Rex Hunt opens up on mental health battle

Rex Hunt has spoken of his mental health decline that led to an incident on the side of a Geelong freeway, and revealed the stress of his illness has destroyed his family.

Rex Hunt has revealed he suffers from bipolar depression. Picture: Supplied

TV and fishing legend Rex Hunt has broken his silence about the medical incident on the Geelong freeway in January that saw him placed in mental health care for seven weeks.

Hunt, 74, revealed in an interview with Sam Newman’s You Cannot Be Serious podcast that he suffers from bipolar depression.

“Life will never ever be the same. Mental illness is a nasty word for some, but until it happens to you, I had no idea the ups and downs your mind goes through when you are suffering what I am suffering (from),” Hunt said.

Hunt said his mental health decline started seven years ago after he became hooked on pain killing opioids following surgery for a debilitating neck injury.

“I overdosed on opioids and went downhill very, very quickly,” he said.

“I am completely off opioids (now). I am certainly on a couple of medications from my psychiatrist to try and level out my brain, but it is a big thing. It is a big thing in your life and it is a big thing to talk about.

“If I can help somebody to understand that you can be what is normal, or quite normal in your particular mind, and the next moment you are in a straight jacket down in a facility.

“It is a chemical imbalance in the brain and I have been diagnosed with bipolar depression, high highs and low lows.”

Hunt spent weeks recovering in a mental health hospital. Picture: Michael Klein

Hunt said he was diagnosed six years ago following a “meltdown” that saw him admitted to a mental health clinic in country Victoria for six weeks.

“One night after Footy Nightline (on 3AW) I just had a meltdown and drove down to Phillip Island and started to ring everybody including Eddie (McGuire) and you, (Sam Newman), and was feeling sorry for myself and that is when I found myself for six weeks in the facility in Traralgon.”

Hunt said his family had fractured in recent months as he struggled with his mental health.

“I hold myself totally responsible for what has happened, but it is a very private thing between Lynne (his wife) and I, but we are working on it,” he said.

He said his adult children were not close to him at the moment.

“My children certainly aren’t. The whole family has busted up, simple as that, it is very, very sad, but things happen,” he said.

“I am in a very difficult place at the moment because it is difficult to try and get everyone together when you are trying to get yourself together.”

Fans feared for Hunt after he called the police in the early hours of January 17 in a frantic state.

Hunt says his family has broken apart. Picture Norm Oorloff

He had pulled over on the side of the Princes Freeway near Little River, and made two emergency calls asking for police help and claiming he had been attacked by thugs and threatened with a knife and a gun.

Police attended and he was taken to hospital in Geelong.

There was no evidence that Hunt had been threatened or attacked by anyone.

“The police came down and they made a recommendation that I be actually locked up because it was a figment of my imagination,” Hunt told Newman, while maintaining he did not make anything up.

“I was taken to Geelong psychiatric hospital.

“I may not ever get over my mental illness, but the thing about it is I am trying to control it.

“I spent the next seven weeks in the Victoria Clinic in Prahran in my own room on some special medication and then I was discharged a few weeks ago.”

Hunt said he was thankful for the support he had received from friends during his health crisis and was taking it “one day at a time.”

“For this to be, is up to me,” he told Newman, his friend of more than 50 years.

“I just have to work it through and take every day as it comes.

“My mind is OK, I am thinking pretty good, I am looking forward to going fishing if I can get my shoulder fixed.”