Olympian Scott Miller confesses: I wed Charlotte Dawson to flee ‘controlling’ Alan Jones – this was the radio star’s jealous reaction

Olympic swimmer turned drug dealer Scott Miller has revealed he married model and TV personality Charlotte Dawson to escape the ‘controlling’ influence of broadcaster Alan Jones. 

Miller lived with Jones at the radio host’s Newtown home in Sydney’s inner-west in the late 1990s while he was in a relationship with Dawson, who did not like the arrangement.

Jones was known at the time for taking young sportsmen – some of them troubled – under his wing and Miller was aiming to win a gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics in the 100m butterfly.

Miller had been forced to settle for silver in the same event at the 1996 Atlanta Games and met Dawson in November 1997 at Cleo magazine’s 25th anniversary party.

New Zealand-born Dawson, who had modelled as a teenager in Europe and New York, was 11 years older than Miller and working as the beauty and fashion director for Woman’s Day.

Miller describes his first meeting with Dawson in episode one of the two-part documentary Deep End: The Scott Miller Story, which premieres on Monday night on the ABC.

‘She interviewed me and we got talking and she was very friendly and very quirky,’ Miller says on the program. ‘Very dominant. I like that. She’s very strong. She was hot, so it was fun.’

Fellow Olympic swimmer Chris Fydler, who won gold for Australia as part of the 4 x 100m freestyle relay team in 2000, remembers the pair’s romance as a ‘crazy kind of love’.

‘And it was mad and it was public and there were parts of it I’m sure he loved and parts of that really troubled him,’ Fydler says in the documentary.

Looking back on his relationship with Dawson, who took her own life in February 2014, Miller says: ‘I’ve got a lot of respect for Charlotte.’

‘I’ve got a lot of fond memories and that, but I’m not convinced I was married for the right reasons,’ he continues.

‘I mean, there’s other factors that were at play at that time.’

One major factor, according to Miller, was the overbearing presence in his life of one-time Wallabies coach Alan Jones.

Miller met Jones in 1994 after the Commonwealth Games held in Victoria, the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, where he won gold in the 4 x 100m medley and 100m butterfly.

By 1996, Miller felt he needed a change in training regime and put himself under the guidance of Brian Sutton at Sydney University Pool, which was 200m from Jones’s three-level home in O’Connell Street, Newtown.

‘He had a lot of accommodation available there,’ Miller says. ‘So he gave me a room. 

‘He took a lot of interest in my career, a lot of advice, a lot of help, a lot of pointing me in the right direction. And yeah, he was very good at keeping me motivated.’

Miller acknowledges Jones ‘gave me a place to live, gave me a lot of opportunities’ – but that help came at a cost.

‘Did it get a bit controlling?’ he asks in the documentary. ‘Did it get a little bit too much for me? Yeah, maybe. I felt like I couldn’t say no because he was doing so much.

‘Charlotte didn’t want me staying there. She wanted me to be with her and I wanted to be with her as well. So that didn’t sit well with him. He wasn’t too happy with that.

‘Strong woman, didn’t take any s*** from him, really would put her foot down and he didn’t like it. And I liked the fact that he didn’t like it. It made her more attractive to me.’

Miller, who recognised Jones had ‘a big influence in my career’, moved out of Jones’s home and married Dawson in April 1999 at Quay restaurant on Sydney Harbour.

‘Did I get married to make some space there and get some independence and get back in control of my life?’ Miller says. ‘Yeah, I think so. A way to softly fix the situation that was becoming uncomfortable.’

Miller would later tell a court it was through Dawson that he was introduced to recreational drugs, which led to an out-of-control habit and, eventually, prison.

‘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,’ Miller wrote in an affidavit. 

‘Whilst it was not significant I realise in retrospect that it was [the] start on my long and disastrous involvement with drug abuse.’

Miller’s initial dabbling in cocaine and ecstasy would be followed by prolonged use of speed, heroin and the substance he calls his ‘demon’ – crystal meth.  

Dawson is shown in the documentary talking about how she and Miller managed their different lifestyles.

‘I mean, I still like to have a bit of a social life and we go out, what Scott will do is come home really early,’ she says. 

‘He’ll stay out for five minutes, say hello, do that, and then I’ll be able to come home a couple of hours later. It’s a compromising sort of situation.’ 

Dawson’s friend Greg Fisher says: ‘Charlotte really wanted the marriage. She really loved Scott.’ 

From the early days of the marriage, Miller was preparing for the Sydney Olympics but due to injury and the rise of Michael Klim and Geoff Huegill would ultimately miss selection. 

Miller’s sister Nikki says in the documentary: ‘When Scott was training for Sydney, that’s where I saw the cracks.’ 

Miller makes his own observations about the breakdown of his marriage.

‘She met me when I was a party boy, doing a little bit of swimming,’ he says. 

‘And then when the focus shifted, and I wasn’t a handbag, I wasn’t keen to go to the opening of an envelope. I was training and going to bed early. Disciplined, selfish.

‘She met one Scott and she didn’t know the other Scott and didn’t understand it. We got separated in 2000 and it ended up being a very public break-up.’

Fisher, a former property developer who did jail time for corporate fraud and drug supply before becoming founding CEO of queer history museum Qtopia, remembers the couple as ‘oil and water’.

‘They were never going to mix at that time,’ he says in Deep End.

‘She was hurt by the breakup of that marriage. There’s no doubt. And about some of the actions of Scott that probably he would regret by now too.’

More than a decade later, Dawson – who had waged a long battle with depression – endured relentless online harassment while taking part in an anti-cyberbullying campaign.

She was found dead aged 47 inside her Woolloomooloo home in February 2014.

Nikki Miller believes Dawson’s death ‘really affected’ her brother ‘but he’s pushed it down’.

‘It’s something he should have dealt with,’ she says. ‘Maybe hasn’t.’

Asked if it is painful to hear Dawson’s name mentioned, 51-year-old Miller answers: ‘It makes me a little bit sad.’

‘She was a good person,’ he says. ‘But just wrong for me at the time… I feel her presence often. I know she’s out there watching over me. I know. I’m sure of it.’

Miller was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail in November 2022 over the supply of 4kg of meth worth $2.2million and served three years and four months.

He was released in June 2024 and got back into the pool in October 2025 for the first time in 15 years.

In April, Miller set a national record for the 50m butterfly for men aged 50 to 54 at the Masters Swimming Australia National Championships in Brisbane.

Jones ended his 35-year radio career in May 2020, signing off as 2GB’s breakfast host after 226 consecutive rating wins.

The 85-year-old was charged in November 2024 with dozens of sexual offences allegedly committed on seven young men and a 17-year-old boy between 2001 and 2019.

Jones has pleaded not guilty to 24 counts of indecent assault and two of sexual touching. He is due to face a hearing in Downing Centre Local Court in early August. 

Deep End: The Scott Miller Story airs at 8pm on Monday, June 22, on ABC TV and ABC iview.