Former Winter Olympics star Elise Christie has opened up on her rollercoaster, and at times tragic, life as an athlete and beyond.
The 35-year-old Scot was one of Britain’s greatest ever short track speed skaters but suffered high profile failures on the big stage when it came to the showpiece event every four years.
In Sochi 2012, she was disqualified from three events and there was more heartbreak in PyeongChang when she crashed and was disqualified from two other races.
Christie had been one of the main gold medal hopes and was subjected to a torrent of online abuse to compound the professional misery she was already battling.
Now retired, Christie has spoken about how she’s struggled to make ends meet, worked for Pizza Hut and turned to OnlyFans.
Speaking to the Telegraph, she said: ‘I’m trying to get to the point where I’m not doing it, but it’s not easy financially.
Elise Christie (above) has spoken about using OnlyFans as a way to make money
The former skating star suffered heartbreak on the big stage, pictured here after crashing out in Pyongchang
She says every 700 subscribers on the site generates around £5000 for her – the same amount as her winnings for the 2017 World Championship gold.
‘I did go over it for a long time in my head. In the end, I decided that being slagged off for this had nothing on being slagged off for my skating, something I dedicated my life to and apparently failed at,’ she said. ‘I just thought: “What are they actually going to say?”
‘My closest friends pretty much all supported it, but a few people wouldn’t speak to me because of it.’
Funding was cut after 2018 and Christie had high hopes of making it to Bejiing 2022 for one last shot at redemption.
That was when she had to start working at Pizza Hut as a pizza maker and delivery driver to make ends meet while training.
But an ankle injury cruelly scuppered those hopes of competing and she retired from the sport aged 31.
Christie went on to explain that when she started working at Pizza Hut her fellow employees were shocked to find themselves alongside the former superstar athlete they’d seen on TV.
‘I’m here to get paid, just like the rest of you’, she told them.
Christie has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has endured a hugely challenging personal life both back when she was competing and in retirement.
Christie says she makes around £5000 for every 700 new subscribers to her channel
The former Winter Olympian, seen crashing in 2018 during the Games in South Korea, endured heartbreak and challengers on the ice and away from it
She has previously spoken about how she used to self harm and a chapter in her 2021 memoir also spoke about being drugged and raped qin Nottingham on a night out following the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.
The Scot also escaped a house fire in 2012 and her lungs were so badly effected she had to spend the day in a resuscitation unit.
Christie’s experience of top level sport was devastating in many respects but it was still a struggle to transition to the other side after hanging up the skates.
Speaking on an episode of the BBC’s ‘Not by the Playbook’, she said: ‘I ended up having nothing, because I lost my career, came out with no money.
‘I was working three jobs. I was literally finishing at three in the morning at one job, having an hour’s sleep in the car and then going to another job.’
‘I was going from job to job. I was barely sleeping, I wasn’t eating.
‘If I look at pictures of myself back then, my eyes are drawn-in. I looked done with life, completely done.’
She credits a stint in rehab with helping to save her and is on a more even keel now.
Christie is a devoted mother to two-year-old daughter, Millie, and able to look forward in life, trying to put the anguish behind her, of which she has had more than her fair share.