This was published 8 months ago
‘They strapped me to a stretcher and Tasered me’: Crichton opens up on mental health battle
On the eve of the NRL season, Sydney Roosters star Angus Crichton sheds light on a harrowing journey that has been the talk of rugby league for the past 18 months.
Sydney Roosters star Angus Crichton.Credit: NRL Photos
Angus Crichton could hear the sirens blaring. Fighting as he was being strapped to an ambulance bed.
“The police had just Tasered me,” he said. “They strapped me to this stretcher and Tasered me. Imagine if you had a bunch of policemen and paramedics trying to strap you to a bed for what you thought was no reason. You’d be like, ‘What the hell is going on’.
“What I didn’t realise at the time was that my dad had called them because he was scared.”
To understand the situation that left those close to Crichton fearing they had lost the man they once knew, you have to go back to the Rugby League World Cup in Manchester at the end of 2022.
Angus Crichton was suffering during the 2022 Rugby League World Cup.Credit: NRL Photos
Crichton was excelling for the Kangaroos under the bright lights of the world stage, but behind closed doors he was beginning to unravel.
“I had the highest of highs, winning the World Cup,” the Roosters forward says. “After that, it all just boiled over. In typical male fashion, I was trying to convince myself that, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine’. But I wasn’t.
“It makes me a bit emotional talking about it now because it’s something I haven’t ever spoken about to anyone publicly.”
Angus Crichton celebrates Australia’s World Cup triumph in 2022.Credit: Getty
At a cafe in West Beverly Hills on Tuesday morning, sipping an iced Americano, Crichton begins to share the details of an episode that, until now, has been kept strictly private between him, his family, his manager and a select few trusted figures at the Roosters.
“It’s time to talk about it,” Crichton says as he contemplates his next words. “I don’t want sympathy. I’m not doing it because I want people to feel sorry for me. I always knew when I was undergoing treatment that I would have my time to say my piece and explain what happened to me.
“Bringing it up is a bit of a risk, to rehash old wounds, but if I can verbalise it in a way that can not only help people but explain to people what I went through and where I am now, that will be a positive outcome for me.
“It’s emotional. It’s like ripping a scab off an old wound. But it does feel good to give some air and tell people my story. It might be a different story when this gets published and it comes out, but I’m ready for that.”
When this masthead first approached the Roosters after learning of Crichton’s predicament last January, the club read out a letter from a doctor raising concerns for his safety if the story made its way into the public domain.
But by then, alarm bells had been ringing for some time among those who no longer recognised the person that stood in front of them.
A few weeks after the World Cup, as many players set off on European holidays, Crichton was unwillingly brought to a psychiatric facility by local police in the south of France.
Angus Crichton on his comeback to the NRL.Credit: Getty
Crichton had been staying in Pau with a close friend, who raised concerns with the back-rower’s family that he was acting out of character.
Crichton isn’t proud of the events that followed and eventually led to French police forcibly restraining him and taking him to a nearby mental facility.
The police and medical staff were convinced Crichton’s behaviour was the result of a reaction to alcohol or a particular substance, but toxicology reports came back clean.
It was widely assumed – and circulated in text messages across rugby league circles at the beginning of last year – that Crichton had “fried his brain” on magic mushrooms while in Amsterdam in the days leading up to his arrival in France.
Crichton doesn’t deny taking the substance in Amsterdam, but says the correlation made between the drug and his mental deterioration was inaccurate.
“It’s called a manic episode,” Crichton, who was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, said.
“I was just manic. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t thinking clearly or making good decisions. No one got hurt, no one got injured, but I was super energetic and very different to my normal self.
Angus Crichton playing for the Roosters.Credit: Getty
“When I was in Amsterdam, nothing happened in terms of a reaction. We had a great time. When I was in France, I was sober. I wasn’t even drunk. I had no substances there at all, but that was when the wheels started to fall off a bit.”
Crichton was prescribed sedatives at the clinic which, he says, delayed his recovery.
‘It became a bit of a circus. I heard about the text messages. That I rocked up to training in a Souths jersey … that didn’t happen.’
Angus Crichton
The facility wouldn’t release him, nor was he permitted to leave the country without a medical professional providing assurances he was fit to travel and with sufficient support, given the state he was in.
Crichton’s parents then flew to France with a psychologist, checking him out of the clinic and booking him on the first plane back to Australia.
For the next couple of months, Crichton received treatment in mental health facilities as he experienced different stages of mania.
Manic syndrome is a symptom of bipolar disorder and is marked by feelings of euphoria, hyperactivity, risk-taking, delusions, fixations and sleeplessness.
When treating bipolar disorder, it’s common for professionals to undertake months of testing and monitoring to determine the right medication and dosage.
Crichton wasn’t responding to the medication he was taking. His physique was also posing significant challenges, with his body metabolising the medicine quicker than the average person.
What he needed was outside the medical scope. His mental state continued to deteriorate as word began to spread of his condition.
“I had the outside world trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me,” he said.
“It became a bit of a circus. People creating ridiculous rumours. I heard about the text messages. It was crazy. A lot of it wasn’t true and it was tarnishing my reputation. It was some of the most far-fetched things.
“I can tell you now, I haven’t put on a Souths shirt since I left the club. Saying that I rocked up to training in a Souths jersey asking where Madge [former Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire] was. That just flat out didn’t happen.”
Angus Crichton during his time at the Rabbitohs.Credit: Getty
The hard part for those who cared for Crichton was his inability to recognise that he needed the help they sought for him.
There are four stages of mania; hypomania, acute mania, delusional mania, and delirious mania.
On some occasions, when Crichton didn’t take his medication, he would enter the highest stages of mania, fixating on bizarre issues which would bend his concept of reality.
When he returned to training, it was under the strict guidance of the club’s medical and support team, who quickly noticed that the increased physical and aerobic workload boosted his metabolism.
With each relapse, he would return to the clinic in the hope of altering and adjusting his medication and dosage to find the right balance.
“People wanted to constantly stay at my house with me,” he said. “They wanted to come over and make sure I was taking medication.
“I had to FaceTime them and prove I was taking my medication. That was at a time when I was saying, ‘I don’t need to take medication. I don’t want to take medication’.”
Fearing for his wellbeing and safety, Crichton’s family and manager made a pact – if he did not video call them to prove he’d taken his medication by midnight each day, they would be forced to call the police.
Which brings us back to the night he was forcefully strapped to an ambulance bed and taken to a mental rehabilitation clinic.
His father, Charlie, fearing the worst for his son, couldn’t contact him. His manager, David Rawlings, also tried without luck. Motivated by love and overwhelmed with fear, Charlie called the police on his own son.
“It’s taken for me to get to where I am now to realise that I actually did need to be protected from myself,” Crichton said.
“I needed help. The toughest thing was gaining everyone’s honest trust and belief back. I think everyone was so on edge for a long time after that.”
As much as everyone tried to shield him from the world, the plight of Angus Crichton became the subject of rumour and innuendo in rugby league.
Fans welcome Angus Crichton back to rugby league during a NSW Cup game last year.Credit: Getty
“I even had South Sydney fans messaging on social media checking up on me,” Crichton said of the supporters of his former club.
“Rugby league fans in general are amazing. I was also supported heavily by the Roosters and my teammates. I was very fortunate. But there were times I just felt like it was never going to end. I just wanted it all to go away.
“I would walk down the street and I knew people were looking at me, and they’d be whispering. Every single person I had a conversation with were like, ‘How are you, how actually are you?’ I still get it now.”
NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo would check on his welfare. Immortal Andrew Johns was also touched by Crichton’s situation.
“Having Joey Johns there meant a lot to me,” he said. “I spoke to him a fair bit. He would come and visit me, we’d go for coffee. He could relate a bit to what I was going through. He spoke to me about some of the stuff he’d gone through.
“He told me that he didn’t want to leave the house because you feel like everyone is talking about you. We went through similar things.”
Teams will always talk about the importance of a good pre-season. Crichton’s 2023 pre-season consisted largely of riding an exercise bike at the rehab clinic.
Two weeks after he was given clearance to check out of the facility, Crichton was back playing rugby league in front of a packed crowd against the Dragons on Anzac Day.
Angus Crichton on his return to the NRL on Anzac Day last year.Credit: Getty
“I was racing the clock to try and come back and play footy,” he said. “I was doing my own pre-season training while locked in a facility. Looking back at it now, it’s almost a joke. It’s laughable what I was trying to do. I was a long way off being ready to play when I came back last year.
“I only realise that now. I feel like it built character and tested me, but I look back and ask if I even should have been doing it.”
Roosters coach Trent Robinson treads carefully when quizzed on Crichton’s wellbeing.
His $700,000 World Cup-winning back-rower was a shadow of the person that he last saw before boarding a flight to the United Kingdom, and he was unsure if he would see that person again.
“I was asking that question, I didn’t know what to think,” Robinson said.
Daniel Tupou and Angus Crichton share a moment on the field during Magic Round in Brisbane.Credit: Getty
“It was so difficult and unique, and you just have to deal with the person in front of you. That was really tough for Angus. There was a six-month period there where he really struggled as he worked through things in the right way with the support of the family and club.
“When he came back, he didn’t have the foundation of work that he wanted. He was working his way back through footy, but always from the right place. That’s why it’s amazing to see where he’s at now. It’s a credit to him and it’s a bit of a shining light.
“It was such a personal battle that played out publicly because this is what we do. But he’s handled it incredibly well, and the players really supported him and handled it well. He’s come back to a strong place, fitness wise, strength wise and mentally.”
Crichton is entering the final season of his contract with the Roosters. He knows, given the emergence of young guns such as Siua Wong and Naufahu Whyte, his time at the Tricolours is likely coming to an end.
It’s why the Roosters were willing to release him from the final year of his deal to fulfil a desire to play rugby union.
Angus Crichton and former Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan.Credit: Getty
Negotiations were being driven by former RA chairman Hamish McLennan who, when criticised for making such an audacious and lucrative play for Crichton, had a dramatic change of heart and pulled the deal.
Rawlings described negotiations as “bad business” after the two-year contract worth up to $1.6 million was taken off the table after two-and-a-half months of back and forth between the parties.
“I think I was used. I think they used me to get some exposure and interest,” Crichton said. “To be honest, when it fell through, I was a bit relieved. I’ve always been open about going back to rugby and it’s something I want to do at some point in my career, but I want to finish my Roosters career on my own terms.”
Angus Crichton during the last World Cup.Credit: Getty
Crichton, who was a shock absentee from the Roosters team named for the opening game of the season against the Broncos in Las Vegas, has attracted interest from overseas rugby union clubs.
He’s in the best physical shape of his career and is now in non-medicated remission.
“For the amount of stress everyone was going through – family, friends, players, teammates – it feels good now to be able to say, ‘Just look at me, I’m fine’, and people actually know that, ‘Wow, he’s doing well’.
Angus Crichton at the NRL Fan Fest in Las Vegas last week.Credit: NRL Photos
“I’m definitely a more resilient person for what I went through. I can’t thank my family, my partner, my friends and my teammates [enough] for what they’ve done for me. I went to hell and back and come out the other side more open-minded, more understanding and probably more emotionally in touch with myself.
“I’ve definitely grown through this period. I have a lot of empathy for a lot of people now. I’ve always seen the good in people but I see it at a whole new level now.
“And if my time at the Roosters is coming to an end, I want to leave with people thinking, ‘That Angus Crichton is a bloody good player’. I’m working to get that. I’m working to put a bit of respect back on my name.”
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