health

'My organs were running at 7%.' Grant Denyer on the health scare that forced him to change.

Grant Denyer's lifestyle pushed him "to the limit", he revealed this week. 

The TV show host and Dancing With The Stars winner admitted he struggled while on the latest episode of the Along for the Ride podcast.

On the show, he told host Anthony Madaffari that he was living in a way that wasn't sustainable as a weatherman for Sunrise. He was the resident forecaster from 2004 to 2006 and then again for three years in 2010.

Watch this clip on Grant Denyer's terrifying rally car crash. Post continues after video.


Video via Ten.

But the opportunity to travel and report across the Australian landscape was a golden opportunity Denyer couldn't pass up.

"If I wanted to stand at Uluru tomorrow, I could," he said. "If I wanted to wrestle a crocodile in the Top End the day after, I did.

"It was limitless. In three and a half years I had something like 750 flights. You were in a different part of the country every single day."

Sadly, his role as a perpetual traveller required a lot of sacrifices – his health being one of them. As a result, he fell "into an absolute heap".

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"I wasn’t listening to my body; I had massive chronic fatigue," he explained. "The hard part is that when you’re operating out of adrenaline every day, which live broadcasting gives you, let alone all the stunts you’re doing, you’re depleting everything.

He added: "There was a point there where I went to the doctor and they examined my organs and tested them all and said they were running at about seven per cent."

Image: Instagram @grantdenyer.

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Denyer didn't realise just how dire it was for him to change his lifestyle around until a doctor told him the truth.

"They said, 'If you don’t do something, drastically, you’re going to die, and soon.' That’s when I was like, holy s**t, this is serious, I need to do something about this," he explained.

"I was trying to push on and I realised I just had to give in to it – forget about television, forget about success, forget about ratings – and just focus on my health, because it wasn’t going to end well."

In 2021, Denyer also opened up about a near-fatal car accident he had four years prior, in 2017. 

He and his co-driver, Dale Moscatt, were left injured after they crashed into a tree while competing in the Lake Mountain sprint in Victoria.

"Grant sustained bruising to his lower back while Dale [his co-driver] has a suspected broken leg. Grant is walking around and is in good spirits," a Channel 10 spokesperson said at the time.

Grant Denyer on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here. Image: Ten.

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On I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Here, the TV personality shared that the event "still haunts" him.

"I had a really bad rally crash about two years ago. There was a failure, and the car left the road and I hit a tree head-on," Denyer told the other celebrities.

"The noise my co-driver made still haunts me. He just made this half squeal half gulp, like someone acknowledging that..." he continued.

Denyer has since retired from rally driving.

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"I put a lot of chips in the motorsport basket and I'm prepared to take those risks, but I don't want to hurt the people around me. My family and friends and my kids," he said.

"Having kids makes it hard. That's when I said no more rally driving."

Listen to The Spill, Mamamia's daily entertainment podcast. Post continues after audio. 


The Gold Logie winner shared that soon after his accident he struggled with prescription drugs.

"I wasn’t quite sure whether I’d be able to walk again so I spent six months lying flat, heavily medicated trying to let it heal... I didn’t really cope with that emotionally or mentally," he told the Daily Telegraph at the time.

"It was a time where I didn’t really give a s**t whether I lived or died. I felt like I had nothing to live for."

His struggle continued for many years before he made his recovery.

"There are all sorts of traps that come with medications and warnings and no one prepares you for that – it is a hard cycle to get out of. I was just a bit broken, sad, lost," he said.

"I mentally wasn’t well, I was on pain medication for a long time, and I probably wasn’t aware of the effects of that."

Feature Image: Instagram @grantdenyer.