Grant Denyer’s heartbreaking confession to help others: ‘I still struggle’

In an exclusive interview on the Mental As Anyone podcast, Grant Denyer has made an explosive confession on why he ‘still struggles’ and opens up about childhood, heartbreaking secrets and life in the spotlight.

Grant Denyer struggles looking in the mirror.

Despite years of working on himself, the popular television presenter is still battling a lifelong tussle with low self-esteem that started in childhood.

“My internal dialogue is brutal, my whole life, very savage,” Denyer said on the latest episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast.

TV personality and Deal or No Deal host Grant Denyer. Picture: Richard Dobson

“Very mean, horrible. It softened a lot after the Gold Logie (award). It was just very depraved, it was vicious. It was very damaging, crippled by perfectionism as well, which is a torturous condition because you are just never happy with your achievements, no matter how great those moments are. It was constantly attacking myself from the inside out. I’ve had to do a lot of work just to soften that and that still creeps in, it is an ongoing processing. This is the healing that we all do.”

Denyer, 46, won his Gold Logie in 2018.

It was then he first spoke of his personal struggles behind the beaming TV smile and boundlessly energetic persona.

“I still struggle to look at myself in the mirror,” he told the podcast.

“I don’t like looking at myself and I think that’s from telling myself over a long period of time, you’re too small, you’re not good looking enough, you’re not smart enough.

“I think being a slightly smaller guy, I was always under threat from bullies, you know, I was an easy target, you know, the girls never really invested in you because you weren’t the big, buff kind of sports guy so you were just always very overlooked. Looking in the mirror is like swallowing razorblades.”

Denyer counters the fast-pace of television entertainment with a quieter life in Bathurst with wife Chezzi and their three daughters, Sailor, Scout and Sunday.

Grant and Chezzi Denyer with daughters Sunday, Scout and Sailor,

He has learnt not to look in the mirror if he is “not feeling great” and generally doesn’t like to take photographs of himself if he can avoid it.

“What helped me a lot was grounding myself,” he said. “I live on a little farm and I find that connection to earth helps me. I definitely feel that when I am barefoot on the grass in the country, it helps top up the tank and it stops the downward spiral a little bit.”

Denyer got his start at Prime Television Wagga Wagga in 1997 and went on to become one of our most recognisable faces on the box, with varied show credits from Sunrise to Dancing With The Stars, Thank God You’re Here and Deal or No Deal.

It was on his fifth nomination that Denyer won his Gold trophy.

Two years earlier, he won the silver Logie for Best Entertainment Program for Family Feud.

Outside of television, he has chased adrenaline and accolades competing in motorsports.

“A trophy should never define your level of success or internal happiness. However, this one did. I’m someone who’s addicted to getting trophies, whether it be Guinness World Records or winning car races,” he said of winning Gold.

Grant Denyer won the fourth season of Dancing with the Stars in 2006.

Over the years, Grant Denyer has learned how to “ground” himself. Picture: Nigel Wright

“The reason I’ve so aggressively chased my career is because I have always felt a couple of core principles and core beliefs that have kind of run my operating system my entire life – that I am unlovable, and that I am not enough. I’ve only just realised later in life through a fair bit of therapy and personal development work that that was running my system. I wanted to feel seen, heard, understood, and valued. I didn’t feel like I probably had that growing up much.

“I have this amazing career now because of those broken kid values that ran my operation system and then it wasn’t until the Logies … I felt like I’d been running on a treadmill on 11 for 20 years, and I could kind of just go, ‘buddy, you did it, you got there, you made it. Now you can relax.’”

At the time of his Gold win, Denyer bravely revealed the depths of despair to which he sank in the wake of a broken back and a prescription pain pill battle that destroyed his will to live.

A decade earlier, the revhead supercar racing driver broke his back in an accident at Dapto Showground.

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

“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.”

Once recovered after four months in bed, he “went harder”. His body then taught him another lesson by way of chronic fatigue.

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

It was his wife and three daughters that gave Denyer a reason when life was too much.

“To find any reason to live is a pretty important thing and it came in the gift of a child,” he said. “And as we keep adding children, it just gives me more and more reasons, which is nice.”

10/2004 Nat, Melissa Doyle, Mark Beretta, David Koch and Grant Denyer from the television show "Sunrise".

He continued: “I didn’t have a language to describe my emotions and feelings, I had no vocabulary. I could host a TV show and say all the right things, I could make a dramatic moment, I could dial it up and make it better than it even was; I could make a real emotional moment … more heartfelt than it was. I could find a humorous moment and make it funnier than the actual moment was. I had all those skills in my job but I just couldn’t put language to trauma. I didn’t know what words to use, or how to describe it so therapy became a really good way to learn how to talk and then in talking about it, the weight would just very slowly lift and giving a name to these feelings and conditions almost took their power away.”

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