfriend, a former escort.
'I might've saved the house, but the lifestyle I was leading and the environment I chose nearly killed me in the process,' Miller said.
He admitted the seedy world he entered only fuelled his addiction.
'Drugs and escorting go hand-in-hand - in the end it was just too much,' he said.
Miller said what had begun as recreational drug use eventually consumed every aspect of his life, transforming his social circle from elite athletes to criminals and addicts as he descended deeper into addiction.
The downward spiral would eventually culminate in his involvement in a multi-million-dollar methamphetamine supply operation.
In 2021, Miller was arrested as part of a police sting after authorities uncovered a plot to transport almost four kilograms of meth concealed inside candles bound for regional New South Wales.
He admitted to hauling $2.2 million of meth with a co-accused 280 km from Sydney to the regional NSW town of Yass.
Following an earlier drug-related court matter in 2009, Miller said he found himself under severe financial pressure and turned to an unlikely business venture in an effort to save his parents' home. For three years, he helped run a Sydney escort agency employing several women with his then girlfriend and former escort, Michelle Callaghan
Looking back on his relationship with Dawson, who took her own life in February 2014, Miller says: 'I've got a lot of respect for Charlotte.' Miller and Dawson are pictured
In 2021, Miller was arrested as part of a police sting after authorities uncovered a plot to transport almost four kilograms of meth concealed inside candles bound for regional New South Wales
He was sentenced in 2022 to five-and-a-half years behind bars with a non-parole period of three years after playing what the court described as a central role in the drug supply operation.
Now 51, Miller has rebuilt his life following his release from prison in 2024.
He has returned to competitive swimming, set a national Masters record in the 50 m butterfly earlier this year, become the registered carer for his elderly mother and now works to educate young Australians about the dangers of drug addiction through Alcohol and Drug Awareness Australia.
Miller recently opened up about Dawson's shocking suicide, revealing he will always bitterly regret not contacting her when she reached out to him just before her death.
Dawson – who rose to fame on TV shows like Getaway and Australia's Next Top Model – devastated the entertainment industry when she took her own life in February 2014.
She married Miller in 1999 and they became one of Sydney's golden couples before they split just a year later.
He revealed Dawson tried to contact him just two weeks before she died.
'She reached out to me on Facebook, trying to befriend me a couple of weeks before,' he told TV Week.
'I just looked at that post and I didn't accept it, and then it was too late.
'Part of me thinks, could I have done something to stop this?
'That's something that I'll take to the grave.
'I don't think I realised the depth of Charlotte's own struggles and that bothers me.
'It's something I'll never truly understand. I really hurt about it.'
Deep End: The Scott Miller Story airs Mondays on ABC TV and ABC iview.
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