Three-time Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton says she coped with depression and a troubled marriage by turning to a life of prostitution.

In a series of posts to her Twitter account, Favor Hamilton acknowledged working as an escort following a report Thursday on The Smoking Gun website.

“I do not expect people to understand,” Favor Hamilton tweeted. “But the reasons for doing this made sense to me at the time and were very much related to depression.”

The Smoking Gun said the 44-year-old athlete has been working for the last year for a Las Vegas escort service. The website said she charged $600 an hour for her services.

One of the country’s best-ever middle-distance runners, Favor Hamilton competed for the U.S. at the Olympics in 1992, 1996 and 2000 but did not win a medal. She lives in Madison, Wis., where, The Smoking Gun reported, she and her husband, Mark, reside in a $600,000 home and appear to be in no financial distress based on the website’s review of court and municipal records.

Favor Hamilton told the website that only her husband was aware of her escort work, but that, “He tried, he tried to get me to stop. He wasn’t supportive of this at all.”

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The website reported that Favor Hamilton worked under the alias “Kelly Lundy” but said she told some of her clients about her true identity and suspected one of them leaked her identity.

Soon after the story appeared online, Favor Hamilton released a series of tweets saying in part that she 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.”

Heart ‘happy’ to be joining rock’s hall of fame

NEW YORK – The journey to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can be a long and winding road for some acts. For Heart, it took more than a decade, and sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson admitted they were losing hope.

“(The) running joke in the band was (we) would never get in,” Ann said.

But all that changed when the group made the class of 2013, announced this month.

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“Well, it just goes to show you that just when you think you know the shape of rock ‘n’ roll, it changes shape on you,” Ann said. “This is really more than thrilling.”

Her younger sister, Nancy, was glad the speculation was finally put to rest. “We feel like we deserve it, so we’re happy to be here,” Nancy said.

Since their seminal 1976 release “Dreamboat Annie” spawned the classic hits “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You,” the band went on the sell more than 30 million albums worldwide.

Kinkade’s girlfriend, widow settle

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Thomas Kinkade’s widow and girlfriend have reached a settlement after a dispute over the late artist’s $66 million estate, their attorneys said Wednesday.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that counsel for Nanette Kinkade and his girlfriend, Amy Pinto, announced the settlement but wouldn’t provide further details, leaving it unclear who will inherit Kinkade’s San Francisco Bay area mansion and his warehouse of paintings.

The dispute went public after the 54-year-old artist died April 6 from an accidental overdose of alcohol and prescription tranquilizers.

Pinto, who began dating Kinkade six months after his marriage of 28 years imploded, claimed Kinkade wrote two notes bequeathing her his mansion and $10 million to establish a museum of his paintings. Nanette Kinkade disputed those claims.

– From news service reports


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