A former three-time U.S. Olympic runner revealed living the life as a high-priced call girl for the past year.

Suzy Favor Hamilton, 44, a married mother of a 7-year-old girl, admitted on Dec. 20 that she was a $600 per hour Las Vegas escort working under the pseudonym Kelly Lundy.

Favor Hamilton spoke about her sordid life to the website Smoking Gun after she learned that her secret was about to come out. She admitted she spoke to reporters because she wanted "to handle this like an adult." 

Favor Hamilton - who said her husband, Mark, 44, knew about the side job and tried to get her to stop - expressed deep regret to her family and friends during her interview.

"I take full responsibility for my mistakes," Favor Hamilton said. "I'm not the victim and I'm not going that route. I'm owning up to what I did. I would not blame anybody except myself. Everybody in this world makes mistakes. I made a huge mistake. Huge."

After Smoking Gun posted the article, Favor Hamilton followed up with a statement through a series of Twitter posts on Dec. 20 to her more than 3,000 followers.

"I realize I have made highly irrational choices and I take full responsibility for them. I am not a victim here and knew what I was doing," Favor Hamilton tweeted. "I 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.

"It provided an escape from a life that I was struggling in. It was a double life.... As crazy as I know it seems, I never thought I would be exposed, therefore never hurting anybody. I do not expect people to understand, but the reasons for doing this made sense to me at the time and were very much related to depression..... I fully intend to make amends and get back to being a good mother, wife, daughter, and friend."

Favor Hamilton obtained work as an escort under the name Kelly Lundy through an online profile with Haley Heston's Private Collection, an escort service. The agency sent her out for dates in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. She earned $600 per hour and if a date wanted a 24-hour "GFE" (an acronym for a "girlfriend experience") she earned $6,000. She revealed in the Smoking Gun interview that her dates paid her in cash and the money was left in envelopes in the bathroom.  

Photos on the Haley Heston website showed photos of who is reportedly Lundy, though her face was never shown, posing in lingerie with her back to the camera.

The Olympic runner admitted that she revealed her past as an athlete to clients, and described that choice as a "mistake" she now regrets. Favor Hamilton's world came to an end when one of her clients slipped the news to a reporter. 

She claimed she had all the images removed from the website, quit the profession and has started therapy to "figure out myself why I've done what I've done."

Favor Hamilton is a three-time U.S. Olympian whose career included a Nike TV commercial and her own swimsuit calendar. She competed at the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympics but did not win any medals.

Tags: Kelly Lundy Suzy Favor Hamilton US Olympics