Emma O'Reilly: Armstrong branded me a prostitute and an alcoholic after I bought make-up to hide needle marks on his arm

PUBLISHED: 17:30 EST, 17 November 2013 | UPDATED: 17:43 EST, 17 November 2013

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Here is a condensed version of the exclusive story Emma O'Reilly wrote for Sportsmail in January following Armstrong's confession on the Oprah Winfrey TV show.

Lance Armstrong responded to my accusations that he was a drug cheat by branding me a prostitute and an alcoholic. I was at home when I first heard him say it. He was on television. I just stood there, angry, aghast.

Lance and I were close for a while. I was his favourite masseuse on the team and his trusted soigneur (member of the support team).

VIDEO: Scroll down to watch what happened when Sportsmail brought Emma O'Reilly and Lance Armstrong together again

Laid back: Masseuse Emma O'Reilly revealed she shared a close relationship with Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong implies cycling chiefs HELPED him to dope

Click here to see the full version of the article Emma O’Reilly wrote for Sportsmail in January following Armstrong’s confession on the Oprah Winfrey TV show.

I didn't like the drug culture in cycling and I didn't really want to get involved. But he asked me to cross the border from France into Spain to make a collection for him and I went. Another time he asked me to dispose of syringes. I bought make-up when he needed to cover up needle marks on his arm before the 1999 Tour de France medical press conference.

I was also present when the team realised Lance had tested positive for cortisone during the first Tour de France he won, in 1999. A decision was made to present the International Cycling Union (UCI) with a backdated prescription for a cream for saddle sores, and it worked.

'Now you know enough to bring me down,' Lance said to me.

Owning up: The American admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he'd taken performance-enhancing drugs

I watched his confession to Oprah Winfrey and he said I was one of the people who had been 'run over', and that he owed me an apology, but crucially he confirmed my story about the prescription.

A tightness in my chest was released. I don't think I'd realised, in all these years, that it was there. Only when it left me. The one person who could convince the world that I had been telling the truth had finally done so.

He said he had tried to contact me, and he had. I'd missed a call from him and received a text. He wanted me to call him. I chose not to. I do want to speak to him but I'd rather do it face to face.

I'd like to explain why I told my story in the first place, because it wasn't about him. It was about the young lads who were being forced to take drugs. It was the way it changed them once they had crossed to the dark side. It was about riders dying.

Cover up: O'Reilly claimed she covered needle marks on Armstrong's arm before the 1999 Tour de France

I'd like to ask Lance how he could come after me in the way he did when he knew what I was saying was true. I thought Lance was going to ruin me, take everything I had away. My house, my business.

My boyfriend at the time was great because he never told me to back down. But it was hard on him. He suffers with MS and the stress on him only made his illness worse.

One day we had a visit from Lance's lawyer. He expressed surprise the paparazzi weren't parked outside my house. He said it would only take a phone call to get them there and when I suggested they might not take kindly to my pet Doberman, he suggested that could be taken care of with a bit of steak - a clear threat.

Lance was a bully. I listened to him tell Oprah his team-mates were never pressured to take drugs. Bull****. There were other lies, too. Lance claimed to Oprah that he rode clean in 2009 and 2010. Really? The blood tests suggest he didn't.

Unfinished business: O'Reilly confronts Armstrong a decade after they worked together

You don't go from putting air in your tyres, as he described his drug-taking to Oprah, to not putting air in your tyres. He knows that being on the drug programme enables you to get on that podium, and in 2009, at the age of 37, he finished third.

There is part of me that has a bit of sympathy for Lance. I know this will be killing him. But at the same time I think about the way he hid behind the cancer in trying to defend himself. What a piece of work he is.

He described himself as a jerk as well as a humanitarian. I'd use jerk and charismatic. I'd agree that only if you doped could you win the Tour de France in Lance's era. But Lance is a one-off because it was only about winning with him. It was the only thing that mattered.

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Dara Mac, London, United Kingdom, 8 hours ago

She was complicit. Why is she taking the moral high ground.

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givemeabreak, Sheffield, 13 hours ago

Those who set out to maliciously destroy others through lies, for personal gain, are among the lowest of the low. Lance Armstrong can rot in hell for what he tried to do to so many people who were supposedly his friends.

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TheStarlightBarking, Scenic Woodlawn, United States, 20 hours ago

Just watched the video of "Lance Armstrong meets his accuser for the first time in 13 years" - - was the band bleating out "Low Rider" just for Lance? I'll say he's a low rider, alright! Bad sport!