Larry Brown Sports

As most of you probably heard, US Olympic running legend Suzy Favor Hamilton was outed on Thursday as a high-priced escort who has spent the past year working for a company in Las Vegas called Haley Heston’s Private Collection. While it’s possible the word has not spread to everyone just yet, it appears The Walt Disney Company has certainly gotten wind.

According to the Orange County Register, Disney has canceled an upcoming appearance Favor Hamilton was supposed to make at an event in Disneyland. On Wednesday, Disney issued a news release stating that the three-time Olympian would speak during the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend next August. The news release no longer includes her appearance.

This would not have been the first time Favor Hamilton spoke at a Disney event. Last August, she spoke and led a dance at a Disneyland Half Marathon event in Anaheim. She also made an appearance at a Princess Half Marathon event in February at Walt Disney World in Florida.

Favor Hamilton took full responsibility for her actions after the story came out on Thursday, revealing that she has battled depression since her youth and has been seeking psychological attention. The story is as astonishing as they get for a 44-year-old woman who appeared to have a lot going for her. Unfortunately, when word gets around that you have been working as a $600-per-hour prostitute, the public appearances at family events start to go away.

Things are not always as they seem on the surface. In the case of Suzy Favor Hamilton, they were the exact opposite of what one would expect.

Favor Hamilton was a nine-time NCAA title winner at Wisconsin as a middle-distance runner. She was so incredible in college the Big Ten named its Athlete of the Year award after her. She competed in three different Olympics from 1992-2000, and she was the US record holder in the 1,000 meters. She was featured in commercials and magazines, and she seemed to transition into a normal life after athletics.

Favor Hamilton owns a real estate company with her husband in Madison, Wis., and she serves as a motivational speaker. She has a daughter, does promotional work for Disney, and she continues to run. But the truth is her life was nothing like it appeared on the surface.

The Smoking Gun dropped a bombshell report on Thursday that outed Favor Hamilton as a high-priced escort who has spent the past year working for an escort company called Haley Heston’s Private Collection.

Favor Hamilton went by the name “Kelly Lundy” and apparently was so good at her job she charged $600 per hour and $6,000 for 24 hours. She had worked her way up to third in The Erotic Review’s Las Vegas standings (ed note: they keep stats on EVERYTHING these days, don’t they?). But one of her biggest mistakes in working as a high-priced escort (read: prostitute) was that she would disclose her real identity to clients. That’s apparently how the word got back to The Smoking Gun about her illegal side gig.

What’s incredible is that the 44-year-old runner remained married to her 44-year-old husband, who was aware of her escort work.

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Before the London Olympics, US gold medalist Gabby Douglas had to overcome obstacles like being bullied by gymnasts she trained with. Now, Douglas is the first African-American gymnast in American history to win gold in the women’s all-around and the first American gymast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competition at the same Olympic Games. She also has random high schoolers asking her to their senior prom.

A young man by the name of Leon Purvis had recently been tweeting at Douglas in an attempt to convince her to be his date to the senior prom next May. When the tweets were ignored, he decided to step his game up and record the YouTube video you see above.

Purvis is hoping to get the answer this Joe Haden fan got rather than the snubbing this Tim Tebow fan or this Ricky Rubio fan received. I’m certainly rooting for him, but I’m kind of wondering how Purvis’ date from last year feels about this video. It’s one thing to be the friend who ends up as the rebound prom date, but do we need to share that info with the entire internet? Personally, that makes me feel more sorry for last year’s date than I do for Leon.

H/T With Leather

Shaun White became famous after winning gold medals at the Olympics in snowboarding, but his striking long red hair is what truly made him recognizable. When he won his first gold medal at the Torino Olympics in 2006, White became known as “The Flying Tomato,” which was a play on his aerial abilities and his red hair. Six years later, White cut ties with his most identifiable feature when he decided to cut his hair for charity.

In a video posted on YouTube Tuesday, White was seen getting his long red hair cut for “Locks of Love.” White said he had been thinking about cutting his hair for a while, and he decided to do it for a good cause.

According to its website, “Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.”

White joins many other athletes and celebrities who have donated their hair to the charity.

What was his reason?

“Somebody needs it more than I do.”

Few can argue with that. This is a good way for White to rehab his image after the whole drunken hotel incident in Nashville.

On the surface, many have always seen Lindsey Vonn as having the perfect life. The 28-year-old has good looks, gold medals, lots of money and is arguably the greatest female alpine skier in US history. However, Vonn recently revealed that she has battled depression for more than 10 years.

In an interview with People Magazine, Vonn opened up about family problems that arose after she made her Olympic debut in 2002.

“Everything about my life seemed so perfect to people,” Vonn said in the article. “But I struggle like everyone else.”

Lindsey’s parents were having marital problems in 2002, when she was only 18 years old. Vonn also had marital problems of her own with Thomas Vonn. She filed for divorce last year, but she said her depression got so bad at one point in 2008 that she could hardly get out of bed in the morning.

“I couldn’t get out of bed anymore,” Vonn explained. “I felt hopeless, empty, like a zombie.

“Everyone knows marriage is tough. But it just wasn’t working, and it was making me miserable. Nothing bad happened, but there was just unhappiness. That’s the only way I can even describe it — unhappy. Divorce doesn’t fit my cookie-cutter image. But I got to the point where I said, ‘I don’t care if I ever win another race; I just can’t live like this.’”

Lindsey’s marriage to Thomas Vonn, her former manager and coach, led to her not speaking to her father for six years. She sought medical treatment for her depression in 2008 and said she now feels like a “different person.” A reconciliation with her father has helped.

“All the parts of my life are finally in sync,” Vonn said. “I accept who I am, and I’m moving forward.”

Unfortunately for those of you who love juicy gossip rumors, her life is not moving forward with this NFL quarterback. However, it would stand to reason that his friendship has helped Lindsey get her life back on track. Her story is yet another example of how celebrity athletes have real-life problems just like the rest of us.

H/T Game On!

Michael Phelps has won his last Olympic medal. The 27-year-old announced his retirement after becoming the most decorated Olympian of all time in London by winning his 22nd medal. He holds the all-time record for gold medals with 18, which is nine more than those who are trailing him. Phelps has little left to prove, but fellow U.S. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte is not convinced he is done proving it.

The next Olympic Games aren’t until 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Lochte told The Telegraph he believes Phelps will have changed his mind about competing by then.

“Michael Phelps says he’s retired,” Lochte said. “The sport will miss him, he is one of my favorite rivals and I will miss him. But I think he will come back. When you do something for so long every day … He’s still young. I think he will be back for Rio.

”We’ll see, he’ll miss the sport.”

It doesn’t take long to get out of shape if you’re not training, but Lochte added that he believes Phelps is talented and physically gifted enough to catch up should he change his mind.

Phelps seems to be enjoying life after the Olympics, even if it has been rumored that he has a gambling problem and would benefit from not having as much free time on his hands. While a return to action wouldn’t shock us, Phelps seems genuine when he says he has put competitive swimming in his past. He wasn’t nearly as dominant in London as he was in Beijing, and it would stand to reason that he’d fall further behind in Rio if his heart isn’t fully in it. Simply adding to his personal records may not be worth a return.

H/T Game On!

Like many of us who watched the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, it sounds like Justin Bieber got wrapped up in the athletic ability and fantastic personality of US swimming star Missy Franklin. The 17-year-old Franklin is an admittedly huge Bieber fan, as evidenced by the time she went nuts after he sent her a congratulatory tweet.

Back in August, Justin decided to send her a massive care package loaded with t-shirts, CDs, posters and other stuff. Franklin tweeted a photo of the goods when she received them:

Come to find out, Missy had to send it all back. During a recent interview with ESPN the Magazine, Franklin explained how the gifts from the Biebs nearly jeopardized her amateur status.

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