Grant Denyer: ‘Nobody smiles through pain like me’
JUST weeks after his popular game show Family Feud was axed and he was nominated for a Gold Logie, Grant Denyer and his wife Chezzi open up about their life in a candid new interview.
Stellar
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WHEN Stellar spoke to Grant Denyer on May 8, on the day that Network Ten axed his game show Family Feud after four years on the air, he sounded shell-shocked.
“It’s a difficult one, to be honest,” the television host admitted. “When it’s time to wave goodbye to your baby, it’s emotional.” There was even a trace of resentment at the network’s decision to run the show twice a day, six days a week, as well as a series of “all-star” specials. Did he think flogging the show was a mistake?
“Look I do,” he said frankly. “I knew at the time it would shorten its shelf life and that’s exactly what happened. One of the keys to success in show business is ‘leave them wanting more’ — and we gave them too much.”
The famously upbeat star, who also co-hosts the breakfast show on Sydney’s 2DayFM with Em Rusciano and Ed Kavalee, even suggested he might shed a tear or two once the news had truly sunk in. “Normally these things can knock me around a bit and I’m prone to a little cry here and there,” he said. “But I’m handling it well so far.”
Fast forward a couple of weeks, and Grant’s megawatt smile is firmly back in place. On May 27, he was nominated for not one, but two Logies — the coveted Gold Logie and Most Popular Presenter — while the now defunct Family Feud is in the running for Most Popular Entertainment Program. The 40-year-old, who lost out to actor Samuel Johnson in last year’s race for the top gong, is thrilled he has been nominated even for a show that will cease to be on air next month. He’s workshopping an ironic acceptance speech should he triumph at the awards on July 1. “Wait until I’m up there winning. I’ll be going, ‘Oh, if only I knew it was this easy. I don’t even have to be on television to win a bloody Logie!’” he jokes.
It’s not the first time Grant has risen from the ashes. The knockabout larrikin from Coffs Harbour, NSW, has endured a series of crushing lows, both personal and professional, since he first made a name for himself as the weather presenter on the Seven Network’s Sunrise in 2004.
In 2008, the keen motor-racing enthusiast broke his back driving in a monster truck rally in Wollongong on the NSW south coast, leading to six months of intensive rehabilitation.
Then in 2013, he abruptly quit Sunrise and his second gig as host of Million Dollar Minute amid rumours of ill health, though at the time the star claimed he simply wanted to spend more time with his family.
A year later, media reports surfaced of both Grant and his wife Cheryl, or Chezzi as she prefers to be known, undergoing rehab treatment. While the rumour mill went into overdrive, the couple maintained that they were taking time out from their hectic schedules. Now Chezzi, 38, a former producer on Sunrise, reveals that Grant was plagued by severe health problems brought on by his racing accident, as well as the punishing demands of his role on Sunrise.
“People don’t know the whole behind-the-scenes,” Chezzi tells Stellar of those difficult years. “Grant had severe stomach problems that made him incredibly unwell. We didn’t know if he would survive. It’s not terribly sexy, but he had a condition called slow transit constipation. During those last few months at Sunrise, he was having gastroscopies and colonoscopies. We really pushed the envelope. We kind of thought we were invincible.”
Recently, Chezzi has revealed that she was facing her own hurdles throughout the couple’s marriage. Shortly after the birth of their first daughter Sailor in 2011, Chezzi was struck down with post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on, she says, by Grant’s accident and earlier trauma she’d suffered as part of her work as a journalist. “When I worked as a journalist, I saw deceased children,” she says. “At the time I played it down and got on with the job. Then after Grant had his accident, I thought he was going to die.”
She was also hospitalised with a terrifying condition when Sailor was just 18 months old: an undiagnosed allergy to sulphur, a substance found in many processed foods and medicines. It’s something she’s never spoken about before. “I went into anaphylaxis and Grant had to drive me to hospital,” she says. “I had two collapsed lungs.”
“They cut off my shirt and gave me a massive injection of adrenaline. I remember crying to Grant and saying, ‘You have to get Sailor to come. I need to see her before I die.’” Fortunately, Chezzi made a full recovery. She now manages the condition through diet, and always carries antihistamines.
For Grant’s part, the thought of living without Chezzi was something he realised would be intolerable soon after they met on Sunrise in 2005. Yet initially, they didn’t see eye to eye. “She had her own ideas and tried to make me do stuff and I pushed back,” he recalls. “Then one day I brushed hands with her and tingled from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes and I just went, ‘I cannot live without this woman.’”
The couple now live on a farm in Bathurst in NSW’s central west with Sailor and their second daughter Scout, two. “We are really soppy in love,” Chezzi says. “We still hold hands. Our friends say, ‘It’s so gross watching you two,’ but we’ve always been like that. We are absolutely each other’s best friend.”
Now they’re ready to embrace a new chapter: Grant has just been announced as the host of the Australian version of Ellen DeGeneres’s high-energy reality competition Game of Games. “It’s wildly silly on a stupidly enormous scale,” Grant says. “It’s brilliant family entertainment and I just can’t wait to get my hands on it.”
Chezzi, meanwhile, is carving out her own identity as the creator of Mummy Time, a web series, podcast and blog aimed at supporting mothers, and which the couple funds themselves. She’s even hinted that another baby could be on the cards. “At the moment we’re not ruling it out, but we’re also not trying,” she says. “But I love the idea of little babies.”
And as for that much longed-for Gold Logie, Chezzi insists that her husband has it in the bag.
“As I said, this is our year!” she confidently predicts. After being relegated to a Gold Logie bridesmaid last year, and racking up four unsuccessful Best Presenter nominations since 2007, Grant remains slightly more cautious.
“I stopped worrying about it after my fourth or fifth time,” he laughs. “I’m fine with whatever happens. I have got a well-practised losing face. Nobody claps and smiles through pain like me.”