Former swimming star Scott Miller has opened up about the suicide of his ex-wife Charlotte Dawson, 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.
Miller admitted to hauling $2.2million of meth with a co-accused 280km from Sydney to the regional NSW town of Yass in 2021 and spent more than three years in jail.
The silver medallist at the 1996 Olympics has now 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.
Scott Miller is pictured on his wedding day with Charlotte Dawson in 1999
The swim king and the glamorous TV star became one of Sydney’s golden couples before their split in 2000
Dawson (pictured) left the Australian entertainment industry devastated when she took her own life in February 2014
‘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.’
Miller added that while he treasures the time he had with Dawson, he is ‘not convinced I married for the right reasons’, saying he thinks he tied the knot to ‘get control of my life’.
During his drugs trial, the 51-year-old told the court in an affidavit that his experiences with illicit substances began during the marriage.
‘Charlotte was engaged in the fashion and media industry and it was in the context of my exposure to the lifestyle that my wife’s social and employment connections afforded that I was first introduced to personal drug use,’ he said.
Miller has now revealed he is haunted by the fact he didn’t get back to Dawson when she reached out to him just two weeks before her death
The 51-year-old has put his life back together and got into top shape since spending three years in jail for drug offences
‘Whilst it was not significant, I realise in retrospect that it was [the] start of my long and disastrous involvement with drug abuse.’
Miller is the focal point of the ABC documentary Deep End, which airs on Monday and examines how his life was turned upside down after his retirement from the pool.
He recently spoke out about the turnaround that has seen him get back in the pool and win a silver medal at the Masters Championships in May.
‘You’re just really paralysed with fear when you get out [of jail],’ Miller told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘It was harder getting adjusted back into the community after prison than it was going in.
‘It’s a really weird feeling … I remember being out for three months wishing I was back in there [jail].
‘I can’t tell you how hard life is when you get out.’
Miller – who also owned an escort agency before being imprisoned – began his fall from grace after narrowly missing out on 100m butterfly gold in controversial circumstances at the 1996 Olympics, then being forced to sit out the 2000 Games when he missed selection through injury.
Last October he once again turned to swimming to help him transform his life, returning to the pool for the first time in more than 20 years at the Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton Aquatic Centre in Manly.
‘I wanted to feel what it was like to be alive again and back in the pool,’ Miller said.
‘Once I dived in and swam for the first time, it was therapeutic and I enjoyed it.
‘I had so much time to think while I was in there [jail].
‘I was hoping to be out at age 50, and I got out at 49. You want to reset and start again … like turning back time.’
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