Exclusive | Olympic star Ryan Lochte opens up on drugs, depression, divorce, infamous Brazilian arrest and insists hes not broke

Twelve-time Olympic medal winning swimmer Ryan Lochte stunned fans this week by announcing he has taken a $30,000-a-year assistant coaching gig with Missouri State University.It’s been a rocky few years for the champion after battling depression so crippling some days he couldn’t even get out of bed, he told The Post in an exclusive interview from his current home in Gainesville, Florida.Last August, he also went to rehab and he’s still in the midst of a bitter divorce from his estranged wife, Kayla Rae Reid, the mother of his three children, Caiden Zane, 8, Liv Rae, 6, and two-year-old Georgia June.But amid the turmoil, the 41-year-old has found love again with girlfriend Molly Gillihan, whom he credits for getting him back on his feet, and he is soon hoping to marry.“After the 2021 Olympic trials, I was in a very big depression,” the six-time gold medal winner reveals.“My mental health was gone and the household that I was living in, it was toxic and it wasn’t good for me.“I was lost and it didn’t help that my other partner at the time would say, ‘You’re worthless, you’re a loser.

You need to get up and get a job.’ And I was like, ‘I really can’t.I don’t know what to do.

I’m lost.”Lochte was left reeling further after being in an almost fatal car wreck in 2023, and admits he then dived into alcohol and drugs. “I just did it to escape the hell that I was living in,” he says.“It was mostly weed and cocaine.

Yeah, it’s horrible.I look at myself now and I’m just like, what the hell was I ever thinking?Despite accusations by Reid, Lochte insists, “I never did drugs in front of the kids” and does not consider himself to have ever been addicted.After his stint in rehab, he went into therapy, which has greatly helped him.

Now he says he’ll have a drink every now and then, including a glass of champagne recently to celebrate his one-year anniversary with Gillihan — and he does not touch drugs.Lochte readily admits ...