Michael Phelps invited former rival Grant Hackett to recover at his US home
EXCLUSIVE: Swimming legend Michael Phelps said his “heart hurt” as Grant Hackett staggered through a public breakdown.
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MICHAEL Phelps watched the descent into darkness from the other side of the world.
He watched and knew he had to do something. He, too, had been there; empty, apart, withdrawing from the glorious high of intense competition.
Phelps told of how his “heart hurt” as Grant Hackett staggered through a public breakdown, and how he decided to help his former Olympic rival by inviting him into his Arizona home.
Hackett, a triple Olympics gold medallist, was arrested in February over a meltdown at his family home.
The 36-year-old was missing for a day and later posted a photo of himself with a black eye, suffered at the hands of brother Craig. Hackett said it was the “toughest week of his life”.
After years of incidents involving alcohol and sleeping pills, many held serious fears for Hackett. At the top of the list was Phelps.
He invited Hackett to spend several weeks with his family in America. “Hacky is like a brother to me,” Phelps told The Sunday Telegraph.
“Grant and I have been good friends since 2001 and my heart hurt when he went through those things.
“I just wanted to spend time with him, whether it’s him chatting with me or hanging out. I wanted to try and help as much as I could.
“I was trying to get him over to the States to just hang out, for however long he wanted.
“Hopefully we have been able to help out a little bit.”
Hackett stayed at Phelps’ house in Arizona, where he and wife Nicole raise son Boomer. Hackett later referred to the Phelps as his “US family” on social media.
“I hope he comes back over soon and hangs out some more. We already miss him. He is a very, very good friend of ours. I can’t say that enough,” Phelps said.
“He is one of very, very few people who can stay at mine and Nicole’s house for an extended period … and fit in for a long time in our group and can deal with our smart-ass jabs and back-and-forth comments that we have.”
Asked about this dynamic, Hackett responded: “That’s because I give it back haha.”
Phelps said he is confident Hackett is on the road to recovery.
“He is heading in the right direction and I am very excited to see the future and what it brings for him. We have talked about some things we can both do to help other people and we are both very excited to see that next chapter,” Phelps said.
“We have both been through similar things, but different things. We can obviously share different perspectives of different sides of the things we dealt with.”
Phelps and Hackett even hit the pool together. “We were swimming from time to time, messing around, we did a couple of sets here and there,” he said.
“Definitely for guys like Grant and I, two people who have spent so much time being active, it is just something we have to do. It has been a part of our lives for so long.”
Phelps, the greatest swimmer of all time with 23 Olympic gold medals, understands mental health struggles intimately.
After retiring from the sport in 2012, Phelps went into his own downward spiral that saw him drinking heavily and arrested for DUI in 2014.
He even entertained suicidal thoughts. Phelps went through rehab, returned to swimming and won five more gold medals in Rio.
Phelps is now a vocal mental health advocate and last week joined the board of Australian medical technology company Medibio, which has developed a new test to assist in the diagnosis of mental health disorders.
After retiring again post-Rio, Phelps said he had joined Medibio as part of a desire to turn his energy towards helping others understand mental health struggles.
“It is something I have gone through first-hand. I have had a couple of ups and downs and definitely gone through a couple of stages of depression,” Phelps said.
“It was good for me to understand it’s OK to not be OK. We are all human beings and we all go through certain things in life.
“It was hard to put my hand out and ask for help. That’s the one thing that probably single-handedly changed my life and saved my life.”
The topic of athletes struggling to deal with transition into retirement has been a pressing one in Australia this year and Phelps is only too familiar with the issue.
“I have had multiple friends who have gone through mental illness in their life and it has come right after an Olympic Games. You build up for these four years and your race can be over in 10 seconds,” Phelps said.
“Then what do you do? You build up to this ultimate high, then you get done and you feel lost.
“One thing leads to the next and you can find yourself in a place you don’t want to be. And sometimes there’s no turning back.”
Phelps wants to help find solutions to mental illness.
“That’s how I work, that’s how I’ve worked my whole life,” he said. “I’m going to set extremely high goals. I’m going to be hard on myself when I don’t achieve what I want.”
Originally published as Michael Phelps invited former rival Grant Hackett to recover at his US home
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