# Grant Denyer - Self-Worth Was Worth Fighting For

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 3 Sep 2023, 1 h 38 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/r7m9pgh7dg8td5gus7zjop0h.mp3

Whether it was Family Feud or whether it was the weather, Grant Denyer has been a larger than life fixture on Australian TV for 25 years. But it hasn’t all been big smiles and Gold Logies. In this raw and vulnerable chat with the most joyous man on the telly, Grant opens up about his past dependence on the pain medication (OxyContin) that he needed after suffering a serious injury that broke his back. He tells Hugh, Ryan and Josh how that dependence not only jeopardised his career, but his marriage and family. While this is a side of Grant Denyer that you may not know, it is a story of hope and resilience about a successful (and loveable) man who nearly lost it all… but found enough strength and self-worth to fight for his life. To watch Grant's Gold Logie acceptance speech, follow this link: https://bit.ly/3EmsIEL To watch the trailer for Painkiller on Netflix, follow this link: https://bit.ly/3R5H308 To listen to Grant's podcast, It's All True, follow this link: https://bit.ly/4bN6ATO The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14.

## Transcript

[0:01] We're all imperfect.
[0:03] And on this podcast, I'll be chatting with a variety of interesting people who are willing to make themselves vulnerable by sharing their own struggles and imperfections.
[0:10] It got to a point when I was really broken and I was really unwell and I'd walked away from telly.
[0:19] I didn't really care if I lived or died.
[0:26] I'm Hugh Van Kylenberg from The Resilience Project.
[0:28] And I'm Ryan Shelton from my mum.
[0:30] And I'm Josh from Hugh's mum.
[0:33] And this is The Imperfects.
[0:36] Hi, everyone.
[0:40] My name's Hugh Van Kylenberg from The Imperfects Podcast.
[0:44] I'm your co-host, joined here by Josh Van Kylenberg and Ryan Shelton.
[0:47] Welcome, gentlemen.
[0:49] What was that?
[0:51] What are you doing?
[0:53] I've done seven weeks of live talkback radio and I've enjoyed my introductions I did on the radio and thought, why don't I do them here?
[1:01] It sounded very professional.
[1:03] And how would you continue?
[1:05] Oh, that's it.
[1:06] Then you just go to a caller.
[1:08] Yeah, what do I say next?
[1:09] No, then I'd introduce the topic and I would have written it like, spent hours writing it the night before at some kind of introduction.
[1:15] I'd realize I don't do that for the podcast, but did that sound okay?
[1:19] It sounded really good.
[1:20] Thank you.
[1:21] I mean, it doesn't sound like you.
[1:22] It definitely sounds like Hugh, the radio guy.
[1:27] You know, on my first show, what I didn't realise was, like, the news comes in at a certain point.
[1:33] Like, after my show's finished, the news would come in at 10 o'clock and it comes in at that time no matter what.
[1:39] So if I'm talking, it just crashes in over the top of me and I didn't know that until just before the show started.
[1:43] I'm going to make sure you're out at that time because the news starts.
[1:45] Yeah, and the ABC are very specific about, like, on the second.
[1:49] Yeah, and I said, well, can we just wait until I'm finished?
[1:51] And then, I mean, no, like, that's when it comes in.
[1:54] So I was panicking a little bit.
[1:56] And I had all these notes in front of me, the things I had to say in the last minute, like little dot points of like the show that's coming up next, when the news is going to be, when I'll be back, who's filling in on the, all this kind of stuff.
[2:06] And I was going through it all.
[2:08] And with about 30 seconds to go, maybe 40 seconds to go, Hayley, the wonderful producer, she could talk to me through the headphones or whatever.
[2:16] And she goes, so the show coming up afterwards that I had to forward, it was called Stop Everything.
[2:22] And with that 40 seconds to go, she goes, Hugh, stop everything.
[2:24] I was like, oh.
[2:26] And I just put my hands up and just froze completely.
[2:28] I was like, she was saying, dude, just stop doing completely.
[2:34] It's an interesting direction for radio.
[2:36] I thought something got wrong or the news had come in earlier or something.
[2:39] So I was like, something's happening.
[2:40] I'll just stop.
[2:40] And she was just like, this like literally radio silence.
[2:42] I had my hands in the air going, I'm not moving.
[2:44] I'm not moving.
[2:45] I don't know what's happening here.
[2:46] The show after Stop Everything is, okay, keep talking.
[2:53] Very confusing.
[2:54] This is, we don't really want to spend time chit-chatting at the top here because we really want to get to Grant Denya.
[3:02] This chat is really everything we could have hoped this podcast would.
[3:09] would be when we first started.
[3:11] When we first started.
[3:11] When we first started.
[3:12] Yeah, exactly.
[3:13] I mean, this episode for sure.
[3:14] But as generally when we, you know, when Hugh and I were talking about like doing a podcast at the very start and thinking like, well, it's about people who seem like they've got it all and they come on and they explain what their life's really like behind the scenes and the struggles they might have.
[3:30] Grant Denya's story, even though, you know, it is public and people do know that he struggled in different parts of his life.
[3:37] He had injuries and,
[3:39] They went away from TV and came back.
[3:41] There are a lot of things that people know, but I've never heard him talk about what that was actually like, being at those depths.
[3:52] It's quite astonishing.
[3:55] Yeah.
[3:56] I've been thinking since we've done it.
[3:58] It's kind of the episode.
[3:59] If someone said, what's this podcast about?
[4:00] I'd say, listen to Grant Denyer.
[4:02] You will get a, this is what this podcast is all about.
[4:04] You're doing a whole podcast about Grant Denyer?
[4:08] God, you've done over 100 episodes on Grant Denya.
[4:10] Well, we've done 100 without him, without him.
[4:12] Now we've finally got him on.
[4:14] Yeah, it's been the big build-up to actually getting him on the hunt for Denya.
[4:19] When he first came in and he walked through the studio doors, I remember thinking, gosh, this man who has been performing for a lifetime and he's a very, very confident performer, there was an air about him that I was thinking, gosh, he's about to say a lot of stuff here that he's probably not comfortable saying or not familiar with saying or it's not, yeah.
[4:39] So he was just, he was a beautiful person.
[4:43] He is a beautiful person and it's a brilliant chart.
[4:46] Yeah, it's certainly not the Grant Denya that you know from Sunrise or It Takes Two or Family Feud.
[4:52] It's not.
[4:53] I mean, he is that Grant Denya, obviously, but I've never heard him speak like this before.
[4:58] Yeah.
[4:58] Yeah.
[4:59] So should we move on to Grant Denya?
[5:02] Grant Denya.
[5:04] Go on Grant Denya.
[5:07] And then actually before we do that, and we will after, as we always do, after we chat to Grant, we'll come back and have a little chat about a few things that he talks about.
[5:14] Yep.
[5:15] See you soon.
[5:24] It's only a few times per year that we feel the necessity to roll out the red carpet for a guest.
[5:32] But it felt necessary to get the literal red carpet, didn't even know we had it, and roll it out.
[5:40] Because we have Grant Denyer on the show today.
[5:47] Most people I would imagine know who Grant Denyer is.
[5:50] No, but everyone knows.
[5:53] That's it.
[5:54] Let's wrap it up there.
[5:56] But it really feels like, you know, I was thinking as I was coming into the studio today, I was like thinking back to like this, like season one, when we were like just trying to find, you know, good people to come on the podcast.
[6:09] It would be really interesting and have like, I don't know, like people who have done lots of stuff.
[6:15] And I'm just walking in today and I was trying not to just take it for granted that we have, that Grant Denyer's just on the show today.
[6:25] And it is a big deal.
[6:27] It sort of just, I guess, reminded me like we've come a long way.
[6:30] Not to make it about us.
[6:34] But anyway, Grant, so, so nice to have you on the show.
[6:38] Thank you.
[6:38] It's a pleasure to be here.
[6:40] Big fans of the podcast.
[6:42] And particularly, we make our own little podcast, but ours is very silly.
[6:48] And, you know, we only tell stories normally about that time my wife, her breast milk leaked out and sprayed the guy in front of us on the plane.
[6:58] You know, like stories like that.
[6:59] Like that.
[7:00] And then I was going through your... Did that happen?
[7:03] Yes.
[7:03] Wow.
[7:05] It was on an international flight.
[7:07] Did he know what it was?
[7:08] No, he didn't.
[7:11] You know how, have you ever taken a bag of chips on a plane?
[7:13] And you know when you get to like 35,000 feet, you know how the bag expands?
[7:20] Oh, my God.
[7:21] The pressure.
[7:22] So, well, my wife's boobs did that, right?
[7:25] So she was breastfeeding at the time and she needed to express.
[7:31] And it was the middle of the night.
[7:33] So the cabin lights were down.
[7:35] We're going overseas.
[7:37] And she could sense the pressure was so great that she's pulled her bra down, ready to put the suction cup on.
[7:46] And the pressure was so great, it just shot straight out and hit the guy in front of us, the back of his head.
[7:51] And he was bald.
[7:52] So you just see her breast milk running down the back of his head and neck.
[7:56] Wow.
[7:56] I mean, he would have one hell of a story.
[7:58] Do you know one day Grant Denny's wife sprayed my head with breast milk?
[8:02] That's an incredible story, didn't he?
[8:04] Well, it wasn't me, yeah.
[8:05] It was my wife's.
[8:06] Yeah.
[8:06] But it was, it was, it was, that's the kind of material that we talk about.
[8:11] It's great material.
[8:12] But I look at your normal guests is like, doctor, doctor, scientist, doctor.
[8:18] And now like me.
[8:20] So I feel.
[8:21] Denya.
[8:23] Dr. Denya.
[8:24] Yeah.
[8:24] So I feel like an imposter here on this beautiful podcast of yours.
[8:29] I mean, the whole premise was people who, when you look at their life, you go, well, that's perfect.
[8:34] Everything's perfect.
[8:36] They've achieved so much.
[8:37] I actually, so my job is, one of my jobs is to read the bio of our guests.
[8:41] And your bio went on for so long.
[8:44] You have done so much.
[8:45] And so what I often do when we have a guest on is I actually write a quick summary of
[8:50] in my notes, I summarise their bio, not to read out, just to have in my head the whole time.
[8:54] And instead of reading out your whole bio, I'm going to read my mental notes on today.
[8:59] This is the abridged version.
[9:00] Yeah, and it's like, not the bridge version.
[9:03] As opposed to the bridge version.
[9:04] The bridge version of our producer.
[9:08] This is the huge brain version.
[9:09] So never meant to be.
[9:09] I always, for every guest, I have this written down, and it's weird what I write down, but it works for me.
[9:13] So just...
[9:16] This is what I've written.
[9:17] Considering you made it a summary of the bio, the explanation of the abridged version has made it even longer.
[9:24] I just don't want people thinking, no, this is my brain.
[9:27] Anyway, Grant is an amazing racing car driver, man.
[9:32] Did you write this when you were seven?
[9:37] Or is there a comma before man?
[9:39] No, there's no.
[9:40] This is for my...
[9:44] He's an amazing racing car driver, man.
[9:49] That's Hugh's inner dialogue.
[9:50] It speaks like that.
[9:51] This is Hugh trying to connect with Grant.
[9:53] It's like, he's an incredible race car driver, man.
[9:57] This is not meant to be read out.
[9:58] This is only for me and I don't know why I write man, but it's just, Grant is an amazing racing car driver, man, and hosts so many of Australia's best and most popular shows like Family Feud.
[10:08] And then I wrote in brackets a million and 1,500.
[10:10] So I think that's a million people would watch it every night.
[10:14] And you did 1,500 shows?
[10:16] Yeah, that's about right.
[10:17] I'm glad you're...
[10:18] I just wrote those numbers and I forgot why.
[10:23] Lots of Logies.
[10:31] Lots of Logies.
[10:32] I'm on the edge of my seat.
[10:33] This is fascinating.
[10:34] But amazingly, he's probs a better race car driver, man, than TV host.
[10:39] And that's not having got your TV hosting.
[10:41] Your race car driving history is unbelievable.
[10:45] Yeah.
[10:45] It's phenomenal.
[10:46] Thank you.
[10:46] So we'll get to that.
[10:47] Okay.
[10:48] Two girls, wife.
[10:53] Three girls, but anyway.
[10:54] You have three girls.
[10:55] Yeah.
[10:55] Yeah.
[10:57] Okay.
[10:57] I don't know how that's wrong.
[10:58] How could this perfect bio be wrong?
[11:00] It might have been a typo.
[11:03] Sailor?
[11:04] Yep.
[11:05] Scout.
[11:05] Scout?
[11:06] And Sunday.
[11:06] She's two.
[11:07] Yep.
[11:08] Sorry, Sunday.
[11:10] Can you write my press releases from now on?
[11:12] This is fantastic.
[11:13] Okay.
[11:14] So three girls, wife, most undies and kisses in a minute.
[11:19] Oh, yes.
[11:20] I know what that is.
[11:20] Guinness World Record.
[11:21] Yeah.
[11:21] You hold six Guinness World Record.
[11:23] We'll get to those.
[11:25] So most undies and kisses in a minute, but he had a serious accident.
[11:30] With the undies?
[11:33] This is like the Hughes Year 6 Project on Grant Denier.
[11:39] Someone's never heard of me before.
[11:40] This is a very random way to learn about Grant Denya.
[11:43] It is.
[11:44] Oh, then I wrote in capitals, but it was very serious.
[11:49] Oh, yeah.
[11:49] Yeah, the accident.
[11:50] So that was, yeah.
[11:51] We'll talk about that.
[11:52] He is the buzz ball of weathermen.
[11:56] The buzz ball.
[11:56] So buzz ball is like England reinvented test cricket with the way that they, the entertainment that they bring to test cricket.
[12:03] It's this much entertaining format possible.
[12:05] Right.
[12:05] And I'm saying that Grant is the buzz ball of the weathermen.
[12:08] You completely, anyway, we'll get to that as well.
[12:11] Next thing it just says is mad dog.
[12:13] Yeah.
[12:14] That's your nickname.
[12:15] That was my nickname, yeah.
[12:16] It was my nickname on the track.
[12:17] Yeah.
[12:18] Yep.
[12:19] And then I always have a question that I just would like to get to at some point.
[12:23] And I guess the question I wrote here was, but at what cost?
[12:26] As in, you have done so much, achieved so much.
[12:29] At what cost, I guess?
[12:30] We'll get to that at some point today.
[12:31] So there is the strangest bio that anyone will ever get.
[12:34] That's beautiful.
[12:35] Thank you.
[12:36] Thank you.
[12:36] Yeah.
[12:37] Do you think it's beautiful?
[12:39] Yeah.
[12:39] It's like an interesting table of contents for the episode.
[12:42] Yeah.
[12:43] Like a dot point sort of list of things that we may or may not get to.
[12:48] Yeah.
[12:48] But yeah, thank you, Hugh.
[12:49] No, anytime.
[12:51] Wow.
[12:53] It was nice.
[12:54] I feel like my entire sort of 20 years in television just flashed before my eyes just in reading those highlights.
[13:01] Yeah.
[13:01] Certainly flashed.
[13:02] Yeah.
[13:02] Those sort of short flashes, weren't they?
[13:04] Yeah, very short.
[13:05] Dot point.
[13:06] Not a word wasted.
[13:08] So it's so hard to know where to begin with all that you've achieved.
[13:14] Do you see yourself as a TV personality or a race car driver?
[13:17] Race car driver.
[13:18] Really?
[13:19] Yeah.
[13:20] I only, I only got into television to be honest, to find sponsors.
[13:26] Like I wasn't from a wealthy family and motorsport can have a nasty habit of some, sometimes the cream doesn't rise to the top because there needs to be so many factors that come into line for your dreams to come true in motorsport, right?
[13:43] Because it's an expensive sport.
[13:44] Um, yeah.
[13:46] And, you know, my mom and dad had separated and I was living with my mom and I really wanted to be a race car driver.
[13:51] That's Glynnis?
[13:52] Yeah, that's Glynnis.
[13:53] And I thought, how the hell am I going to become a race car driver?
[13:57] You know, it's, how do you get in?
[13:59] How am I going to afford a go-kart?
[14:02] You know, but I had big lofty dreams and a very strong passion.
[14:08] And I was like, God.
[14:09] I need sponsors.
[14:10] How do I get sponsors?
[14:12] If I'm on television, that'd be a really good way to find sponsors.
[14:16] And it was as simple and as naive as that was the whole reason I got into television, was really to try and fund this passion and this almost impossible dream of becoming a V8 supercar driver, which eventually did happen.
[14:29] If I can just bang out 1,500 episodes of Family Feud, then maybe I'll get a sponsor.
[14:36] It really was.
[14:37] It was, and I remember when I first started go-karting, I was probably about 14 or so.
[14:43] And, you know, my mum had no idea what, you know, she wasn't mechanically minded.
[14:50] She didn't know about the sport.
[14:51] She really didn't want me to do it.
[14:54] So we had this bloke who would come along on Sunday morning, pick me up at, you know,
[14:59] 5.30 in the morning and he had a ute.
[15:01] It was the only person we knew who had a ute.
[15:03] And he'd pick me up and he'd take me to the go-kart track and he'd leave me there and I'd sit there in the pouring rain with a tarp wrapped around myself and trying to convince someone to help me lift the go-kart off the trolley and onto the ground and hopefully someone would push me so I could go in the race to get me going.
[15:20] And then that bloke would come back and pick me up in the afternoon.
[15:23] And I think about it and go how hard that was, you know, and just how unlikely that
[15:28] that fairy tale would come true, but it eventually did.
[15:32] And it only did just through an undying...
[15:38] I think it just had a...
[15:41] I refused to allow it to be anything other than a success story.
[15:45] Yeah.
[15:46] Even though it shouldn't have been.
[15:47] And is that just like in just natural self-belief that is in you?
[15:53] Just blind faith, I think, and optimism.
[15:55] Yeah.
[15:57] Yeah.
[15:57] I remember as a kid, I remember moving interstate when mum and dad separated.
[16:04] And I remember growing up in an area, I didn't feel like I belonged to,
[16:09] Very much.
[16:09] You know, I was, I was from another state, you know, I couldn't talk the language of football, you know, I was only into motorsport.
[16:16] No one else was into motorsport.
[16:17] Everyone was into, into footy.
[16:19] This is in Melbourne.
[16:20] Yes, in Melbourne.
[16:21] Um...
[16:22] And then kind of just looking around the people around me, I just didn't feel like, you know, I belonged or I'd fit in or, and no one had a life.
[16:33] No one was living a life that I looked at and went, wow, that's a cool life.
[16:38] I like what that guy's doing or that lady's doing.
[16:40] You know, I want to be that.
[16:42] Mm-hmm.
[16:42] I didn't feel like there was a lot of kind of hope or, you know, big dreams being lived.
[16:50] How old were you at this point?
[16:52] About sort of that sort of 14, 15, 16.
[16:54] Yeah.
[16:56] And I thought, well, no one's living the life that I aspire to live.
[17:01] Then it's going to be up to me to do something about that.
[17:03] So I...
[17:05] I kind of wanted to drag myself up and, and, and create a life that I didn't think was possible, but you know, I wanted to give it a shot.
[17:13] And so it took a lot of, took a lot of courage and took a lot of risks, but you know, I wanted to make a go of my life.
[17:19] I didn't want to squander it or waste it.
[17:22] Um, but that, that meant no one believed in me, so it was only going to be up to me.
[17:32] What did the separation, your parents' separation do to you at that time?
[17:35] I feel like that would be quite a vulnerable age to have your parents separate.
[17:39] Yeah, I think not only the separation and losing, you know, the dad from the household.
[17:45] You know, we were living in a little coastal village called Avoca Beach on the Central Coast.
[17:49] Really idyllic.
[17:50] You know, the community would raise the kids collectively.
[17:53] You know, you could ride your bike down to the beach.
[17:55] You know, you could wander off, you know, through the forests.
[17:57] You go exploring.
[17:58] You know, it was...
[18:00] And then, then moving to Melbourne where my mom's family were from.
[18:03] So, so she had some help around her.
[18:05] We moved to Melbourne and dad went to the Gold Coast.
[18:08] And so not only, you know, do you kind of lose the mom and the dad dynamic in, in, in the family, but you also lose your friend network, you know, that place that felt safe and felt familiar and where you belonged, you've now lost that as well.
[18:22] So, you know, you're, you're forced into a new community and,
[18:27] And I think that not feeling like I fit in also created some skills in me that I probably only now realize later in life.
[18:36] You know, the ability to be a chameleon, you know, to adapt and to be the funny guy.
[18:41] You know, because I had nothing else to offer.
[18:43] I wasn't tall.
[18:44] I wasn't good looking.
[18:45] The girls weren't interested in me.
[18:47] So what was my act?
[18:48] What was, if I was going to...
[18:51] put my flag in the sand.
[18:52] What am I going to hang my hat on?
[18:53] What's your hook?
[18:54] Yeah.
[18:54] What's my hook?
[18:55] Yeah.
[18:56] Um, otherwise you just, you know, you're, you're just lost in the crowd.
[19:00] Do you reckon that was a conscious thought?
[19:02] Like what's my, what's the thing about me that makes me special?
[19:05] Like how will I show people that I'm special?
[19:08] I think I was scared to be honest.
[19:09] I was, I was scared of bigger kids, you know, being a small guy, it's hard because in high school, you know, you're, you're an easy target.
[19:17] Um,
[19:19] Um, being afraid of my environment, I thought if I can win everyone over with a laugh, then it'll create a safer space for me.
[19:27] You know, I think I was, I was pretty scared.
[19:30] And I think being the only male in the house, you know, I had my sister and my mom, you know, I kind of felt at a young age responsible for their safety as well.
[19:38] Being the only, you know, the only dude there, I kind of, I kind of.
[19:42] I really, you know, I worried about what if, you know, what if someone broke into the house?
[19:47] I'm going to have to be the first responder.
[19:50] I'm going to have to shut the situation down.
[19:52] So safety was a big part of...
[19:56] Yeah, my youth.
[19:58] That's a lot to take on.
[20:00] Yeah, it is.
[20:01] I think watching my mum do an incredible job of raising us, you know, on her own, you know, we had really minimal means, you know, we lived a modest life.
[20:12] She created a beautiful household.
[20:14] She was a very funny lady.
[20:15] I get my sense of humour from my mum and probably my work ethic from my dad.
[20:21] the house was always full of music and it was a great, a great vibe.
[20:25] But yeah, I just, yeah, I guess, you know, I, I, I worried, you know, for them and, and, and mum, mum did a brilliant job of, of bringing us up.
[20:34] You know, she, she,
[20:36] I only found this out much later in life that I used to think she worked in an office.
[20:42] She used to dress up, put a little suit on and go to work.
[20:46] And I only found out much later in life that she used to put the suit on.
[20:50] So we thought she had an office job, but she was a house cleaner.
[20:54] And so she'd drive to those houses that she would clean and then she would, you know, put her cleaning clothes on and then she would put her suit back on to come home.
[21:01] Wow.
[21:03] Which was just to try and I think, I think she felt like she wanted to at least create the illusion that everything was okay and we're on top of things.
[21:16] And that broke my heart when I found that out much later in life.
[21:19] that she felt like she needed to do that.
[21:21] Yeah.
[21:22] Like that wasn't enough or, yeah.
[21:25] God.
[21:26] Did you stay in touch with your dad?
[21:28] Yeah, yeah.
[21:29] My dad- How often did you see him as a kid?
[21:31] Like if he was on the Gold Coast and you were in Melbourne?
[21:33] Yeah, we're two states away.
[21:34] So it was, you know-
[21:36] several times a year, you know, you go there for a couple of holidays and maybe he'd come down if there was something significant in your life, like if you're in a, I don't know, school play or something like that.
[21:46] And do you remember feelings of missing him a lot as a kid?
[21:49] Yeah, absolutely.
[21:51] You know, I think, I don't know if it's just a boy thing, but needing that father figure around or I think the seeking of approval from him, you know, meant a lot to me.
[22:01] You know, he played around the fringes of motorsport, so I think,
[22:05] And that was a language that was very important to him.
[22:07] So therefore I think I inherited this strong desire to be a race car driver, to get me closer to him, you know.
[22:15] So he had something to communicate on, you know, something to...
[22:22] Do you, like, this isn't meant to be like a provocative question at all.
[22:25] I'm just sort of interested in these, like, ideas where significant things happen in life.
[22:30] Because you said that, you know, by moving to Melbourne and after your parents separated, you were sort of thrown into this really uncomfortable environment that you weren't used to.
[22:38] You sort of kind of like developed skills that then sort of helped you later in life, you know, becoming funny and
[22:46] Um, do you put any thought ever, cause I do in my own life with significant things that have happened or haven't happened.
[22:53] Do you put any thought into what your life might've been like if they didn't separate or if, you know, like.
[23:00] Yeah.
[23:00] I, I probably don't think I would have achieved anywhere near as much as I have.
[23:04] Yeah.
[23:05] I think.
[23:06] From a strong desire to be seen, to be heard, validation.
[23:12] You know, I have horrific self-talk in my mind.
[23:18] I'm very savage.
[23:19] As in still to this day?
[23:21] Yeah.
[23:21] Really?
[23:21] It's something I only now later in life work very hard on.
[23:26] But yeah, very, very critical.
[23:30] Yeah, it's quite problematic.
[23:33] Yeah.
[23:34] And I think that comes from, I think, a core value of I am unlovable.
[23:42] So this, this strong desire to be, I think motor racing for me is not only a connection with my dad, but it is, how do I value how I'm going in life?
[23:54] Right.
[23:55] How do I know if I'm successful?
[23:57] Well, on a racetrack, you're either first, second, third, or your seventh.
[24:01] You know what I mean?
[24:02] You know where you stand because there's a number attached to it.
[24:06] So.
[24:07] Life can be, and TV is the same, you know, like you might be successful in television, but what really is success?
[24:14] You know, is your show rating well?
[24:15] Well, your show's rating well because there's nothing on against it.
[24:18] It's a great format.
[24:19] There's good people in it.
[24:21] Maybe your show's not doing well.
[24:22] What's the wrong time slot?
[24:24] It's poorly made.
[24:26] The guests are terrible.
[24:27] It's a dud format.
[24:29] People will always tell you to your face, you're fantastic, even if they do or don't mean it.
[24:35] So it's a very hard, I'm constantly trying to evaluate where I am.
[24:40] I mean, that kind of makes me think that like, as you know, Hugh mentioned so eloquently before the Guinness records, but I wonder if like, you know, when you're doing the weather on sunrise, I wonder if like...
[24:55] that need for like a very concrete level of success, like knowing if you've like achieved, if you've done a good show or not.
[25:03] I mean, I wonder if that want to do, I don't know if it was your idea or not, but the Guinness World Record attempts, you either like you've done it, you got the record or you didn't get the record.
[25:12] And it's almost like,
[25:14] Because I know what you mean.
[25:15] Like it's hard to really measure a success, especially in comedy.
[25:18] Like it's like, well, it's just such a subjective thing.
[25:21] So, you know, 100 people might laugh, but the one person who doesn't laugh might make you think it wasn't good.
[25:26] And so, but if you get the record and you do get that many kisses in however much time it was.
[25:32] 60 seconds.
[25:33] 60 seconds.
[25:34] Then you go like, that was a good show because I got the record.
[25:37] Yeah.
[25:38] Yeah.
[25:38] That's kind of interesting.
[25:39] Instant validation, you know, that, um, that you've, you've done the thing, you're doing good.
[25:43] You're doing good because you've got the, the certificate to prove it.
[25:47] And I think that you become addicted to those as well.
[25:49] And it's quite problematic.
[25:50] You know, you get one Guinness world record now, you go, Oh, maybe I'll get a, maybe another one.
[25:55] One's not enough.
[25:55] Yeah, you're right.
[25:56] And race wins are the same.
[25:57] You know, you can never have enough race wins.
[26:01] Um, yeah, it's, you're right.
[26:03] It's, it's, it's,
[26:05] It's undeniable that you are succeeding because you have the ribbon.
[26:10] And you can show that to anyone.
[26:12] And that is a universal symbol for I did a good job.
[26:15] Yeah.
[26:15] Yeah.
[26:16] Yeah.
[26:16] I wonder, I'm sort of, it's kind of heartbreaking to hear you say that you feel unlovable, which is, it's a very common thing to feel, I think.
[26:24] But I just, and you say like in later in life, you've done a lot of work on it and you've no doubt analyzed and thought about it.
[26:32] Have you thought or come to any conclusions as to why, why that is?
[26:39] Um, I think invariably, I think I feel a bit broken inside and I don't know where that comes from or why, you know, I, I think the constant negative talk of, um, you know, so if you were in my head, it'd be, you know, of course you said that you dickhead, you know, you always say stupid things, you know, you know, what, why did you do it that way and not that way?
[27:02] Well, it's because you're, you're an idiot.
[27:04] You know, I, I.
[27:05] I don't know why I have a very low self-worth.
[27:09] I don't know where that came from or why.
[27:12] I don't know if it's, you know, I think I probably blame the separation, you know, on my mum and dad, probably on myself.
[27:22] Really?
[27:22] Yeah.
[27:23] I think if it comes down to it, and that doesn't mean that that's true, but I think...
[27:30] I think that's probably how I felt as a kid.
[27:32] You know, maybe if I was nicer or maybe if I wasn't as annoying, you know, maybe they'd still be together or maybe, yeah, maybe if I could have made, you know, life a little bit easier, you know, for my mom, you know, she would have had an easier time of it.
[27:48] You know, it's, yeah, you're constantly, I guess, replaying those scenarios through your head, what you could have done differently.
[27:55] And that sort of, that perfectionism that's driven me personally,
[27:58] professionally hasn't served me very well as a, as a person.
[28:02] It's, it's, it's quite, it's quite a damaging thing.
[28:06] Perfectionism.
[28:07] Such a sad image in my head of like a 12, 13 year old boy moving States thinking this is all because of me somehow, like I'm responsible for this separation.
[28:16] Yeah.
[28:17] That's a really, as Ryan said, that's a very heartbreaking, uh,
[28:21] thing to think about.
[28:22] Well, as an adult now who's in an active and loving relationship, I know now that not to be true, but that still doesn't change the fact that that's how I felt and that still runs through my DNA.
[28:35] Hard to get rid of that.
[28:36] Yeah.
[28:36] Hard to get rid of that long thought.
[28:38] Yeah, and I certainly don't blame my mum or my dad, you know, for the circumstances.
[28:42] They were very young, you know, got relationships, you know, more often failed than succeed.
[28:48] So, yeah, I think...
[28:52] I just missed that family unit.
[28:55] And I felt like no one's looking after me now.
[29:00] You know, everyone's just trying to survive.
[29:02] And I felt like that, yeah, everyone's just trying to hang on.
[29:06] So I'm going to have to look after myself.
[29:10] I am...
[29:11] It's incredibly self-aware, some of the stuff you've said about feeling like you're unlovable.
[29:18] I've felt the same about myself for a lot of my life.
[29:23] But then something a little bit has changed for me since having a family.
[29:28] Sorry if this is too much of a pointed question, but do you feel deserving of the love that you get from your kids and your wife?
[29:36] No, I don't.
[29:38] Yeah.
[29:40] I, yeah, I don't.
[29:43] Um, I love it.
[29:45] Yeah.
[29:46] But I, I, I, yeah, I struggle with that.
[29:49] And in fact, I've at times pushed my wife away from,
[29:55] because I don't feel like I deserve it.
[29:57] And I think I have pushed her away because I fear the inevitable breakups coming.
[30:03] So I will push her away to minimize, you know, the pain when it, when it invariably does happen.
[30:10] So we've had a relationship often where I have pushed her away.
[30:13] It's kind of like a rubber band, our relationship.
[30:15] It sort of comes and goes, tightens and loosens and tightens and loosens.
[30:19] But yeah, it's.
[30:21] Wow.
[30:21] Yeah, which is, it must be exhausting for her, you know, that he was this day and now he's this that day, you know?
[30:30] Like, why is he pushing me away?
[30:32] And yeah, I think pain minimisation is, yeah, is the tactic there.
[30:38] But yeah.
[30:39] Do you, just with that question you just asked, is that because you, do you feel worthy of the love from your family?
[30:48] Or do you feel similar to Grant or?
[30:51] I think about, sorry, this is making about me, but about two months ago, I caught up with some old mates and was having a drink with them.
[31:02] And to be honest, I was a bit drunk, so emotions can come to the surface.
[31:06] But I found myself having this realization that like, I don't quite understand why they would, I think there's a deep seated thing in me of like, I don't understand why people would want to be friends with me.
[31:20] Oh.
[31:20] Um, and so I, and I do feel that still, and I feel kind of surprised when people want to hang out with me or spend time with me, but I don't, but I don't think that about my family.
[31:30] I think that's the first time in my life where I haven't felt that, but I, but I was surprised when it, cause I thought when the love and connection that's come along with my boys and my wife, um, that felt like.
[31:46] Oh yeah, that, now I get it.
[31:48] Now I feel like I deserve this.
[31:50] So I thought all that stuff was gone, but then it was this like terrifying moment of realization where I was like, actually, I still feel this about every other social interaction.
[32:01] Yeah, I would agree.
[32:02] Yeah, I feel the same way about friends.
[32:05] Yeah.
[32:06] Particularly.
[32:06] I have this, I have a horrible response to my phone.
[32:11] It's almost, it's quite crippling.
[32:14] Like if I hear a message go off, I go, fuck.
[32:18] I'm letting someone down.
[32:19] I instantly go, this is, this is, someone's going to want something and I'm not going to know how to respond.
[32:24] And I'm not going to be able to say the right thing.
[32:26] So I'll leave it.
[32:27] And then I leave it.
[32:28] And with intention to come back with a, with a thoughtful response that either is humorous or supportive.
[32:35] And,
[32:35] And then invariably too much time passes and now I haven't got back to them and now it's too late and I'm a shit friend.
[32:43] And that's confirmation of your belief.
[32:46] Exactly.
[32:47] Then I'm a terrible friend.
[32:48] And I think a lot of this came from doing Sunrise Weather, right?
[32:52] So you...
[32:54] eight years i was on the roads a different part of the country every single day for that segment to be successful it needed to be spontaneous so you needed the audience to go i wonder where they are i wonder what he's doing today so that meant you had to be in darwin one day ballarat the next perth the day after that relentless yeah hula roo after that and so you were you know like we had
[33:18] So I think I had 300 flights in two and a half years.
[33:24] Sorry, 750 flights.
[33:27] In three and a half years.
[33:28] So it was full on.
[33:31] It's platinum one all the way.
[33:32] I was just going to say, kind of imagine your status credits.
[33:35] Well, early days it was with Ansett.
[33:36] And so they took a million of me points.
[33:40] And I was spewing.
[33:43] Yes.
[33:43] Because it would have been a lifetime of free Bali flights.
[33:47] Yes.
[33:47] Yeah.
[33:48] Yeah.
[33:49] But with that, and as awesome as that gig was, because you could do anything you wanted from wherever you wanted.
[33:56] And there's no other gig in television as free as that.
[34:00] Well, you were given the...
[34:01] I read that when you were first off at the job, it was you do whatever you want.
[34:05] Like, do the weather, but do it however you want.
[34:07] Just be entertaining.
[34:08] Well, they came to me and said I was a journo, and I was a shit journo.
[34:13] Like, I knew...
[34:17] I wasn't a very smart kid, right?
[34:18] So academically I struggled.
[34:20] I probably now realised that I had some kind of, you know, learning disability.
[34:26] I remember my parents kind of having phone calls, you know, interstate, and I could sense them.
[34:36] They were genuinely very concerned, I think, what I was going to, you know, make of this life.
[34:41] You know, what am I capable of?
[34:43] You know, I wasn't doing very well at school.
[34:46] Yeah.
[34:47] Um, and I could sort of just sense them like, fuck, he's, he's just going to, what's he going to do?
[34:52] He's not going to be capable of much.
[34:55] And so I had to find another way to get into the industry because I academically wasn't going to be able to go to university for journalism.
[35:04] I was never going to have the score high enough to be able to do that.
[35:06] So.
[35:07] My backdoor into the industry was to go and work for free in school holidays.
[35:11] So I would travel on a bus between Melbourne and Wagga Wagga to work at Prime TV Wagga Wagga, where I'd carry tripods and wash the news cars and just ask lots of questions and just try and be as useful as possible.
[35:26] Because that's all I had.
[35:27] Just be useful.
[35:28] You're not going to be the smartest.
[35:30] You're not going to get in through a university degree, unlike everyone else who's in that newsroom.
[35:35] So just be useful and hope that that's enough.
[35:38] And then sure enough, they taught me how to write and then use your voice and...
[35:43] I'd, I'd take the news car at nighttime and with the scanners and I taught myself to shoot.
[35:48] So I'd, I'd listen to the police scanners and if there was like a fatality up the road, I'd drive up and I'd, I'd film it at nighttime because the other cameramen were too cranky and they didn't want to do a night shift.
[35:57] So I taught myself to shoot, taught myself to edit.
[36:00] And then that was, that was kind of the beginning of that sort of work ethic of, okay, well, if you can't be good, just work harder and be more useful.
[36:10] Hmm.
[36:11] Or if you can't be good, be cheap.
[36:13] That was the other theory.
[36:16] Sometimes that's out of your hands.
[36:19] So it was... That's actually... Have you watched the Schwarzenegger series on Netflix?
[36:23] I think that's how he ends.
[36:24] I think that's how it ends.
[36:25] It's like that was his dad's advice to him.
[36:27] He's like something like work hard, be useful.
[36:30] Yeah.
[36:31] Yeah.
[36:31] Something similar to that.
[36:32] Yeah.
[36:33] And it's true.
[36:34] Do what others don't want to do.
[36:36] You know, if that person doesn't want to stay back an extra hour to do the thing, you do it.
[36:42] You know, just be the first to put your hand up.
[36:46] And that's all I had.
[36:46] That's all I had, you know, up my sleeve.
[36:48] So I learned to be a journo.
[36:49] I remember the first story I ever did, I realized I didn't want to be a journo anymore because all the other journos were out on jobs and there was a car accident.
[37:02] And so the news director goes, righto, GD, this is your first story.
[37:05] No one else is available.
[37:06] Off you go, big boy.
[37:08] Put your big journo pants on and away you go.
[37:10] I was like all excited.
[37:11] I got my notepad.
[37:11] I got my pen.
[37:12] I got my, I only had one suit and then, and my tie was from my grandfather and I wore that same suit and same tie every single day.
[37:21] And I went to do a story and I got there and the car, there was a guy driving into the sun.
[37:29] on his way to work and then coming the other way was a wide load.
[37:33] And he was driving, do you remember the, remember the Ford Capri?
[37:37] They were like a little soft top.
[37:40] Is that where the headlights pop up at the top?
[37:42] Yeah.
[37:42] At the front?
[37:42] Yeah.
[37:43] Yeah.
[37:44] There was a guy driving one of those and the wide load had come along and he didn't see it because the sun was in his eyes and it had decapitated him.
[37:53] Oh, my God.
[37:54] So I just rock up.
[37:57] First, basically first story I've ever done.
[37:59] Oh, my God.
[38:01] Get up there.
[38:02] No police officers like, hey, mate, you might want to go over there or no one sort of gave me any heads up that this is what I was walking up to.
[38:09] I walk straight up to the car and it's just body parts everywhere.
[38:15] And I'm like, I don't think I'm cut out for this.
[38:19] I don't think this is what I want to do.
[38:21] Fair enough.
[38:22] This is, this is heavy and I'm not emotionally equipped to do with this.
[38:28] And so I think it was at that.
[38:30] Very early moment on, I realized I'm not a journo.
[38:34] You know, if this gives people satisfaction, then this is obviously not the career for me.
[38:42] But I was already committed, right?
[38:44] So I'm now in a career.
[38:47] I've just started it.
[38:48] And now I think it's the wrong career.
[38:50] So I kind of stick it out.
[38:52] But then I realized as I moved to like, I remember being down here in Melbourne, there was a news director there and I get down there and I'd become like the cat up a tree guy, you know, a prime TV wogger.
[39:04] I thought I'll do the color stories.
[39:06] Yeah.
[39:06] You know, if there's, you know, if there's a flower show on, I'm your guy.
[39:10] Yeah.
[39:11] I'll go do that.
[39:11] I'll go do those yards.
[39:12] So you said that to your boss.
[39:13] He said, I want to do the fun stories.
[39:15] No more decapitations.
[39:16] I think he realized pretty early on I wasn't a political animal.
[39:19] I wasn't particularly that worldly.
[39:21] I wasn't an ambulance chaser.
[39:23] So what good am I?
[39:25] I'll do the colour stories, the ones, you know, just at the end of the bulletin.
[39:30] I remember coming down to this news director down here in Sydney and he's like, you know, nothing.
[39:36] You know, we don't do that shit down here.
[39:38] Forget colour stories.
[39:39] I'm going to have to pull you down and completely rebuild you into a journo.
[39:43] You know, you're fucking terrible.
[39:46] And I'm like, oh, God, this is bad.
[39:48] You're like, God, I'm getting enough of this from my inner voice.
[39:50] I don't need it from an outer voice as well.
[39:54] And then one day I thought, you know what, I'll just try and slip in a colour yarn.
[39:57] I'll just try and – and I found a producer that would kind of slip the script through.
[40:01] I found an editor that would work on it quietly without the news director knowing.
[40:05] And I remember at six o'clock the news director would come out and he'd watch the bulletin and I knew my story was coming up.
[40:12] And I'm like, oh, God, he told me I'd never be able to do a colour story and I've got one.
[40:17] Story starts.
[40:18] I look at his face.
[40:19] He's like, stone cold.
[40:20] Nothing.
[40:21] No emotion.
[40:21] Zero.
[40:23] And my piece of camera's coming up.
[40:24] It's a pretty wacky piece of camera.
[40:26] It starts.
[40:27] I'm watching him through the corner of my eye.
[40:29] Again, still nothing.
[40:30] No reaction.
[40:31] I thought, oh my God, my career's over here.
[40:33] And then the story finished.
[40:35] And he goes, that.
[40:38] We all just swear.
[40:38] Yeah.
[40:39] Yes.
[40:39] That.
[40:39] That.
[40:41] was fucking hilarious.
[40:43] I want more of that.
[40:44] And I'm like, whoo!
[40:45] Oh, gosh.
[40:46] And from that moment on, I just became the colour guy.
[40:49] So I had a spot in the National Bulletin right before sport.
[40:53] So the light and fluffy story before sport became mine.
[40:57] Wow.
[40:58] It really is.
[40:59] You know, having done, you know, dabbled in like comedy, attempted comedy for a while, it's like that feeling where you've got someone literally saying to you, that was hilarious.
[41:10] Yeah.
[41:11] Yeah.
[41:11] That is a drug you then continue to chase for the rest of your life.
[41:15] But had he said, I never want to see that again, my career would have been completely different.
[41:19] It probably would have ended there and then because I would have like, I'm not like these other journos.
[41:23] I'm not built that way.
[41:24] I can't do that.
[41:25] Yeah.
[41:26] So thank God he went, I love it.
[41:28] I want more of it because from there it just, you know, it took off.
[41:32] I remember my favourite story from Melbourne was I went to this lady's house and the story was she has a horse that sleeps in her bed.
[41:43] Nothing's us.
[41:47] We're just friends.
[41:49] Just to save on rent, really.
[41:52] It would literally walk up to the bed and would just lay on its side with its head on the pillow.
[42:00] And she thought this was like completely normal.
[42:03] Wow.
[42:04] Well, I mean, who knows?
[42:05] Maybe she's the normal one.
[42:06] That is wild.
[42:08] Wow.
[42:08] That summarises my career as a journalist.
[42:12] So then from a journalist, then, I mean, this is a very clear progression to doing weather.
[42:19] Was it as simple as then Channel 7 going like, you'd be really good at doing colour stories every morning on sunrise?
[42:25] No, what it was...
[42:27] So they were just rebuilding Sunrise into like the Today Show had been number one for three decades.
[42:35] Sunrise was nowhere to be seen.
[42:38] I'd just done...
[42:41] No journo wants to do the Royal Easter show in Sydney.
[42:43] So actual journos, you know, the people who do politics or finance or.
[42:49] Yeah.
[42:49] Actual journos.
[42:51] Need decapitations.
[42:52] No one wants to do the Royal Easter show.
[42:53] So I went to the news director and said, give me your 14 days and I'll make each one different.
[42:59] And I did that and then I got a phone call from the executive producer of Sunrise going, I've never seen someone polish a turd better than you.
[43:06] You are the perfect weatherman for us.
[43:09] Would you come and do it?
[43:10] And I was like, I don't want to be a weatherman.
[43:12] You know, I felt weather would, you'd only ever be a weatherman.
[43:18] You'd get tired with that brush and you'd never be able to shake it off.
[43:21] So I said no.
[43:22] And then they kept asking.
[43:23] And I was like, what if...
[43:25] I made it almost about anything other than the weather.
[43:28] And they said, as long as you read the temperature for Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane that day, do whatever you want.
[43:35] I was like, whatever I want.
[43:37] That is a tempting carrot.
[43:39] Yeah.
[43:40] So that's when it became... Buzz ball.
[43:42] Buzz ball.
[43:43] An adventure travel segment.
[43:45] You were jumping out of helicopters, you were wrestling crocodiles.
[43:49] I remember one...
[43:51] I got a call from the news director one day because...
[43:57] I'd had my hand up a horse on television, pregnancy testing a horse on television.
[44:04] Yeah.
[44:05] I think I remember that.
[44:07] I actually think I remember watching that.
[44:09] And just go, and he rings me and goes, today.
[44:13] I said, yeah.
[44:14] He goes, that was a bit far.
[44:18] What, like literally?
[44:19] Yeah.
[44:21] I was up to my shoulder.
[44:21] Up to your shoulder.
[44:22] I was up to my shoulder the whole way in.
[44:24] He goes, you've got to remember people are eating their cornflakes.
[44:27] I was like, you know what?
[44:28] You're actually right.
[44:29] Good point.
[44:29] It wasn't very much.
[44:30] Yeah.
[44:31] But it was all, it became a challenge to how do I outdo the day before.
[44:36] Yeah.
[44:37] I know this is – what I'm about to say now is probably more of a concluding summary thing, but I just feel the urge to tell you right now that, like, we've been chatting now for probably about an hour, including that we chatted 15 minutes before we turned the mics on.
[44:50] You are so lovable.
[44:52] You are such a lovable person.
[44:54] And I thought that before we turned the mics on.
[44:55] I just really felt that, like –
[44:57] Thank you.
[44:58] You sort of make, you're very, you make very quick judgments on that.
[45:03] Often you're pretty correct.
[45:04] I just, I felt so quickly if I was to describe you after a few minutes, like this is such a lovable person.
[45:09] I just feel the need to tell you now, like rather wait to the end.
[45:12] Because that to me of you feeling not lovable, I would like you to know from someone who's just met you, I think you're quite the opposite.
[45:18] Oh, thank you.
[45:20] Yeah.
[45:22] relationships within the entertainment industry, especially if you've got the inner thoughts of, you know, I'm not lovable.
[45:32] I feel like that would be a challenge.
[45:34] It'd be a challenging industry to navigate because as you know, it's like you're hot or you're cold.
[45:41] Yeah.
[45:42] And it's hard to know whether people, do they actually like me or am I just useful to them at the moment?
[45:48] Yeah.
[45:50] How was your experience with that?
[45:52] I think because I had no self-confidence, because I didn't think I was worthy or capable, I invariably, you know the saying...
[46:04] You dress for the job you want, not the one you've got.
[46:06] You know that theory that you always look like you should be at that level and then the universe will conspire for it to happen or the management will conspire to give you the promotion.
[46:19] So what I would do was I would...
[46:23] I'd kind of, because I didn't believe in my own ability to be enough or to do a good job, I would basically look at a number of other people and go, okay, well, I like how Ryan does that.
[46:37] So I'll take a little bit of that, how you do that.
[46:40] I've got Larry Emder, I like how he does that.
[46:43] I like how Rove does that.
[46:45] You know, I like how Carl Stefanowicz does that.
[46:48] And I'll just, I made myself the sum of other people.
[46:52] So I was just, I was just like wearing a coat that were just bits of others.
[46:58] And, and that's kind of how I got by, but that became quite exhausting because you're
[47:09] You're only the sum of other people.
[47:10] I totally relate to that.
[47:12] In terms of then relationships in the industry, does that almost become like an armour that you, if you're ever criticised or abandoned or by someone or whatever in the industry –
[47:26] you're almost like protecting your true self.
[47:29] It's like, well, that's not me.
[47:30] That's like the sum of all these people.
[47:32] So I'm not exposing.
[47:33] Yes.
[47:33] Your, your vulnerabilities or, or your soft spots to be poked.
[47:37] Yeah.
[47:37] Yeah, absolutely.
[47:38] Yeah.
[47:38] It is like a suit of armor.
[47:40] Yeah.
[47:40] Um, I remember after I, when I left sunrise, I had like pretty much a breakdown, to be honest.
[47:54] I, I,
[47:56] I remember I was the guy at seven, right?
[48:03] I was doing all the big shows.
[48:04] I was doing Australia's Got Talent.
[48:06] There was a singing show, It Takes Two.
[48:09] You know, you're doing Sunrise.
[48:11] I was racing V8 supercars.
[48:12] I was working in the telecast.
[48:15] I was getting all the big gigs.
[48:17] Yeah.
[48:17] If they were doing a big show, they wanted you to do it.
[48:18] Yeah.
[48:19] Yeah.
[48:19] And I remember doing...
[48:24] all that travel for sunrise and then just getting to, getting to the end of, of realizing that I'd gone past empty.
[48:32] I'm now into my reserves.
[48:34] It's getting, it's getting dangerous now, how exhausted I was.
[48:38] I remember going to the doctor and the doctor said, your organs are running at about 7%.
[48:45] He said, you, you're gonna, you're gonna die if you, if you keep going like this.
[48:50] And I remember, I remember going to the network and saying, look, I can't do this anymore.
[48:57] I have to, I have to leave.
[48:59] Is this the weather?
[49:00] Yeah.
[49:00] Yeah.
[49:01] And it was rating its tits off.
[49:04] The weather was, you know, an important part of the show and you could see the audience liked it because there were audience spikes, you know, in that little five minute segment after the news all the time.
[49:14] And the CEO was like, mate, can you just do one more year?
[49:17] Just one more year.
[49:17] Just for me, mate.
[49:18] Just for me.
[49:19] And I'm like, I don't think I can.
[49:20] Yeah, come on, mate.
[49:22] You know, as a friend, as a friend.
[49:24] So then you go, okay, I'll give you one more.
[49:27] And then you get to the end of that year.
[49:28] Come on, mate, just one more.
[49:29] Can you do another one?
[49:30] Can you do another one?
[49:32] And I'm like, okay.
[49:33] I ended up giving them three.
[49:36] And then it got to the point where no one was listening.
[49:41] No one.
[49:45] No one really cared how I was going.
[49:51] And I clearly wasn't very well.
[49:53] Um, and me being me, I'm trying to give it a thousand percent.
[49:58] You know, how do I make the last broadcast that I did 25 minutes ago better than, how do I make this one better than the last one?
[50:05] Um, and every time I was trying to opt out, every, every time I was trying to put the white flag up and say, I can't do it anymore.
[50:11] I have to stop.
[50:13] You know, I was coaxed into doing it again and no one was checking on my welfare.
[50:18] And, you know, I just got to a point where I, um, I had to just cut and run.
[50:24] So I just decided, you know, on the situation wasn't going to change.
[50:30] because there was too much writing on it, unless I changed it.
[50:34] And so I just announced it one morning on Sunrise and just said, guys, I'm out.
[50:38] I can't do it anymore.
[50:39] No one was listening.
[50:40] No one wanted to hear that I wanted to hang up, you know, or wear the boots.
[50:46] Sorry, did you announce this like on air?
[50:48] Yeah, just announcing it on air, yeah.
[50:50] Because you probably felt like, I have to.
[50:52] Yeah, that was the only option.
[50:54] No one was listening to anything else.
[50:56] And no one wanted to help.
[50:58] Not, you know, no one, no one, not, not one person said, are you okay?
[51:03] Now that kind of helped your, this fear that you're not lovable if you're struggling and you feel like no one actually, they care more about the ratings than you as a person.
[51:12] Yeah.
[51:12] And I think that's where I spiraled from that because I realized.
[51:16] Sorry, what year was this?
[51:17] This is.
[51:18] Uh, this is about 2012.
[51:20] Okay.
[51:20] Yeah.
[51:22] And then I realized I felt for the first time, like I was just a commodity that was being mined, being, you know, being exploited.
[51:33] And, and look, and that might not be true, but that's how I felt at the time.
[51:37] Um, and then I kind of resented television then because no one had my wellbeing in mind.
[51:46] Um, yeah.
[51:49] Yeah.
[51:49] And then I kind of, yeah, I went down a pretty dark hole from, from, from that moment on, you know, I hated the industry.
[51:57] I hated the game.
[51:58] You know, I walked away from it.
[52:00] I, in fact, I was, you know, I, I walked away from my, my relationship with channel seven at that particular point because I was so unwell that my wife and I had to go and get some help.
[52:10] So.
[52:11] So what did you do to cope in that time?
[52:13] What do you turn to when you're that low?
[52:15] Well, it was sort of post-broken back.
[52:19] I was still sort of managing.
[52:21] I broke my back in 2008 and, you know, I was still having issues with the pain meds as well and,
[52:27] I was using the pain meds to stand up to keep working basically.
[52:30] And so it became, um, it became an issue, you know, where they became too strong a priority in my life and I was abusing them too much to, to keep working.
[52:40] So, um.
[52:41] And this was, and this was like, while you were still traveling around the country doing this weather and just like battling this pain and is it like a reliance on the pain meds?
[52:52] Is that sort of what it got to?
[52:53] Yeah, it becomes, it crosses over where, um,
[52:56] There's a point where, so when you first have an injury, it takes the pain, it takes the pain away.
[53:00] But then after a while, it becomes, it's very easy for it to slip from.
[53:04] The feeling that you have is not pain, it's the withdrawal from the drugs.
[53:08] So it's not, it's very hard to know whether you, whether the injury has improved, but now you're in withdrawals.
[53:15] But.
[53:16] There was such a physical demand on the job that I was doing, plus, you know, I was racing cars as well, that I couldn't function without them, you know, but they're a powerful drug.
[53:30] They're very dangerous.
[53:31] And the things, you know, that I did and said to my wife on those pain medications, you know, I'm still deeply ashamed and embarrassed of.
[53:45] you just have no control.
[53:47] You know, whenever you close your eyes, whenever you go to sleep, you immediately go into your worst fears every single night.
[53:57] So say your worst fear might be, you know, your wife leaving you,
[54:01] or your wife cheating on you or a home invasion or whatever it is.
[54:06] You go immediately into it.
[54:08] But when you wake up, you can't tell the difference between the reality and not.
[54:11] So you believe that that's exactly what's happened.
[54:15] So I could barely walk early stages in the, you know, in the, in the broken back injury and I would come out, I'd crawl across the floor out to fight off people who I thought were in, had broken into our home and were raping my wife.
[54:30] Like quite literally.
[54:31] Yeah.
[54:31] Wow.
[54:32] So it was, it's sort of that every day, you know, or I'd come out and my wife would be on the computer and I'd go, oh, thank you very much.
[54:41] And she'd say, watch.
[54:44] And I go, I know you went to London and back today without me.
[54:48] Thank you.
[54:50] She just has to go, yep, sorry.
[54:54] It's just... Oh, she'd have to go along with it.
[54:56] There wasn't even a point arguing.
[54:58] There was no point saying that.
[55:00] Because in my mind, she's trying to cover it up and she's trying to deceive me and lie.
[55:05] So it was just easy for her to go, yep, I did go to London today.
[55:08] Sorry.
[55:08] And that's as a result of the pain meds.
[55:13] And what was that?
[55:13] What were you taking?
[55:14] What was the...
[55:15] Oxycodone.
[55:17] Right.
[55:17] Yeah, OxyContin.
[55:18] Yeah.
[55:20] Which is, I mean, I don't know much about it, but I know there's a new series, I think, about the industry called Painkiller.
[55:26] It's called Hillbilly Heroin, you know, for a reason.
[55:30] And thankfully I was able to get off it, but, you know, not everyone does and not everyone can.
[55:36] When you have an injury, you go to a hospital.
[55:38] The hospital treats the injury.
[55:40] You know, they get the back pain.
[55:42] fix your bone, they put it in place, they put a cast on it and you're good to go.
[55:46] But then they boot you out the door with all these pain meds, you know, with no warning as to what's going to happen and what you're going to do.
[55:52] And there's no warning to your partner about what they're about to experience.
[55:57] It's just, there's no education with how hardcore these things are.
[56:01] They just go, right, here's some scripts.
[56:02] Go for your life.
[56:04] And it's just, it's horrific.
[56:06] Like I remember one night...
[56:08] I remember one night I decided I wanted some scotch.
[56:13] And we lived in Chinatown in Sydney in a little apartment.
[56:17] I went missing in the middle of the night in my undies, wandering the streets in the dark to go get some scotch.
[56:25] Got lost on the way back.
[56:27] And my wife found me four hours later in the fire escape, trapped.
[56:33] And I was lying on the ground next to...
[56:36] a human poo, someone else's poo.
[56:38] I was just lying there in my undies on a concrete fire escape next to someone's shit.
[56:47] And you just go, that's such a sad vision.
[56:51] But that's how bad it can go for anyone.
[56:54] And you could be on them tomorrow if you had an injury.
[56:57] You could be on them.
[56:58] You could be on them.
[56:59] It's hardcore stuff.
[57:03] This is nowhere near comparable, but like I had surgery on my leg back in 2015 and the night I got home from the hospital, my wife, Penny, we'd been here for about probably under a year then and she had her...
[57:19] maybe her 30th, or she had a birthday party.
[57:20] I couldn't go.
[57:21] I went for a little bit, came home, I was on crutches and I was on painkillers and when she got home, I just like accused her of cheating on me for like an hour, like flat out for an hour, like painting your wall.
[57:31] Yeah, I was like, I know you too, I know.
[57:32] She was like, what?
[57:34] And also, you don't think like that.
[57:35] No, no, I've never, ever, ever thought like I've never been jealous or insecure in my relationship and Penny's would never, like that's just not her makeup.
[57:48] And it was, and then I had, I was playing cricket at the time, my mate picked me up in the morning to go to cricket.
[57:53] And I just, the whole way in the car, I was just watching, obviously, because I was in playing, but the whole way in the car, I was telling him, he's a doctor.
[57:59] And I was telling myself, I think Penny cheated on me last night.
[58:01] And he goes, what?
[58:02] And I went, yeah.
[58:03] And he goes, Penny?
[58:04] And I went, yeah.
[58:04] She was, and he goes, what happened?
[58:05] I went, she was just out.
[58:08] Yeah, but what, like, what led you to think that?
[58:10] And I said, oh, nothing.
[58:12] I was just, but I just know she did.
[58:13] I've just, and he went, what, what, what meds are you on?
[58:16] What's, what's the, and I remember telling him, and he's like, ah, man, I think, I think that, yeah, I don't think she did, but.
[58:22] And then he explained that it was the meds and then it was nothing like a broken back.
[58:28] So for me, I was just like, oh, I'm off these straight away.
[58:30] I'll take the pain of a hamstring reattachment every day over the week over this feeling.
[58:34] So I've had that feeling for 12 hours and I was lucky that I could go off the meds straight away because the pain was bad, but not a broken back level.
[58:44] It's scary when your reality is deceiving you.
[58:46] Yeah.
[58:47] You know what I mean?
[58:47] You have no control over that.
[58:50] Yeah, it's horrific.
[58:51] What it does psychologically is, you know, there should be a support group for the partners of those who have had these injuries and are on these medications.
[58:59] It sounds like it, yeah.
[59:00] We should meet together.
[59:01] Like the things that I did to poor old Chez, you know, is...
[59:04] And we'd only just really been together for a couple of months.
[59:07] So we went straight into a blossoming brand new relationship suddenly became nurse-patient, which is a problematic dynamic because it creates a very codependent relationship.
[59:23] And we're still trying to untangle some of those.
[59:25] some of those boundaries that, you know.
[59:27] So what does she mean to you?
[59:28] This person who has, has, um, seen it all from a very early point in a relationship and, and not only has she decided to stay, but she's like, um, um, I want a family with this person.
[59:39] I want my life for this person.
[59:40] What, what, what does she mean to you?
[59:41] To me, it doesn't make sense.
[59:42] You know, kind of like when we're talking about friends, you know, you're a shit friend.
[59:45] Well, yeah, you kind of go, I feel like I'm a shit partner, you know, for putting us through that.
[59:50] Um, yeah, I, uh,
[1:00:00] I don't know if I'd be here.
[1:00:01] You know, without her?
[1:00:04] Yeah.
[1:00:07] It got to a point when I was really broken, when I was really unwell, and I'd walked away from Telly.
[1:00:14] I didn't really care if I lived or died.
[1:00:20] Yeah.
[1:00:23] I just had nothing left.
[1:00:29] Um, and I think she just sort of just helped me put that one foot in front of the other just to keep going.
[1:00:42] Just one foot in front of the other.
[1:00:43] Don't think of the outcome.
[1:00:44] Don't think of the end result.
[1:00:47] Just, just think of that one step and then just.
[1:00:53] You know, one step after another, you climb out, up that ladder out of that big, dark, deep hole.
[1:01:02] Yeah, but I, um, yeah.
[1:01:08] It's just unthinkable heroics, I think, when partners can be there so unconditionally, particularly at the beginning of a relationship like that.
[1:01:21] It's quite unfathomable.
[1:01:25] But I guess, I mean, that's love, I guess.
[1:01:28] You must be pretty lovable.
[1:01:29] Yeah, exactly.
[1:01:32] Well said.
[1:01:33] Yeah, I've certainly tested her, that's for sure.
[1:01:37] When you, you're being incredibly open to us today, but you also seem like you're in a, having only met you today, you seem like you're in a fantastic place as a person, or at least certainly not in the place you're describing.
[1:01:50] Can you remember what happened and when, or maybe I should just ask you, did you start to feel like yourself again at some point?
[1:01:58] And can you remember when that happened and how?
[1:02:02] Get your mind back sort of thing?
[1:02:04] Yeah.
[1:02:04] I, I think getting off the pain meds, I think we went away overseas to sort of just get a little bit of help.
[1:02:11] You know, I'd given Shazie PTSD, like a decent amount of PTSD.
[1:02:17] Um, so she needed a little help as well.
[1:02:20] And then together we sort of worked on ourselves.
[1:02:25] Um, I remember I was making a game show called a million dollar minute and I didn't really
[1:02:34] want to be a game show host.
[1:02:36] Um, and it was quite a serious and straight sort of quiz show.
[1:02:39] And I wasn't really a serious and straight presenter.
[1:02:43] Um, but I was very unwell and then just sort of left, left, jumped on a plane.
[1:02:54] I was supposed to come back to finish off the season.
[1:02:57] Um, this is sort of in November.
[1:03:01] Um, if Shazie and I didn't go and get help, um, we, we knew it was, it was, it was going to be bad.
[1:03:10] Um, I remember arriving at the airport as I was getting on the plane, I just grabbed my phone, I just dropped it in a bin.
[1:03:17] So no one could chase me.
[1:03:18] No one could find me.
[1:03:20] You know, I, I couldn't have those messages.
[1:03:22] I wouldn't have been able to handle, where are you?
[1:03:24] Where did you go?
[1:03:25] I just left the network.
[1:03:27] I just.
[1:03:27] This is mid production of that show.
[1:03:29] Yeah.
[1:03:29] Yeah.
[1:03:31] Because I just, I could sense that it had to be done and it had to be now and we had to do it together.
[1:03:39] So we did that.
[1:03:42] And so getting that kind of treatment and help and then sort of, so Shez could work on her PTSD and I could sort of work on getting healthier again.
[1:03:50] And that lifted the load a little bit.
[1:03:55] Um, but I thought I'd burned my career.
[1:03:58] I thought you don't walk away from a network.
[1:04:01] I mean, yeah.
[1:04:02] I mean, sorry to jump in, but it's like, it does in the abstract people listening might be like, Oh, it's just a TV show.
[1:04:08] Like, but there is an element of like when you're in it and you're in the network and you're doing this big show and you're the main person or significant role that it can't, it can't go on without you.
[1:04:20] It does feel like it is the most important thing in the world.
[1:04:22] Yeah, it does.
[1:04:23] and you're made to believe that it is, you kind of need to buy into it for it to be successful to a certain degree.
[1:04:29] But, yeah, I mean, to walk away from it mid-production, I mean, I can't... And not tell them.
[1:04:34] And not tell them.
[1:04:35] Just leave and ghost them.
[1:04:37] I mean, I just can't help but think, like, logistically, like, what are they...
[1:04:40] What do they do when all the staff show up?
[1:04:42] It's like it is a huge move.
[1:04:44] It just makes me realise like how vital the timing was for you or how critical it was for you.
[1:04:52] Yeah.
[1:04:53] Yeah.
[1:04:53] I wonder how desperate you must have been.
[1:04:56] Because I was struck by a phrase that you said a lot earlier, and I've been trying to think of how to put it into a question, but you talked about when you're a teenager not wanting to squander life and waste it.
[1:05:07] Yeah.
[1:05:08] And you've done so much and worked so hard.
[1:05:13] Or I imagine that leaving that could have felt like squandering and wasting.
[1:05:18] So to do that, how desperate you must have been.
[1:05:23] Yeah.
[1:05:23] Yeah.
[1:05:25] It was like, have a career and die or go get fixed.
[1:05:30] And that was just one or the other.
[1:05:31] And so I, I walked out on that career knowing that they will never want to hire me again.
[1:05:37] That's it.
[1:05:37] And not only that, my reputation is probably tarnished across all networks.
[1:05:40] No one would want to hire me.
[1:05:42] So I'd still chose health over the career that I'd spent, you know, 15, nearly 20 years building or 15 at that point.
[1:05:50] Yeah.
[1:05:51] And I made the call and I thought, you know, I had a two-year-old at that point.
[1:05:55] So, you know, if not for me, for them.
[1:05:59] So being a people pleaser, you know, I am perfectionist to then abandon that career, let all those production people down.
[1:06:09] They're basically just sitting around the studio waiting for me to turn up.
[1:06:12] Just grant.
[1:06:12] Yep.
[1:06:13] And then still to be able to do that took an enormous amount of strength.
[1:06:18] I mean, that decision of the way, how you put it, which is like have a career and die or be healthy and have a relationship and be a dad.
[1:06:29] And that is a, like as a performer, I mean, I've never been in that situation, but I do know what it's like to have those conversations with your ego.
[1:06:42] And to be like, what is more important?
[1:06:45] Because I know, you know, you're trying to fight with your ego about something that you know isn't going to actually make you feel any better.
[1:06:52] But you can't help but chase the approval of what you know might come if you do a good job.
[1:07:01] Wowee.
[1:07:02] It also seems like a line, and this might be me analysing too much, but it also seems like a line in the sand moment where you decided you were worthy of love, like loving yourself.
[1:07:14] No, I had very little self-love.
[1:07:16] It was really only the love for my daughter and not wanting to fuck her life up.
[1:07:23] And it was borderline.
[1:07:25] Yeah.
[1:07:26] Wow.
[1:07:26] You know, I didn't want it to go so far that she was irreparably damaged.
[1:07:33] Um, and that was, that's the only factor that came into her.
[1:07:37] My, my, yeah, I had to do it for that.
[1:07:43] This is a very, it's a really cliched question, but I'm genuinely interested.
[1:07:48] Like if, you know, if current day Grant gets to talk to 15 year old Grant, what does he say?
[1:07:58] You are enough.
[1:08:00] You are enough.
[1:08:02] So you do feel that now?
[1:08:04] Yeah.
[1:08:04] Yeah.
[1:08:05] Yeah.
[1:08:07] It's a work in progress, but yeah.
[1:08:09] Yeah.
[1:08:10] comfort in my own skin.
[1:08:12] Being able to talk like this, like I wouldn't have been able to talk like this, you know, back when I was, you know, doing the weather or hosting those TV shows or... Did it feel like you, when you talked about sort of wearing the jacket of all the people that you admire, did it feel like when you were having success, it was you having success or it was just...
[1:08:33] Yeah, no, it was never, it was never fulfilling.
[1:08:37] And I think that, that thirst was never quenched.
[1:08:40] It was never enough.
[1:08:41] You know, were we number one last night on, um, on Australia's Got Talent?
[1:08:47] Yes, we were.
[1:08:48] It was just, still was never enough.
[1:08:50] You're constantly again, more Guinness world records, more race wins, more TV shows, it was never enough.
[1:08:56] And.
[1:08:59] Throwing it all away was a nice healthy reset.
[1:09:02] But then when Family Feud came along, again, I was really a game show.
[1:09:08] a game show nearly sent me to the grave.
[1:09:12] So I, I was really worried about, you know, this channel 10 coming up.
[1:09:18] My career was dead.
[1:09:19] It was in, it was in ashes.
[1:09:22] This lifeline comes game show.
[1:09:25] So I was starting to shake and it was giving me, you know, it was triggering me.
[1:09:30] And then eventually I said,
[1:09:32] I said no to it, but I said, look, I've never done an audition.
[1:09:35] Can I do an audition just for the sake of an audition?
[1:09:38] Never heard of someone requesting an audition.
[1:09:40] Yeah.
[1:09:41] It was weird.
[1:09:43] And I went in, there was this room about this size, and there was just two trestle tables, and that was it.
[1:09:47] And then we just sort of played a round of family feud, and I laughed.
[1:09:51] And it's like the first time I'd laughed, I reckon, in, you know, five years.
[1:09:56] I mean, there's something very poetic about the fact that you, the show that brought you back was a show about family, um, after what you, what you went through.
[1:10:04] Yeah.
[1:10:05] It, um, I, I, about the success kind of not feeling like it was mine.
[1:10:15] I shouldn't put so much emphasis or importance on, I'm going to mention this because you guys haven't, Gold Logie.
[1:10:22] We need a Gold Logie.
[1:10:24] No, I said at the start, lots of Logies.
[1:10:26] Okay.
[1:10:27] You forgot the colour.
[1:10:28] The colour is really important.
[1:10:30] It's the only colour I've got really important.
[1:10:34] And I feel like it's not evolved of me to put such importance on that moment.
[1:10:40] But I think...
[1:10:46] I get a bit emotional talking about it, which is weird because there's just a bloody gold loggy.
[1:10:50] But I think I, for the first time in my life was like, you've made it.
[1:10:59] You've made it.
[1:11:01] Fucking just relax.
[1:11:03] Yeah, so good.
[1:11:04] And I just remember going.
[1:11:07] I remember just trying so hard for so long.
[1:11:10] I felt like I was on a treadmill just with it cranked up to bloody 11 and I was just sprinting my whole life.
[1:11:16] And that, the, the, the gold logi happened and like my, just my shoulders dropped and I was like, oh, you can relax now.
[1:11:26] You've, you've done it, mate.
[1:11:27] You've done it.
[1:11:27] You did it.
[1:11:28] You bloody did it.
[1:11:30] You know, you, that dream when you were 14, 15, when no one thought you were going to have a career cause you weren't smart enough.
[1:11:37] And you hand built each little rung on that ladder and you bloody made it.
[1:11:44] And I think that's when that coat came off.
[1:11:48] And I finally gave myself permission to be myself.
[1:11:53] Yeah.
[1:11:53] I remember before I was just an amalgam of everyone else.
[1:11:57] Yeah.
[1:11:58] That must feel.
[1:11:59] Do you still feel that good about, like, has that feeling gone away or is it?
[1:12:03] No.
[1:12:04] That's awesome.
[1:12:04] No.
[1:12:06] I feel like I want to, I cannot wait to go and watch your acceptance speech of that Gold Loki.
[1:12:10] Pretty hardcore.
[1:12:12] I can imagine.
[1:12:13] I think I vaguely remember it, but if it exists on YouTube, we'll put it in the show notes because I imagine it'll be pretty contextual to what we're talking about.
[1:12:21] I didn't realise what it meant until it happened.
[1:12:25] I didn't really give it a heck of a lot in the lead up to it.
[1:12:28] It was exciting and it was a nice bit of buzz, nice bit of validation.
[1:12:35] But when I just walked up there, it just all came out.
[1:12:40] And yeah, it's cool.
[1:12:42] And it's still cool.
[1:12:43] It still makes the hair stand up in the back of my neck.
[1:12:45] And again, it's just a trophy, right?
[1:12:49] And I hope that I've done enough work that those things, those material things don't make up who I am.
[1:12:57] But that moment was, I think, when I was just like, I can finally just be me.
[1:13:03] And that's enough.
[1:13:04] It's almost like a symbol of how far you've come.
[1:13:06] It's like, I know it's a trophy, but it's almost like a,
[1:13:10] to acknowledge what you have been through.
[1:13:13] It's like a physical recognition of just a reminder when you say it, wherever you keep it at home, just that I have gone through so much and look where I've got to.
[1:13:22] I keep it on the, on the bottom of my car, like just as a hood ornament.
[1:13:27] Under the bottom of your car?
[1:13:28] On the bottom of my car.
[1:13:30] The gold Loki.
[1:13:32] You know how the Prime Minister has flags on the front of his car?
[1:13:35] I just glued on there and I just drive around.
[1:13:38] No, fuck.
[1:13:39] And if someone sees it, then so be it.
[1:13:42] That's on them.
[1:13:45] It's a lot more than a trophy.
[1:13:47] If it got you that ability to take off the jacket and to be yourself, that's a lot more than just a hood ornament.
[1:13:56] I think this chronic fatigue thing,
[1:14:01] The breakdown that I had, I think, was from exhaustion from pretending to be someone and something else for so long.
[1:14:11] I was so exhausted.
[1:14:13] You know, when they say that depression is, you know, depressed, deep rest.
[1:14:19] You need deep rest from the character that you've been playing.
[1:14:23] Never heard of that.
[1:14:23] And I couldn't play that character anymore.
[1:14:26] And I needed a deep rest from, from that character that I'd created and I just couldn't do it anymore.
[1:14:33] And then so winning that sort of, that little trophy was like, okay, I don't have to do that anymore.
[1:14:40] Can I ask, when you're performing, how is the feeling different?
[1:14:44] The feeling of being on Sunrise where you're performing as this amalgam of masks and you're not really yourself, but you've settled into a groove and the character's working and the segment is successful, it's getting praise, it's working really well.
[1:15:04] So there's an element of validation there and there's an element of satisfaction, no doubt, in doing that.
[1:15:11] So then you're comparing that to how you feel doing like Family Feud where you feel more like yourself or like post-Gold Logie where you're performing as yourself.
[1:15:22] How is the feeling different when you're mid-performance?
[1:15:27] Yeah.
[1:15:29] You're more present.
[1:15:31] You're less aware of how things are going and how you're coming across.
[1:15:35] You're less paranoid about putting yourself in the mind of the audience going, trying to read what they might be thinking about your performance.
[1:15:43] Yeah.
[1:15:43] And you can just enjoy it just for the, rather than be overly analytical about it.
[1:15:48] What I love about entertainment is,
[1:15:51] For me, I love the fact that entertainment can take your mind off your troubles, right?
[1:15:58] I don't know if it's just growing up in, you know, as a kid with mum or living simply that you'd watch a television show, say something like The Late Show, which I was a massive fan of.
[1:16:07] Mm-hmm.
[1:16:08] No matter how bad a day you're having, no matter how much, you know, you might be struggling to pay your bills.
[1:16:13] You know, you might not have any friends.
[1:16:15] Work might be horrible.
[1:16:17] You could watch that little square in the corner of the room and it can take you a million miles away.
[1:16:24] Escapism is so important to me because it took me a million miles away from any issues I was having as a kid.
[1:16:33] I love that.
[1:16:33] It was, it was, it's a magic box.
[1:16:35] Yeah.
[1:16:36] So that to me is a gift that I don't throw away, right?
[1:16:40] That's for me, first and foremost, I always want to create something that makes you feel like you're having a good time because life's hard.
[1:16:51] You know, we've all got our battles.
[1:16:52] We've all got our challenges.
[1:16:54] It can, it can be brutal.
[1:16:56] But if I can make something that makes you laugh and makes you feel better, what a privilege.
[1:17:01] How cool is that?
[1:17:02] You can remember I had the weather segment.
[1:17:04] I just came after...
[1:17:06] eight minutes of news, you know, the doom and gloom and death and destruction of the most horrific things in the world.
[1:17:13] So I had this little three minute window where it was my job to lift you back up and put you back on your feet and make you giggle.
[1:17:20] That's whatever it was I was doing.
[1:17:22] Maybe I was standing on the steps of the opera house naked, or maybe I was wrestling a crocodile, or maybe it was getting another Guinness World Record.
[1:17:29] Um, but that was, that was an honor that I, I cherish and I still feel that that's the most empowerful.
[1:17:36] Yes.
[1:17:38] Television can also educate and, and it can change the conversation and it can, and it be, it can be progressive and move us forward, you know, as human beings.
[1:17:47] But to me, it's about, I want to make you feel better.
[1:17:52] Hmm.
[1:17:53] And that's cool.
[1:17:54] I, I, I got a big kick out of that.
[1:17:57] Awesome.
[1:17:58] I hope you get very good Christmas presents from Steve Jacobs and Sam Mack every year.
[1:18:04] Because you certainly paved the way for that type of television for sure.
[1:18:07] Yeah, it was cool.
[1:18:09] It was cool.
[1:18:10] Yeah, did some crazy stuff, crazy stuff.
[1:18:13] Can I ask about your parents now?
[1:18:17] You talked at the start about how much you wanted your dad's, like a lot of us, parents' recognition and love, I mean like all of us really, but how do they perceive your career and what you've achieved and is that something that is talked about at all?
[1:18:31] Yeah.
[1:18:32] Dad's very proud.
[1:18:35] You know, very, very proud.
[1:18:36] I felt like when I was younger that I had nothing to offer him.
[1:18:42] You know what I mean?
[1:18:43] Like, I was like, he lived two states away.
[1:18:48] I think I'm more of a burden in his life than I am a blessing or a benefit.
[1:18:54] That's how I felt when I was younger.
[1:18:56] We've, we connected, we're a lot closer now, sort of in the last sort of, you know, 10, 15 years and, and, and, and we're super close now, but yeah, he's, um, he remarks that it's, that it's a fairy tale life, you know, how incredible that it's ended up this way.
[1:19:14] Yeah.
[1:19:14] And then that's, that's a special thing to reflect on.
[1:19:17] Yeah.
[1:19:17] My, my mum had, um, it was quite difficult because my dad sort of worked in, in, in radio and I think that.
[1:19:26] she felt that perhaps the media was part of the reason that maybe they broke up, that the influence of that kind of people and that kind of lifestyle.
[1:19:37] And I'm speaking on her behalf here, and I don't know whether this is entirely true, but I got a sense that she doesn't like the people in the media.
[1:19:47] She definitely doesn't like, you know, she doesn't like the falseness, the fakery, you know, the...
[1:19:52] People are telling you to your face, you're amazing.
[1:19:54] You know, she doesn't like that kind of people.
[1:19:59] And so then making a conscious decision to go into the media, you know, was quite conflicted for me because I could sense it was pretty triggering for my mum.
[1:20:07] Particularly when she can see you turning into your dad a little bit.
[1:20:11] You look like him.
[1:20:12] You sound like him.
[1:20:13] You know, that was quite traumatic for her.
[1:20:15] You know, I remember, you know, being an obnoxious little shit, you know, as a teenager.
[1:20:20] And she'd go, God, you sound just like your father.
[1:20:26] And I, and I'd be like, oh, you know, I couldn't help the fact that I looked like him, you know, I sounded like him.
[1:20:32] And I remember that hurting her and just going, just my presence and my existence is causing her pain.
[1:20:40] And that was, um, so that, so making a decision to go into media and was, I felt like it was kind of throwing more daggers, daggers at my mom.
[1:20:52] So I kind of still feel sort of bad about that, but.
[1:20:56] I made it my mission and I think this is her influence to just make sure you're genuine.
[1:21:02] Make sure you're not a dickhead.
[1:21:03] I've had my times when I have been a pain in the ass and probably not a great employee and my ego got, you know, got in the way, but she's always bestowed on me the importance of just not being a wanker.
[1:21:16] Yeah.
[1:21:17] So, although she didn't really want me to go into the industry, I think she gave me the right attitude.
[1:21:25] Yeah.
[1:21:26] Yeah.
[1:21:27] At the top of the interview, I asked you if you saw yourself as a racing car driver or a media personality.
[1:21:33] And I think just this last hour and a bit, there's so much more to you.
[1:21:37] And I feel like that was almost just a really lazy or bad question.
[1:21:43] So how do you hope your kids describe you?
[1:21:49] It's someone who's...
[1:21:54] I think...
[1:21:57] I think what I'm trying to instill in my kids is don't be afraid to make mistakes because mistakes are where the gold is.
[1:22:06] I was so risk averse in coming up.
[1:22:11] I never wanted to let anyone down.
[1:22:12] I never wanted to fail.
[1:22:14] If I didn't think I could nail it, I wouldn't do it, which is a terrible attitude because you end up missing out on all these wonderful things because you, I'm either going to be awesome at it or forget about it.
[1:22:25] I'll do something else.
[1:22:27] So I want them to kind of embrace the failures because failures are a beautiful gift.
[1:22:35] It's either...
[1:22:37] It's a dead end that stops you wasting any time going further down that road or it redirects you into another beautiful area that you never expected.
[1:22:45] Right.
[1:22:46] So I used to be so ashamed of failure.
[1:22:50] Whereas now I know the beauty that's in it.
[1:22:54] And I think if I, if, if I wish I had embraced that earlier.
[1:22:59] because I think life would have been a bit more enjoyable.
[1:23:02] I can't wait till I can embrace that.
[1:23:03] That sounds great.
[1:23:07] Wow.
[1:23:07] Because that just, that incessant perfectionism of wanting to be perfect is a terrible way to live.
[1:23:15] It's a terrible, it's given me an incredible life, but it's a painful, lonely.
[1:23:21] It's a big cost.
[1:23:21] Yeah.
[1:23:22] Yeah.
[1:23:24] Unbelievable.
[1:23:25] Grant.
[1:23:26] Thank you so much for, for,
[1:23:29] Well, first of all, for joining us, but your generosity in sharing your story with so much heart.
[1:23:37] You are so lovable.
[1:23:38] Yeah.
[1:23:38] You really are.
[1:23:40] I'm sorry I wasn't funnier.
[1:23:43] I told myself, go in there and be funny.
[1:23:46] And none of that happened.
[1:23:47] And I cried twice.
[1:23:49] We'll put a laugh track on afterwards.
[1:23:51] Just underneath the crying.
[1:23:53] So it makes no sense whatsoever.
[1:23:55] Just to lift the mood, you know, it's a bit dark.
[1:23:58] That's exactly what I'm going through my mind now going, I think that was a bit heavy.
[1:24:02] I think it's way more powerful than any laughs that you would otherwise bring.
[1:24:08] If I can, just to really validate what you've just done, that will help so many people.
[1:24:13] It's just going to be, I mean, anyone in the media currently or who wants to get into that or any line of work really where you've set yourself relentlessly on a task or find yourself doing it for someone else's validation, that is going to be so, you will help so many people, mate.
[1:24:30] And I think, yeah, I mean, you've been making people laugh around Australia for the last, you know, 20 years.
[1:24:34] So it's okay for...
[1:24:37] Just make him cry this time.
[1:24:38] This is one time.
[1:24:41] No, we love you.
[1:24:42] Thank you so much for joining us.
[1:24:44] Thanks, Grant.
[1:24:44] That was a really beautiful experience.
[1:24:46] Thanks, guys.
[1:24:46] I appreciate it.
[1:24:55] Well, there he is, Grant Denya, someone that I think we all thought we knew.
[1:25:01] I think everyone thought, I would say, most people thought, if you say Grant Denya, it's like, oh yeah, I know Grant Denya.
[1:25:08] But after that, I'm like, oh wow, I'm not going to pretend like I know anyone ever again, unless I hear them talk about what they have actually gone through.
[1:25:16] That is...
[1:25:17] Astonishing.
[1:25:18] I mean, that story of him, particularly his time where he was struggling with the painkiller meds with OxyContin.
[1:25:27] God.
[1:25:28] I mean, since that, that actually encouraged me to watch this Netflix show, Painkiller with Matthew Broderick, which is about the birth of OxyContin.
[1:25:39] And it is horrific, that story.
[1:25:43] And now having seen that show and knowing that he went through that is...
[1:25:48] It's heartbreaking, but a miracle, a real miracle that he's gotten through it.
[1:25:53] yeah it kind of well that's kind of what i wanted to talk about a little bit not so much the actually card on part but just like to be really honest and grant might listen to this bit and it's certainly not meant to offend or upset him but when it was suggested that grant denier would come on the podcast i thought what the zany weather guy like why are we getting the funny weatherman this that's not like this is not quite i don't see how you always said you
[1:26:25] No, that was my first thought I was like, well, yeah, he does Family Feud And I think he's just a bit of a funny, silly guy I don't think that's quite what we're But as soon as he started speaking I was distracted by the thought that
[1:26:42] I kept saying to myself, God, you're so judgmental.
[1:26:44] Like for someone who should know better and for someone who wouldn't describe himself for being judgmental.
[1:26:48] You mean you personally?
[1:26:48] Yeah, me.
[1:26:49] Sorry, I was saying that.
[1:26:50] Yeah, that's me talking to myself.
[1:26:51] I wasn't saying that to Grant Daniel.
[1:26:53] Are you already?
[1:26:56] I was to myself, I was thinking, Hugh, you are really judgmental.
[1:27:00] Like you don't...
[1:27:01] And the more and more he went on, the more and more I was thinking, I feel so terrible.
[1:27:05] My first thought was rather than, hey, what's his story?
[1:27:09] What else has he done?
[1:27:10] What else has happened in his life?
[1:27:11] I was just thinking, I don't think this is quite the place.
[1:27:14] And so it just got me thinking a lot about,
[1:27:17] judgmental and why we're so judgmental.
[1:27:20] But then also I think more helpful is how if you feel like you're quite a judgmental person as well, which I think a lot of us are.
[1:27:25] And I think it's like a self-protective type thing.
[1:27:28] Like it's a self-defense.
[1:27:30] It's like a defense, not a self-defense.
[1:27:32] It's a defense mechanism.
[1:27:35] Really we can sort of make judgments on other people so that we feel more safe and secure and better about ourselves and probably comes from the insecurity we have.
[1:27:42] But I was just thinking a lot about this whole thing about how judgmental we are and how often we are, like how quick we are to judge other people.
[1:27:52] And there were just two things I was thinking about which I think are really helpful for people if they're trying to, if like me, thinking, yeah, it can be a bit judgmental at times.
[1:27:59] And the first one I thought about was a very simple one of just differentiating between someone's actions and the person they are or their behaviors and the actual person.
[1:28:10] Because really, I was sort of judging his behaviors.
[1:28:13] Like the way he's, and not in a bad way, I wasn't just...
[1:28:18] I very much pigeonholed him as a guy who does the weather in a funny way.
[1:28:22] And that's all he is.
[1:28:23] Yeah.
[1:28:23] And that's kind of what I was, for some reason, and for all the work I've done in this area and for all the incredible people we've chatted to, I still led to that of like, oh yeah.
[1:28:31] I didn't roll my eyes.
[1:28:31] I was like, oh yeah, the funny weather guy.
[1:28:34] But we can only know the version of someone that they put out there.
[1:28:39] I guess.
[1:28:39] That's very true.
[1:28:40] And that sort of leads to my second point as far as the second thing I think is really helpful.
[1:28:44] Well, the first thing to do, I think, is just like, are you judging the person or their behaviors?
[1:28:51] And if it's the behaviors, then you probably don't know the whole picture.
[1:28:54] I think the second thing you do is you could picture the person as like a pie chart and actually draw like a, mentally, you don't need to actually do this, but just draw it.
[1:29:04] Obviously a pie chart with legs and arms and stuff like that.
[1:29:07] Not just a rolling person.
[1:29:10] But if you were to just draw a pie chart of someone, you pick anyone that you think you judge a bit, particularly a famous person, and just actually be honest, how much of this person do I really know about?
[1:29:19] How much do I really know of their whole life, their whole journey, their personality, their family, their life, what it's like to be them?
[1:29:26] How much do I really know?
[1:29:28] And if you look at it as a pie chart, it would be this, you know, what I knew about Grant Denyer in his whole life.
[1:29:34] It is the smallest, like him, what he does on TV.
[1:29:37] It is such a small little slice.
[1:29:39] And even having spent that hour, hour and a half with him, it's still so small.
[1:29:43] It becomes, it almost becomes smaller.
[1:29:45] Like the more you talk to someone, the smaller, smaller that piece of pie in the pie chart comes.
[1:29:49] And you realise like you are judging such a small scene.
[1:29:53] It's almost...
[1:29:55] In fact, that's exactly how I felt.
[1:29:56] The more and more I got to know him, the more and more we listened to him, the more I realized I knew nothing about this man.
[1:30:01] When I think about – and it almost made me feel like more of an arsehole.
[1:30:04] Like I don't know what it's like to have your parents separate when you're 11 or 12 years old and the path that sets you on when your dad then moves interstate and you feel like that you're the reason that happened.
[1:30:15] The trajectory that he goes on to compared, for example, the trajectory that we went on with two parents who, you know,
[1:30:22] love each other, still do.
[1:30:23] We're so lucky to have that.
[1:30:24] And it didn't set us on this chart of, am I lovable?
[1:30:27] I need to impress people.
[1:30:28] I need to win people's love.
[1:30:30] We didn't have to do that.
[1:30:31] But here I am judging such a small, but now I know that's part of his story and his chart.
[1:30:37] There's just so much about people we don't know, yet the judgments we make are based on such a small amount.
[1:30:43] And the other thing you can probably do is just have a think about a time in your life where you felt judged and how awful that feeling is.
[1:30:48] I had it myself at my 25-year school reunion.
[1:30:52] Someone made a comment about...
[1:30:54] purely on what they've heard from me in like a public setting as opposed to the person I really am.
[1:31:00] And it made me feel so shit.
[1:31:02] Like it really did make me feel so flat.
[1:31:04] I was like, that's just based on such a, you've taken such a small, so just reminding yourself what it feels like to be judged as well.
[1:31:10] I think those three things can be,
[1:31:12] really helpful because I think the less judgment in this world, the better this world will be.
[1:31:16] And especially with social media, we're so quick to make judgments now, especially if we're going to base our judgment on someone's social media account.
[1:31:24] We all know people in our lives that we love dearly, but we see their social media and think that's not really, well, there's a reason they're posting their stuff.
[1:31:30] They're posting.
[1:31:31] We don't quite get it.
[1:31:31] And we need to just stop judging and let people just live their life and, and be a little bit more empathetic to their journey, I think.
[1:31:39] I agree.
[1:31:40] But I also think, not but, and I also think we negate the cost it has on you, on yourself when you're judging.
[1:31:48] Because like if I look through social media or whatever or something like that and get, and I've been guilty of this in the past of like just really as so known better than anyone of like seeing someone on Instagram or something and seeing what they're doing in these photos that are putting up, which are pretty hard to handle.
[1:32:05] And I'll get into a bit of a spiral about how bad this person looks.
[1:32:08] And all that does is make me angry about the world and make me feel shit and make me, and I hate the person I become because I'm having an internal pile on about someone or something or a group of people or something like that.
[1:32:22] and it's an awful thing to do to them, but it also only just makes me feel worse and me more angry and me a worse version of myself, as opposed to trying to see, exactly, try and see the whole person and do some of the things you were saying before.
[1:32:39] It's just a lighter load to carry.
[1:32:41] Yeah, it is.
[1:32:42] And I also think like Grant's a perfect example.
[1:32:44] If you're looking at, not that I've never done this with Grant Denya, but like if you're judging what he puts up on social media, on Instagram, knowing that this is a man who just feels like he's unlovable might suggest, this is hypothetically, I haven't made this judgment on his social media, but might describe why, for example, he puts up certain pictures.
[1:33:02] He just doesn't feel lovable and he wants to feel that love from people out there.
[1:33:06] So I would explain, yeah, I mean, there's such basic stuff and what we teach kids in school about putting yourself in someone else's shoes rather than just being so quick to judge their behaviors.
[1:33:17] Yeah.
[1:33:18] I remember seeing a video on Vice's new music corner, I think it was called, where they'd get musicians in and they play them music in their ears and they've got it in headphones and they're not told what it is and they have to just tell them what they think of the song and then they'll find out who the band is afterwards.
[1:33:36] And I think they were trying to stitch up Nickelback because that's like everyone's pet for like 15 years on the internet.
[1:33:42] Go to.
[1:33:43] Punching bag, yeah.
[1:33:44] Yeah, to the Killers.
[1:33:46] And they played something, I think it was Nickelback to the Killers.
[1:33:48] And they were listening to it and one of them was like, is that Nickelback?
[1:33:51] And they're like, yeah, expecting the pile on.
[1:33:53] And they were like, they are, I don't know what you want about them, but they are the nicest people you'll ever meet in music.
[1:33:58] And they just talked about what lovely people they were.
[1:34:01] And I remember being shocked and also so pleasantly surprised.
[1:34:05] And it made my respect for the killers go up as well.
[1:34:08] I'm like, they're above the pile on and willing to see the people, regardless of the fact that I'm sure that they don't have similar musical interests or tastes there.
[1:34:18] Yeah.
[1:34:18] It's like if I hear someone who's like a grown-up adult man say that they like Taylor Swift.
[1:34:26] And I go, and my initial instinct is like the weird judgmental voice in my head going like, oh, you can't.
[1:34:34] You can't.
[1:34:35] Let's see.
[1:34:35] A-N. And but then I catch myself.
[1:34:46] I catch myself and I go and I go like.
[1:34:49] That is ridiculous.
[1:34:50] Don't judge this person because they like Taylor Swift.
[1:34:53] You're allowed to.
[1:34:53] It's just music.
[1:34:54] Who cares?
[1:34:57] But I also want to say just what you said, Josh, in that chat with Grant.
[1:35:03] You are one of the most lovable people I have ever met in my life.
[1:35:09] And I say that from myself, but also I know for a fact on behalf of everyone that listens to this podcast and everyone that knows you, you are the most lovable person you could ever want in your life.
[1:35:22] Well, thank you.
[1:35:23] And the night that I met you, like I know that like when you and I caught up and you brought Josh along at the pub that was like years ago and you're like, I'm going to bring Josh.
[1:35:33] And so I met you for the first time and just even though I know you're a bit dusty from the festival.
[1:35:39] Yeah, I'm putting my best foot forward.
[1:35:41] But it's just like anyone that meets you, anyone that knows you and has met you will know this and will agree with me.
[1:35:47] But it's just like the energy that you have and that you carry and the way that you are around people is really very special.
[1:35:59] And I just wanted to say it on here.
[1:36:01] I could tell you in private as well, but...
[1:36:03] be a bit more awkward.
[1:36:05] But to say it here, I just want to make it so clear to you.
[1:36:10] And I know the voices pop up.
[1:36:11] Yeah.
[1:36:12] I'm trying to internally just bat them up.
[1:36:15] Yeah, I know you're trying to disagree with me, but unfortunately you are outvoted.
[1:36:20] The world has spoken.
[1:36:22] But yeah, it's just important that I say that and that you know that you are objectively a very, very lovable person.
[1:36:29] Thank you.
[1:36:30] That's really kind.
[1:36:31] I, yeah, I think I said it right in the app, but I absolutely know I feel loved and lovable in the context of my family, but yeah, it's, it's, and I feel like I'm just starting to change, but it's taken, it feels like it's taken like 36 years.
[1:36:46] So my entire life to believe that people, when they meet me would not be, it's not so much unlikable, but just kind of forgettable.
[1:36:55] Mm-hmm.
[1:36:58] and kind of uninteresting and like why I've got plenty of friends, don't need him sort of thing.
[1:37:06] I can add interesting and likable to the list.
[1:37:09] Thank you.
[1:37:10] Yeah, I guess that's just a caveat.
[1:37:13] I don't know why I'm putting a caveat in there, but yeah.
[1:37:17] Thank you.
[1:37:17] Does it felt weird to just say thanks?
[1:37:19] I think so.
[1:37:19] I had to wrap it on and... We're going to edit out all that and just have Ryan's comment.
[1:37:24] It's like the first positive stitch up.
[1:37:27] Got him.
[1:37:28] Got him.
[1:37:29] Made him look better than he is.
[1:37:31] Thank you.
[1:37:31] That's really kind.
[1:37:33] Yeah.
[1:37:33] Thank you.
[1:37:33] That's a beautiful comment.
[1:37:34] Right.
[1:37:35] Very good.
[1:37:36] This has been The Imperfects.
[1:37:37] I'm Hugh Van Kallenberg.
[1:37:38] I've been joined by Ryan Shelton, Josh Van Kallenberg.
[1:37:40] Please tune in next week where we get into another episode of The Imperfects.
[1:37:44] And stick around for Stop Everything.
[1:37:47] What?
[1:37:50] And thank you, Grant, Denya, so much.
[1:37:52] Incredible.
[1:37:57] That you would never dare at all Just leave me down here

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