Grant Denyer has reflected on his “damaging” battle against low self-esteem in a candid new interview.
The Australian TV star said he still struggled to look in the mirror and admitted there were times he avoided being photographed.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Grant and Chezzi Denyer become emotional as they recall postnatal anxiety.
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“‘I still struggle to look at myself in the mirror,” the 46-year-old said on the Mental As Anyone podcast.
“I think being a slightly smaller guy, I was always under threat from bullies, I was an easy target …
“The girls never really invested in you because you weren’t the big, buff kind of sports guy, so you were just always very overlooked.”
“Looking in the mirror is like swallowing razorblades.
“It was just very depraved, it was vicious. It was very damaging, crippled by perfectionism as well, which is a torturous condition because you are just never happy with your achievements, no matter how great those moments are.”
He said even winning a Gold Logie in 2018 did little to improve his self-esteem.
“It was constantly attacking myself from the inside out,” he went on.
“I’ve had to do a lot of work just to soften that and that still creeps in, it is an ongoing processing. This is the healing that we all do.”
Denyer has opened up on some of his emotional struggles in the past.
Denyer shared an Instagram post in 2022 about his “busy mind” and using meditation as a useful tool.
“I really suffer from a racing mind that makes a hell of a lot of noise,” he said at the time.
“My self-talk can get pretty savage, I beat myself up, worry about the future, hang on to regrets about the past and get bogged down in fear.
“Fear of failure, fear of not being liked, not being good enough.”
That same year during his second season of Dancing With The Stars, which he later won, he told the judges he had spent his life “being a smiley television host that pretends everything is OK”.
“That is not real life.
“It’s OK to struggle,” he said, visibly emotional after dancing to the song Don’t Give Up.
“It’s OK to hurt.
“It’s OK to reach rock bottom because you can come out of it, you can climb out of it with a bit of love and a little bit of help, and that was the case for me.”
