Scott Miller says Charlotte Dawson tried to contact him on Facebook two weeks before her death in February 2014, and he regrets that he didn’t act in time—“I’ll take it to the grave.” The former Olympic swimmer, now tied to the ABC documentary Deep End, also s
Scott Miller didn’t say it lightly. He didn’t dress it up with distance or time.
He told TV Week that he still carries the knowledge that Charlotte Dawson tried to reach him on Facebook just two weeks before her death in February 2014—and that he looked, didn’t accept what he saw, and then ran out of time.
“She reached out to me on Facebook, trying to befriend me a couple of weeks before,” Miller said.
“I just looked at that post and I didn’t accept it, and then it was too late.”
For the former swimming champion, the regret is not a slogan. It’s a weight he describes as permanent. “Part of me thinks, could I have done something to stop this?” he said. “That’s something that I’ll take to the grave.”
Dawson, a TV star who rose to prominence through shows including Getaway and Australia’s Next Top Model, took her own life in February 2014. Miller and Dawson married in 1999 and were widely seen as Sydney’s “golden couple” before they split a year later.
Miller said he now believes he didn’t grasp the depth of her struggles until it was too late. “I don’t think I realised the depth of Charlotte’s own struggles and that bothers me,” he said. “It’s something I’ll never truly understand. I really hurt about it.”
The documentary spotlight is on him too. Miller is the focal point of the ABC documentary Deep End, which airs on Monday. It examines how his life was turned upside down after he retired from the pool.
Alongside that personal loss, Miller has spoken openly about how his marriage sits inside the story of his own downfall. During his drugs trial. the 51-year-old told the court in an affidavit that his exposure to illicit substances began while he was with Dawson. through her fashion and media connections.
“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,” he said.
He later admitted to hauling $2.2million of meth with a co-accused 280km from Sydney to the regional NSW town of Yass in 2021, spending more than three years in jail.
When Miller talks about the life he has rebuilt since then, he does it with the bluntness of someone who knows how quickly everything can vanish. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that fear can take over after prison.
“You’re just really paralysed with fear when you get out,” Miller said. “It was harder getting adjusted back into the community after prison than it was going in.”
He described a strange reversal of instincts, remembering how he found himself wanting to be back inside. “It’s a really weird feeling … I remember being out for three months wishing I was back in there [jail].”
“I can’t tell you how hard life is when you get out.”
Swimming has become the thread through that rebuilding. Miller recently returned to the pool for the first time in more than 20 years at the Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton Aquatic Centre in Manly—an effort he made after turning his life around again in October. He said he wanted more than fitness.
“I wanted to feel what it was like to be alive again and back in the pool,” Miller said.
“Once I dived in and swam for the first time, it was therapeutic and I enjoyed it.”
He said prison gave him time to think, and that he had hoped to be free by the age of 50—though he got out at 49. “You want to reset and start again … like turning back time,” he said.
His return has included results. He spoke about winning a silver medal at the Masters Championships in May.
Miller also revisited the marriage itself, saying he is “not convinced I married for the right reasons.” He believes he tied the knot to “get control of my life.”
Between his Olympic past—where he narrowly missed out on 100m butterfly gold in controversial circumstances at the 1996 Olympics, and was forced to sit out the 2000 Games after missing selection through injury—and the years that followed, Dawson’s reaching out became a point of final regret.
He believes he missed a chance he can never recover. And he knows he will have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life.
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact Lifeline on 131 114, or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.
Scott Miller Charlotte Dawson Deep End documentary ABC suicide Facebook message regret meth trial Yass 1996 Olympics Masters Championships Andrew Boy Charlton Aquatic Centre