Grant & Chezzi’s
dark days
They’re one of Australia’s most endearing couples, but Grant and Cheryl Denyer’s marriage hasn’t always been so picture perfect.
In a no-holds-barred interview with Studio 10 last week, Chezzi, 38, dropped the major bombshell that their marriage was almost destroyed when Grant, 41, suspected her of being unfaithful.
“He’d go away, then come home and I’d fly off the handle at him for no reason,” she said. “I’m certain he thought at one point I must have been having an affair because it didn’t quite make sense.”
But the real reason for Chezzi’s outbursts was her secret battle with postnatal depression and anxiety following the birth of her first child Sailor, now seven, in 2011. “I was really good at concealing that the wheels were falling off and I wasn’t coping,” she said.
Chezzi’s severe perinatal anxiety resulted in her having a “mini-breakdown”, which led her to eventually seek help from a health professional.
“Grant came home from being on the road, and I screamed at him for about an hour,” she revealed. “I gave him the baby, and I just broke down and said, ‘I can’t do it any more. I’m a failure. I don’t have the mum gene. I’m not coping.’”
Her struggles had a huge impact on Grant, who admitted in a pre-recorded message on the show that his whole world was “turned upside down”. “It was a stressful period. It was a tough period. It was scary,” he said.
It’s not the first storm Australia’s golden TV couple have weathered. In fact, behind their megawatt smiles, the pair, who also share daughter Scout, two, have had their share of turbulent times.
In 2017, Grant was airlifted to hospital after a near-fatal rally car crash that “would have been the end of him” had he not narrowly missed a large tree.
After the accident, which left him with a broken coccyx, broken finger and severe bruising, Grant said it “caused me to re-evaluate all aspects of my life, and the support of my partner Cheryl, family, friends and the thousands of messages of encouragement was the catalyst in pushing me to make a full recovery”.
He later insisted he’d keep racing. “Many questioned why I’d want to race after such as rough time, but life isn’t a dress rehearsal – this is it – I love it and I want to experience all aspects of life to the max.”