“It was a time where I didn’t really give a sh*t whether I lived or died. I felt like I had nothing to live for,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “I reckon if I didn’t have my daughter at that particular point, I might not be here.”

In late 2008, the revhead supercar racing driver come TV presenter was left with a broken back after an accident while jumping a Monster Truck over five cars at Dapto Showground.

“I wasn’t quite sure whether I’d be able to walk again so I spent six months lying flat, heavily medicated trying to let it heal … I didn’t really cope with that emotionally or mentally,” Denyer recalled.

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“There are all sorts of traps that come with medications and warnings and no one prepares you for that — it is a hard cycle to get out of. I was just a bit broken, sad, lost.”

Looking back, Denyer, now 40, realises he may have been building a dependence on the painkillers.

“I mentally wasn’t well, I was on pain medication for long time, and I probably wasn’t aware of the effects of that. I just didn’t have an education to be able to deal with it. I think I was caught in that trap and a whole whirlwind of emotions that meant I was at my lowest,” he said.

“I’d lived life flat out at out at that particular point so it pulled a handbrake on my life and I didn’t really cope with that emotionally or mentally.”

Denyer was stuck in that trough for a long, long while — and nobody but his wife Cheryl knew. But then his older daughter Sailor arrived.

“That is the only thing that kept me going at my worst, the fact I had someone that loved me and depended on me, and I could not let her down and I think that is possibly the only thing that got me through.”

Despite everything, Denyer was never diagnosed for what was clearly a serious bout of depression.

“I never let myself be put in a position where somebody could recognise that. I think everyone who suffers from depression does a very good job of hiding it — I thought I was in pain physically, but I think I was a bit more damaged internally than that,” he said.

“It is a bit cleansing and feels healthy to put it out there. People ask what depression looks like and probably looking at these smiley TV teeth of mine, that can be the face of depression. I am only still trying to understand it myself.”

A few years after Sailor’s birth, in 2014 Denyer and Cheryl checked into an up-market Thai clinic prompting wild claims from Woman’s Day — which were vehemently denied — they were seeking help for methamphetamine addiction. It was actually exhaustion. Life was still not quite right.

About then Family Feud came along and on Sunday night, Denyer paid tribute to what the show did for him as he accepted the Gold Logie.

“I really wasn’t sure if I’d ever work again or if I wanted to,” Denyer said, tearing up. “I wasn’t particularly in a very good place. I wasn’t very well. I was in a bit of a hole. I was pretty sad. I was a bit lost and Family Feud came along and I was very unwell at that particular time. And Family Feud gave me a ladder out of that hole,” he said.

Family Feud is being rested by Ten but Denyer is in a good place professionally and personally. He and Cheryl celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary this year, Sailor is now 7 and two years ago welcomed little sister Scout.

And Denyer does have Ten’s new show Game of Games coming up.

“It’s like maybe Ninja Warrior for families or for the unfit, I like silly telly, there’s not enough silly in life,” he said.

Raw speech strikes a chord for Jessica Marais

GRANT Denyer’s emotional acceptance speech sparked an equally honest response from Jessica Marais — the woman he beat to the Gold Logie.

The troubled actor, who withdrew from the awards after checking into a mental health clinic, won a silver award for her work on Love Child and The Wrong Girl.

And she commended the Family Feud favourite for speaking out about his dark days.

“Your speech moved me to tears,” Marais wrote on Instagram. “And gives me strength. Courage in the quiet battle … congrats mate.”

Reading the message from Marais had a big effect on Denyer. “I was really worried about her,” he said.

“The lead up to this (the Logies) is really awkward and horrible. It is incredibly uncomfortable. You are supposed to act like a politician and I know she was having her struggles and I really felt terrible for her.

“I hope that this process hadn’t pushed her over the limit. I felt really worried and troubled for her.”

Despite her health battles Marais has a busy schedule ahead with a starring role on new Channel 9 show Bad Mothers announced yesterday.

Marais, who won the most popular female actor Logie last night, dedicated the win to her daughter Scout, family and friends.

Shock win striking a bum vote with victor

THE absurdity of the Gold Logie has been exposed once again — with even this year’s winner Grant Denyer describing the new live voting system as “wrong”.

After winning the top honour, the former Family Feud host said the gong “should be about excellence, not who has the loudest voice closest to the awards”.

His comments come after his Gold Logie victory was credited in large part to a comical campaign led by ABC funnyman Tom Gleeson that ran wild on social media. It capitalised on the Logies for the first time opening “live” voting to allow people to have their say on the big award in the final week, from Monday, June 25, right up until 7.30pm on Sunday.

Gleeson spruiked the #Denyer4Gold campaign to highlight the irony of a show axed due to low ratings winning a popularity vote on Australia’s third highest rating network. Prior to Family Feud being axed by Ten in May, it was averaging just 298,000 viewers an episode.

Denyer, who acknowledged Gleeson’s influence in his acceptance speech, admitted the comedian “hijacked” his Logies campaign and said the Gold gong should be an acknowledgment of excellence.

“I think it’s the wrong thing for the Logies. Reopening of voting is possibly the wrong thing to do,” he said. “People have already voted and invested time. Making it a live competition to the finish line, I don’t think it’s the right way to do it. I have radio and television and not everyone has that. It should be a level playing field.”

Gleeson made his agenda clear in his Hard Chat segment on ABC’s The Weekly, and later admitted his plan was “idiotic”. But he was quick to boast about his new influence. “#HardChat got @GrantDenyer the Gold Logie,” he tweeted. “It got ­@SophieMonk the Bachelorette. @TurnbullMalcolm, would you like another term?”

— Alison Stephenson

Gold Coast not glittering for viewers

A CHANGE of state and date did little to halt the slide in ratings for the TV Week Logie Awards, which was beaten by Seven’s House Rules on Sunday night.

Figures released yesterday showed Aussie television’s night of nights recorded its lowest ratings to date. Held at The Star Gold Coast for the first time, it averaged 851,000 viewers across the five capital cities. Even the red carpet couldn’t stir interest, with the stars’ arrivals averaging 840,000 viewers.

2018 Logies red carpet fashion

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The fact that such an expensive and high profile event couldn’t crack one million viewers will be a big concern for Nine — especially as it lost out to its biggest free-to-air rival.

That House Rules was the highest rating entertainment show of the night, with 915,000 viewers across the capitals, will rub salt into the wound.

Last year’s Logies, hosted in Melbourne in April, averaged 972,000 viewers and the red carpet spectacular averaged 864,000.

But even that was a fall from 2016, when the awards averaged an audience of 1.019 million and the arrivals averaged 1.050 million.

Networks have to pay attention to Fox stars

FOXTEL is breaking new ground and challenging the free-to-air networks’ dominance, with the pay TV giant leaving its rivals in the dust.

It won four Logies on Sunday night — two in the most outstanding categories and two in the public voted most popular section — while the Seven and Nine networks only managed to get their hands on two and one respectively­.

And it is not just Foxtel exploiting the pair’s weaknesses, with the ABC winning four Logies, SBS three and Stan two. Ten — Australia’s lowest-ranked free-to-air commercial network — was the big winner, picking up eight gongs but its future direction remains clouded with new owner US giant CBS planning to use more international content.

Foxtel’s prison drama Wentworth was the most awarded show with three trophies and in accepting the award for most popular drama, star Celia Ireland acknowledged it was a major win for the show to take out the audience vote ahead of Nine’s Doctor Doctor and Love Child, Seven’s Home and Away and Ten’s Offspring. “We are astonished that a pay TV show like Wentworth has won the most popular,” she said.

Nine yesterday unveiled its new weapon in the battle for viewers — Lego Masters, which pits toy builders against each other. The network will be desperately hoping it doesn’t sink like a brick.

Ten is the life of the party

NETWORK Ten’s successful night wasn’t limited to the awards as its after-party proved the shindig of choice for Australian TV’s biggest stars.

Even the talent from rival networks was trying to crash the bar at The Star Gold Coast’s Cucina Vivo venue as Ten favourites including Lisa Wilkinson and a pregnant Carrie Bickmore held court. Many of the female guests kicked off their heels to give their feet a well-earned rest with the special slippers on offer proving popular. Seven’s Sam Mac snuck in rather than heading to his employer’s soiree and the Wolf Creek cast, from Nine’s streaming service Stan, also crashed the party.