The former Olympic swimmer on his crystal meth addiction, prison time and the path to redemption
Olympia drug dealer turned drug dealer Scott Miller doesn’t expect everyone to sympathize with his story, as told in an ABC News documentary about his fall from grace and rebuilding his life.
The former butterfly swimmer was impressed in her latest media appearance; 60 Minutes Tara Brown was given a one-year suspended sentence following her arrest for methamphetamine possession in 2013 and had initially said no to the two-part series. Deep End: The Scott Miller Story.
But since his release from prison in 2024, after serving more than three years for his role in a drug syndicate that supplied crystal meth, or “ice,” Miller thinks it’s time to “clear up a few misunderstandings.”
“I need to own up to my mistakes,” he says from his childhood home in Manly, where he cares for his mother Jenny. “All I can do is tell my story and [people can] take it or leave it. But I know my heart is in the right place.
“I know I’m not a bad person. I’ve just made some mistakes in life, and my whole mantra now is about trying to help kids not go down the same path.”
In the documentary, Miller, 50, appears physically strong during training for the Masters Swimming Australian National Championships in Brisbane in April, setting a national record in the 50-metre butterfly. But he becomes emotionally fragile as he sits on his mother’s couch, recalling long afternoons spent at the backyard pool where Jenny tutored the neighborhood kids.
Then came the Australian Institute of Sport when he was 15, followed by a Commonwealth gold medal and a famous silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, losing by a fraction of a second to Denis Pankratov. The Russian had controversially – but not illegally – swam underwater for most of the first lap. The build-up to that moment, a series of injuries and a lack of support from the elite swimming profession triggered Miller’s decline, he says.
“They didn’t care at all. They were just there to take. I felt used,” she says. “I was currency. Nobody cared about Scott and Scott’s future… I was angry at the world and I got to the stage where I wasn’t very interested in life, especially when addiction took over.”
Like some of her peers, including her childhood friend Johanna Griggs, who appeared in the documentary, as well as other swimmers and coaches, she would opt for a post-retirement media career.
“I used to throw myself in front of the camera, but I was never told exactly what to do,” Miller says. “I had no mentor.”
According to the documentary, he had only one supporter; former shock jock Alan Jones, who is facing indecent assault charges. But Miller says Jones was too “controlling” and inadvertently pushed Miller into his brief marriage to former television presenter Charlotte Dawson too early.
“Alan has his own idea of how things should be done, and his control was to my benefit,” Miller says. “But I felt like I had to make my own decisions. I had to be wrong.”
Returning to the water after 15 years to train masters was a challenging process. “I had a lot of bad feelings inside me [the water]” he says and adds: “It turned into hatred and fear. I didn’t even want to take a shower. “That’s how bad it was.”
Miller finds public speaking easier by sharing her story with young people through Alcohol and Drug Awareness Australia in Victoria.
“They were fascinated because my story was raw. It’s true, they were alarmed and in shock,” he says. “Their eyes don’t leave me and their jaws hit the floor. I see a lot of them come up to me later and say, ‘Man, that was so impressive, you gave me a different perspective.’ I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to help someone.”
Deep End: The Scott Miller Story It will be screened on ABC and ABC on Monday, June 22 at 20:00.
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Bridget McManus is the television writer and reviewer for Green Guide. He was deputy editor of Green Guide from 2006 to 2010 and currently writes features and interviews for Life & Style in The Saturday Age and M magazine in The Sunday Age.
