THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DENYERS
TELEVISION’S SUPER COUPLE REVEAL WHY THEY’RE TELLING ALL IN THEIR NO-HOLDS-BARRED PODCAST
Their podcast, It’s All True?, aims to tell some “truly extraordinary tales from an ordinary marriage” but Grant and Cheryl “Chezzi” Denyer’s union is anything but. The couple, who celebrated their 10-year anniversary in February, have been through more than most – near-death experiences, a drug dependency and the resulting impact on their relationship. And so, on further reflection, the Family Feud host, 43, agrees their union isn’t your everyday marriage.
“I think, in some elements of it, we’re more deeply connected than a normal marriage because she cared for me in my darkest hour,” Grant divulges. “That forms a pretty powerful bond, I depended on her. She illuminated the path out of that trouble for me. That’s a pretty thick bond – more than for a couple of people who met in a seedy nightclub.”
It’s this bond and the trust they have in each other that’s allowed the couple to share all in their very first podcast together. And right from the get-go, the pair proved that nothing is off limits.
“I accidentally outed her as being previously married in our first episode. No-one ever knew that,” Grant admits when WHO catches up with the couple. “He’ll just throw a question at me and I’ll be like, ‘OK, are we actually going to discuss this? OK, we are! Alright let’s do it,’” Chezzi, 40, adds.
“We’re more deeply connected than a normal marriage perhaps, because she cared for me in my darkest hour” —GRANT
AN UNORTHODOX MARRIAGE
The pair’s relationship got off to a rocky start, with both already being in separate relationships when sparks flew. “It was like someone flicked a switch and I just felt this tingle run through me instantly,” Grant recalls of the moment he knew there was something more between him and his former Sunrise colleague. “And I remember just clear as day thinking, ‘I can’t live without this woman. I need her in my life.’ And it was as instantaneous as that. From that moment on, it was never going to be anything else.”
They had only been living together for three months when tragedy struck. In 2008,
Grant broke his back in a horrifying monster truck accident. “I expected her to walk out the door pretty quickly when I got home,” Grant jokes. “It was too new!”
But despite Chezzi admitting that time was “nonstop hard”, the couple managed to pull through. “We were just forced into this really strange, full-on situation,” she explains. “But I just thought, ‘You know, I love this guy so much and he really needs me now’. So I quit working and nursed him full-time. It really cemented us in a way that is very unique.”
That situation lead to Grant’s much reported drug dependency. “Mad s--t went on,” he notes of that time in the podcast. Chezzi adds that the effects of the medications were the worst part of Grant’s injury by far. “He’d have drug psychosis episodes where he’d kick me out of the house, thinking I was an imposter dressed up as Chezzi,” she says.
After overcoming that issue together, the pair married in 2010 and went on to have daughters Sailor, 9, and Scout, 5. They also announced in August they’re expecting their third child. “We’re so not ready,” Chezzi admits of the upcoming arrival. “We’re just about halfway and at the same time we decided that we would do a renovation of our house – we haven’t even looked at baby stuff yet. And I gave all my stuff away, so we’re very behind.”
Grant’s got a solution to that problem though. “I’ve been out on the Janome overlocker just knocking up baby suits,” he jokes.
SPILLING THE TEA
With many stars keeping their personal lives close to their chest, Grant and Chezzi are refreshingly candid. But why? “The truth is way more interesting than fiction when it comes to us, so we thought let’s just open ourselves up, bare all and lay it all on the table,” Grant says of their podcast. “Some people just see you as the smiley, games show host, where everything’s perfect and you’re coated in Teflon and nothing sticks – but that’s not real. That’s not how things are and that’s not how life is, so why don’t we just tell it like it is?!”
And Grant admits their decision to open up has been liberating. “It’s been cathartic; it’s been fun; it’s kind of nice because sometimes you’re closing a chapter on a bad period, which is healing,” he adds.
So why decide to do this now? “Well, Grant’s never been home so much,” Chezzi jokes. “We’ve never seen so much of each other!” While filming Sunrise, the TV star was away for weeks at a time. “We haven’t had a lot of adult conversations because in two and a half years, I had 300 nights away for work,” Grant explains. “So we’d never really sat down and chewed the fat or had adult conversations about uncomfortable things. And so we thought, ‘If we’re going to start doing this now, why don’t we do a podcast?’ You know how crazy that would be for us to just discuss things that we’d never spoken
“I expected her to walk out the door pretty quickly when I got home. It was too new!” —GRANT
about or never had the chance to because of kids, work, travel and life. So let’s do it with a microphone in front of us and see what happens. It just sort of felt like a fun thing to do.”
HELPING OTHERS
Not only is the result an honest, open and raw dialogue between the pair, but it has also opened up the conversation for a lot of other Aussie parents. In episode two, the couple shared their daughter Sailor’s inattentive ADHD diagnosis – something they picked up while homeschooling the girls during lockdown.
“We do feel blessed because we wouldn’t have picked it up as she really flew under the radar,” Chezzi shares. “She’s very intelligent and very bright but just struggled to follow instructions and had to be told several times.”
That discovery also led Chezzi to her own ADHD diagnosis. And the expectant mum-of-two admits it was a “massive relief ” to finally have answers and address the stigma surrounding it. “I felt like there wasn’t enough people who were talking about it honestly,” Chezzi tells. “I think the big difference with us is that I don’t talk about it as if it’s a disability. There’s things that I can do and there’s things that Sailor can do that are incredible – some things we’re not great at but we really keep the language positive.” MORE TRUTHS TO TELL
The couple admit their revelations have left some family members shocked though. “They said, ‘You’re just so honest. Aren’t you embarrassed?’” says Chezzi. “And I was like, ‘No, that’s just us.” Grant admits they’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to their stories. “If you think this is hashtag juicy, then get ready – we’re just warming up.”