Grant Denyer: ‘A doctor told me I was going to die’

Grant Denyer has opened up about the moment that made him realise he needed to put his life back on track.

It took a doctor telling Grant Denyer he would die to get his life back on track.

Speaking on the Mental As Anyone podcast, the Gold Logie Award winner said he pushed himself too hard on multiple occasions before he finally stopped.

“I was skinny as a rake and unhealthy as hell and the doctor said my organs were running at about seven per cent,” Denyer told the podcast.

Deal or No Deal host Grant Denyer. Picture: Richard Dobson

“He goes, ‘if you don’t do something about this in the next four weeks, you’re going to die. It took two lessons for me to realise that I had to change my mindset and how I was approaching life and what I prioritised as important until I learned the lesson and I feel like if I hadn’t learned it the second time, it would have been fatal the third.”

The first lesson was Denyer breaking his back in a car accident, the second being chronic fatigue telling him his body needed to stop.

“I broke my back, which I firmly now believe was not as a result of jumping seven cars in a monster truck but as a result of ignoring all my bodily signs, ignoring all the signals my body was trying to give me to slow the hell down,” he said.

“You can’t sustain this pace and this grind and this aggressive chase for the next rung of the ladder, because you will die. As my body was deteriorating and my mental health was deteriorating, the monster truck crash came along to sit me on my arse.”

Grant Denyer and his three daughters - Sailor, Scout and Sunday - on set of Deal or No Deal. Picture: Instagram

Denyer won his Gold Logie Award in 2018. He is one of Australia’s highest profile television presenters, much loved for his earlier work hosting Sunrise and now host of hugely popular game show, Deal or No Deal.

He didn’t hold back in the tell-all podcast episode, speaking of his insecurities growing up, finding his place in the often brutal and competitive entertainment industry and the fact his beloved family – wife Chezzi and their three daughters – ultimately saved him.

He also spoke of struggles with the prescription medication painkillers he took to deal with the pain of breaking his back.

“It messed with me instantly and majorly,” he said. “To give you an idea, the moment you close your eyes at night time, you fall into your worst nightmares every time instantly and you can’t differentiate between dream and reality so when you wake up, you firmly believed what you have just dreamt, indeed actually just did happen. One night I could barely walk … I thought there had been a home invasion at home and my wife was being raped so I came out to fight people that weren’t there. And that was a nightly occurrence and hundreds of variations of those scenarios. It was horrible.”

Grant and Chezzi Denyer, November 25, 2019. Picture: Instagram

On another occasion, when the couple lived in an apartment in the Sydney CBD, he woke in the stairwell of their building after leaving in his undies in search of scotch.

“I’ve made it back to my apartment building but got lost and ended up being in the fire escape somewhere and sort of got trapped or confused,” he recalled.

“Someone else had gone in there and done a shit, there’s a human poo in this cement stairwell. Chezzi, eventually after three hours of searching and probably going extremely mental, she found me asleep lying next to someone else’s poo in this fire escape in his undies.

“I feel sorry for that guy in that moment. It is important to reflect on because it is the lows that make the highs and those euphoric moments feel high and that was one of the lows. I think in recognising (and) giving voice to those moments of low, that you can celebrate mediocre a lot more and enjoy that.”

* Do you need help? Lifeline: 131144; Beyond Blue: 1300224636; Kids Helpline: 1800551800.

Originally published as Grant Denyer: ‘A doctor told me I was going to die’