Suzy Favor Hamilton, Olympic runner, admits to moonlighting as high-priced escort

July 30, 2016

By Samantha Stainburn

Suzy Favor Hamilton (r) and Regina Jacobs (l) finish 1 and 2 in the women’s 1500m final at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships on June 21, 2003, at Cobb Track and Angell Field at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
Andy Lyons

Suzy Favor Hamilton, a middle-distance runner who competed for the United States in three Olympics, has admitted to moonlighting as a $600-an-hour prostitute in Las Vegas for the past year, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

The 44-year-old confessed she had been leading a double life to a reporter from thesmokinggun.com who followed up on a tip, then she took to Twitter to explain herself further, the Journal-Sentinel reported.

"I do not expect people to understand," Favor Hamilton wrote on her Twitter account, according to the Journal-Sentinel. "But the reasons for doing this made sense to me at the time and were very much related to depression.”

Favor Hamilton won nine NCAA track and cross-country titles at the University of Wisconsin and seven US national championships as well as running in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, Fox Sports reported. (She did not win a medal.)

Favor Hamilton has modeled in national advertisements for Reebok, Clairol, Oakley and Pert Plus, according to Fox Sports. She’s married and currently runs a Madison, Wis., real estate brokerage with her husband in addition to making promotional appearances, the Journal-Sentinel reported.

According to Fox Sports:

The couple, who have a seven-year-old daughter, reportedly lives in a $600,000 home and have no financial hardships based on a review of court and municipal records.

Earlier this summer, Favor Hamilton talked to the Journal-Sentinel about her struggles with depression, anxiety and an eating disorder.

Businesses that have worked with Favor Hamilton were dismayed by the news. "We are shocked, embarrassed and deeply saddened by the recent reports that Suzy Favor Hamilton lived a double life as an escort,” Dan Cruz, a spokesman for the Rock N Roll Marathon Series, told the Journal Sentinel. “Admittedly this was a part of a secret life that she did not share with those, like us, that she worked with in her capacity as a former world-class athlete.”

Favor Hamilton said that she is giving up the escort business and has recently started seeing a therapist to "figure out myself why I've done what I've done,” Fox Sports reported.