Sheryl Crow Speaks Out On Lance Armstrong Doping Scandal, Says ‘Honesty Is Always The Best Bet’

After months of public speculation about how much information Sheryl Crow knew of her ex-fiancé Lance Armstrong’s doping use during their almost three-year relationship, the singer is finally breaking her silence.

In the months since Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, Crow’s name has come up more and more frequently. But while Armstrong did mention his ex-wife Kristin during his televised interview with Oprah last week, Crow’s name did not come up. Armstrong admitted to Oprah that he consistently used performance-enhancing drugs that included erythropoietin, human growth hormone, testosterone and blood doping, throughout his bicycling career.

During that same interview, which was watched by more than 4.3 million viewers, the disgraced cyclist acknowledged that his ex-wife Kristin had known about the doping, but he claimed that she did not ask questions. But although Oprah probed Armstrong about how much Kristin knew, she did not pressure him to discuss Crow, whom he dated and was even briefly engaged to, between 2003 and 2006 – a period which overlapped with two of his Tour de France victories.

Oprah did not ask about the fact that Crow’s name was submitted in affidavits to the United States Anti-Doping Associations twice, who would later call Armstrong the ringleader of the “most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.” She also did not ask why Crow was subpoenaed weeks before the grand jury concluded its investigation into Armstrong.

But in an interview with "Entertainment Tonight" host Nancy O'Dell, Crow acknowledged that she had seen “bits and pieces” of Armstrong’s taped confession.

Speaking of Armstrong’s admission, the singer said, "I think that honesty is always the best bet and that the truth will set you free,” the Daily Mail reported.

“It must be really hard walk around knowing you are not telling the truth about something,” Crow said. “So I always contend that the truth is the best way to go.”

“To carry around a weight like that would be devastating in the long run,” she added.

But many people close to the Armstrong scandal, like Armstrong’s former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy, have contended that the athlete’s admission was not enough.

“He owed it to me. You owed it to me, Lance, and you dropped the ball. After what you’ve done to me and what you’ve done to my family, and you couldn’t own up to it” Betsy Andreu said. Andreu was referring to Armstrong’s failure to address an incident in 1996 in which he allegedly asked Betsy to retract a statement she had made alleging that Armstrong had admitted to doctors treating his cancer that he had doped.

“Now we’re supposed to believe you?” she asked. “You had one chance at the truth, and this was it. If the hospital room didn’t happen then just say it didn’t happen. But he won’t do it because it DID happen. That’s not being transparent. That’s not being completely honest. By saying he won’t go there is just skirting around the issue. This exchange has made me furious. He used to be my friend and he decimated me. I was willing to give him a chance and this is how he responds? It just doesn’t make sense.”