Garry Lyon has spoken openly with Mike Sheahan on SEN Breakfast about the challenges he has faced over the past 12 months, which led him to take a leave of absence from the football media.
FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Mike Sheahan: You look well Gaz, even refreshed. Are you ready to immerse yourself in the whirlpool of public life again?
Garry Lyon: Just the softener Michael. No, I am. We kick off on Monday. Obviously having a chat before my return to Breakfast on Monday. I’m nervous about that, to be honest. I haven’t worked obviously for over a year now. So yeah, stepping back into the environment will be interesting but exciting though.
MS: We’ve had a couple of meetings of recent times. I thought you have regained your old poise and your spunk and your confidence. Was that a fair assessment or not?
GL: I’ve been feeling much better in the back half of last year, with knowledge and going through the experiences that I have in the last 12 months and understanding where you’re at and why things happen for different reasons. I feel more ready to come back and do some work but as the day approaches, you get a bit ‘knot in the stomach’ sort of stuff. So yeah, I’m excited about the people I’m working with, that I’ve been able to get back into some sort of a routine, but I will do things a little differently I reckon this time around.
MS: Was there a day or an event where you said “OK, I’m getting on with my life”?
GL: Well I’m not saying my life stopped but it did just sort of come to a very grinding halt. I was lucky I had some really good people around me and was able to go and access some professional help which I probably 12 months ago wouldn’t even say, let alone do and that takes a big step. I think without even realising it you tend to cope with it for a period of time and I was lucky I had a long period of time and I had a really good person who was helping me particularly. We were in a unique situation where I would spend a lot of time with him on a day to day basis.
MS: Can you name him?
GL: No, as a professional in his field and yeah, as I said, he went way far and beyond in terms of I was able to spend time at his property and have twice daily meetings with him.
MS: That’s therapy.
GL: You call it therapy but in the end it became like a friendship and being able to access a really experienced mind was I think, looking back on it now, I was blessed.
MS: You know there is always levels of public cynicism about people like you: profiles, celebrities. There’s a lot of scepticism about that psychological issue you had. Does that hurt you? Does that offend you when you hear that?
GL: I think with my old self it would have. My natural reaction would have been to call people out. There’s no doubt that when you’ve been through it, it’s an offensive thing to hear. Your back gets up and you go “Do you want access to my doctors? Do I need to produce a certificate? Do you want the medication? Do you want the whole box and dice?” But yeah, now I understand people. As I said, I think it’s really offensive but I imagine there’s people that share that point of view. I hope for their sake that no one close to them or within their family need to go through it if that is their mindset.
MS: Well there is two instances. You and that cynicism I refer to, and Buddy Franklin and people were sort of saying that was a crutch for him and that it was a convenient out. Now you’re seeing this from a different perspective these days, aren’t you?
GL: Of course, when you’ve been through it. My first experiences with it was probably eight years ago.
MS: Really?
GL: Yeah. So I sought professional help eight years ago and went through that process for about two weeks. I was just not ready. You talk about cynicism, I thought “How could this person help me get through this difficult period that I was living through?” So I didn’t pursue it, to my detriment no doubt, because I wasn’t mature enough. I had a closed mind. In most things in life I was able to work out myself and I’m not great at asking for help. So to go there and for that period of time a long time ago, I’ve got no doubt, if I had of stuck with that I would have been in a much better place going forward, but I didn’t address it.
MS: So were you directed to someone or did you say there was something wrong with me and I need help?
GL: I took it on myself.
MS: Did you think you had depression eight years ago?
GL: No. I was in a pretty difficult spot in my life, going through a few things so in consultation with a friend, we went and sought this help but I had a closed mind. I think society thankfully these days has got a much greater appreciation for the fact that OK, it’s not as stigmatised as it once was. I think back then I would have been terribly embarrassed.
MS: You were very black and white back then, weren’t you?
GL: Very. I wouldn’t have seen it as a weakness but I would have been embarrassed to put my hand up and say I’m struggling and I’ve had to go and see someone.
MS: You know there’s a lot of people calling you – and it’s growing – the lone wolf. What does that say to you?
GL: Well, that’s a very interesting point. The perception of people can be manufactured by the environment that you work in, and I worked in a really blokey setup, at Triple M particularly and at Channel Nine. That’s how we operated. We rolled in an environment where we had a go at each other and we laughed and you got stuck with a nickname. The reality and the perception can sometimes widen. The longer people call you something, the greater the reality in the eyes of other people. I did withdraw, there’s no question, and I’ve never been a particularly social person. I don’t apologise for that, some people are and that is great. I don’t see that as a character flaw but I haven’t been a particularly social person.
MS: There was some suggestion, and there has been a lot of things that have been written and said of you in recent times that you take issue with. One of them was that you used to do your shopping at midnight so you didn’t have to confront people. True?
GL: No. A lot of things have been written that have been manufactured because of agendas I think in some instances, and some people just get things wrong.
MS: Was that wrong?
GL: It was ridiculous. They said I went shopping at two o’clock or something?
MS: Yeah. You probably don’t go shopping anywhere do you?
GL: No I have to shop for food but I don’t think I’ve ever been there at two o’clock. And you know, that just builds this persona I suppose. As I said, once upon a time I would probably take greater exception to those sorts of things and you roll with it.
MS: We’ve exchanged a few messages over the last 12 months, and I said to you in one of them that I thought the Herald Sun, my old paper, had made not much out of nothing a couple of times with you.
GL: I guess when you’ve got the social pages…I mean I find it pretty embarrassing.
MS: To see yourself in confidential?
GL: Terribly. I hate it, yeah. I’m not that interesting but I understand the interest that has been garnered over the past 12 to 18 months but I mean, yeah, I’ve tried to be as respectful as I can when people ring and to give a polite “no comment”. It’s funny how some of that stuff can then turn into a large story.
MS: When your mates, when your friends were messaging you and calling you, were you responding?
GL: At what stage?
MS: During the last 12 months. Our exchanges were always via text but you told me once that a phone rang, you didn’t recognise the number. You picked it up and it was Alice Coster from the Herald Sun.
GL: Yeah. I wouldn’t answer a phone if I didn’t know who it was…as I was going through this, part of the process was re-establishing relationships so I made a point of it, yeah. I then started making a point of getting back to every single person who got in touch with me, yeah.
MS: You’re back on the airwaves and you’re going to do Footy Classified again this year. How did that come about? Did you say I need to get back into the media because it is my home or did someone come to you with an offer?
GL: No. I was still contracted to Channel Nine for this year, for 2017. I wasn’t going to go back and do The Footy Show. They wanted me to go back and do Footy Classified and I had to look at that in the context of the workload because workload was something that I haven’t managed historically all that well. In conjunction with this role here at SEN and a bit of Friday night footy with SEN and then Classified. That’s enough. That gives me freedom to find some balance which is incredibly important.
MS: Are you nervous? You strike me now that you’re more nervous than I’ve ever seen you.
GL: I’m nervous about being interviewed about my life. We talk about ourselves in our media roles but a lot of it is tongue-in-cheek. People go “oh you become very in, it’s all very in-house and blokey”. Well it is, because that is what we did but it is never on this level. You’ve asked me to do interviews on your show for the last five or six years and I couldn’t think of doing it – not because it’s you obviously – but I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting down and talking about my life, for instance. Now given these circumstances, I’m not particularly relishing this but I have to talk at some stage.
MS: What’s the difference Gaz? I know the glossies would have offered you a hundred thousand plus for the tell-all story, and I presume you have said no to them.
GL: Yeah.
MS: Why are we talking then?
GL: Because we have to talk. I have to talk at some stage. I’m coming back and am going to ask of others to talk. I am going to be much more circumspect in what I talk about them with given the circumstances I have been through. Basically to get it out of the road mate, if you cut to the chase. There’s been opportunities to talk. You’ve got to acknowledge some things, get them done and move on.
MS: Like what Garry?
GL: Well there’s obviously been a lot of pain for people that I have been close to over a period of time, in particular my ex-wife Melissa and my family, my boys and by extension a larger group of people, and then Bill, yeah, and his family. So it is important publically that I apologise for the hurt and pain they have been through and if people think I have been blasé about that and recognise that I don’t acknowledge it, that would be wrong because it has been difficult for me. So there’s that. There’s lots of layers to that, many of which I won’t go into and I’m not interested I talking about because it’s a side of my life that I don’t think is anyone’s particular business, but I do know it has been hard for them. I’m not saying that to try and make myself feel better, I genuinely acknowledge how difficult it has been and it was hard to see them go through a lot of that and I am really regretful of that.
MS: Are you on talking terms with Melissa?
GL: As I said, that is a side of my life that I will never talk about. My relationship with her, about my boys or by extension my larger family. I just don’t think it’s anyone’s business whether I am.
MS: You are a celeb, Gaz, you know though?
GL: A celeb?
MS: You are. In Victoria at least, you are. You are a captain of the oldest football club in the comp. You’ve been a high-profile media personality. Do you not belong to the public in a sense?
GL: Yeah I get that and I am accepting of it. I don’t like it but I am accepting of it. But I control ultimately what I am talking about or what I discuss. Obviously I have been thinking about this a lot, you and I talking, and in this world that we live in today, people seem to have a sense of entitlement to know everything about what you’re doing at any time of the day. That is born through social media I think, and I choose not to live in that space. Not because I’m making a statement, but the last thing I want to do is tell people where I am, not that I think anyone would care, but I don’t want to say “here’s me on holidays” or “here’s me and my kids” because that’s my private life. That’s a really conscious decision that I do. I don’t involve myself with that.
MS: Are you on social media? No Twitter, no Instagram?
GL: Not at all. Not on any platform and never have, and professionally, Twitter is probably something coming back into this role for what is happening on a news front- for work, sport – that is important. Not to find out who’s holidaying in Noosa or who is having dinner, whatever. Good luck to people who do that, that’s absolutely fine but I find it sort of counter-intuitive to how I want to live my life.
MS: You virtually, as I understood it, made a public apology to those that have been hurt along the way. Have you personally apologised to Billy?
GL: I have, but I haven’t spoken to him since before Christmas previously.
MS: But you have had a discussion with him?
GL: Yeah. Via text. I spoke to Bill before this came public, back a year or so ago, and beyond that, it is something that he and I have to work through or do it and if he wants to talk about it publicly, that is his right, but I won’t be.
MS: Did he respond to your text message?
GL: No.
MS: Would you have in reverse roles?
GL: Possibly not.
MS: I don’t want to labour this particular point but you and he weren’t just mates. You were very tight, weren’t you?
GL: We were good mates, yeah. No doubt.
MS: Who or what lured you out of seclusion?
GL: You mean recently?
MS: Yeah
GL: Well I just was battling. I just battled at the end of 2015 and yeah, I just got myself into a hole. It’s hard to talk about this but for people who have lived through it, they understand it but for others, it’s hard to explain. I just couldn’t get off the couch. I didn’t want to face the day. You just stop enjoying doing what you’re doing. I was regretting the end of the football season in 2015 because football gave me a structure. I had to be here at this time, this is what I needed to do on this day. Some people say how could you operate when you’re struggling like that? Well it’s quite the opposite, you need that to operate. I was regretting the end of that season and normally I would be relishing a break, getting away and I just couldn’t. I had a couple of close mates that became a little concerned.
MS: Did you ever feel unsafe? I don’t want to break your confidence but you said something to me in a message, and I won’t reveal it, but I was worried about where you were and that you were in fact by yourself.
GL: That’s right. When you’re on your own, you’re sitting in a house on your own, going through these emotions. There’s lots going on and your own relationship had broken down. You’re having these feelings about where you fit in the world and it just challenges you every day and you can’t reach out. I couldn’t pick the phone up for instance and say I’m struggling and every day that you didn’t the harder it got to do that. I know this will sound morbid and everything but that was the reality of what happened. There were things that needed to happen towards the end of the year and I wasn’t able to do them. Just social commitments coming up to Christmas or you’ve always done something annually with people. I wasn’t able to do that. I just couldn’t and didn’t want to, basically.
MS: What about your own kids? You have three boys.
GL: Yeah, who I love more than anything. You talk about this but it’s the hardest thing in the world. Everyone wants to be a hero to their kids, as you would be aware, and they’ve only ever seen me in the light of – they were probably too young for my football but being in the media. I try and shield them from my emotions because you don’t want to worry them about how you’re feeling but inevitably I had to have that discussion.
MS: So you said “Dad is not well?” Did you say that?
GL: Of course I had to. Three grown boys, young men who I have always had a great relationship with but as a parent you always want to protect them, you don’t want to worry them but this time you have to say that I’m battling with this. I don’t want you to be worried, I don’t want you to be scared. I’ve got good help and support but this is what I’m dealing with. From that first conversation to now, I’ve never had a better relationship, I’ve only ever had a great relationship with them. They’ve grown as young men, they’ve taken responsibility and they have supported their mother through all this. They have been extraordinary.
MS: Did you turn away from them at any point?
GL: Never. Not the boys, never.
MS: What about your parents? I know your parents and parents want to cuddle you and embrace you when you’re not travelling well. How were you with them?
GL: Do people want to hear this, really? It’s boring stuff isn’t it?
MS: I mean I ask because I think it’s interesting.
GL: Well I left home when I had just turned 16. My mum and dad, they have been unbelievably supportive of me and what I’ve done, in everything I have done. I suppose when you leave home and be away from home for 30 years, you’re not as close. Like my sisters, they still live with mum and dad so they see them every day, twice a day. I was worried about telling them where I was at because they would from afar, two hours away, would think everything is under control. My relationship had broken down and that is a concern always for parents but they always support you and then you’ve got to sit them down and say this is where this is at.
MS: Do you empathise with James Hird?
GL: Oh yeah I do. The pressures that come with being a topic of interest, I’m not on that level but I couldn’t have coped – thankfully no one knows where I live – with having five cameras at my doorstep every day. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it at all and that gets you. I was part of the media that was involved with that – and this is what I’m talking about by being more circumspect in the way I cover stuff, is that every day James would come out and talk and be polite. Internally no one knows how hard that was for him. You just tune out and you have to tune out basically. I hope he tuned out basically.
MS: Did you ever wake on a day or particular days and wondered whether it was all worth it? Whether living was worth it?
GL: No that would be too dramatic from my point of view. It’s a great headline but I had some dark times, seriously dark times. I can see how people get to that stage, no doubt. Part of the reason I’m not comfortable is that people can say, the cynical elements out there can say “How can you be back in a year?” I’m back working, I’ve not got a handle completely on this at all by any stretch.
MS: But this is your baby, isn’t it? You immersed yourself in the rebirth of the SEN Breakfast program.
GL: Yeah I’ve been heavily involved but what I’m saying is that you don’t just get over depression, like I’m fixed, I’m better, here I am. The only thing I do know is that you monitor closely, you look for warning signs and you have some procedures in place that can help you shortcut back to where you’ve been. That’s people particularly, surrounding yourself with people and not being afraid to ask.
MS: What about medication?
GL: Yeah I went through a year of that.
MS: Is it continuing or finished?
GL: Very low level at the moment. I never really was an anti-inflam. I was never really big on those. They helped, there’s no question it helped for a period of time. I was a terrible sleeper particularly so just to help get some sleep was a good thing. This part of the problem. I would close my mind and say “how is medication going to help?” Because my mind, the way I’ve operated is don’t be weak. Mind over matter, get yourself up and get going. What was half a pill going to make any difference? It helped get through the worst times, no question, and I’d do it again if I had to.
MS: What did you learn about yourself during your sabbatical?
GL: Well what I can tell you is that it has been the most humbling process in my life because when you get to this stage in your life where you lose a bit of control over your emotions, it just strips all ego from you because you fall at the feet of whoever can help you, because you’ve got to a situation where you can’t control your own emotional state. It just humbles you. Historically I’ve been a confident person, I’ve got a really healthy ego. Sometimes your self-awareness isn’t quite what it should be because you can get carried away and you ride your success without stopping to say “hang on, where am I at?” So if anything, I have never been more self-aware than I am right now and hopefully come back with a degree of humility that helps me recognise maybe in others that are struggling but also have a self-awareness of myself to say “Righto, this is where I’m at. Let’s not let this get out of control”. Work load and life balance is really important.
MS: Where did you spend the bulk of the last 12 months Gaz?
GL: Down the coast, a two and a half hour drive down near Apollo Bay and as I said, luckily I was able to be exposed to some great people there, professional people who were good enough or kind enough to allow me to live down there for long periods of time and have daily, sometimes twice daily, conversations. I did some really alternative treatment too.
MS: Like?
GL: I’m not going to talk about it but for me, obviously meditating became a part of it, that’s not alternative but I did some other stuff with these professional people that in years gone by I would have laughed and said that’s just the most ridiculous thing. But I was at the stage where I threw myself and just said yes, let’s do it. That work is all stored as a result of that and I refer back to that.
MS: It’s funny, looking at you and I know you were such a strong personality, I reckon your biggest battle would have been with yourself to say “I’m perhaps not the all-knowing person I thought I was”?
GL: Yep, that’s right because you always want to have the answers and I think I have been a leader in most things that I have done. As a personality type I am a leader type, and to be able to step back and show some vulnerability and say I need someone else to help, I need someone else to lead and take a step back, and if you’re listening, that’s a hard thing to do sometimes, you know. That’s what I’ve done and I hope I am better for it. We’ll see.
MS: Your marital situation and your relationship with Nicky Brownless, where does that fit in terms of what your mental state has been?
GL: I’ve separated back in 2014, that’s hard enough to deal with, separation. It’s hard enough to deal with privately, let alone publicly and you throw in a new relationship which sections and large amounts of people frown upon, the fact that the relationship is with someone who was once married to a friend. I understand that, I accept that and I understand the thinking. So all that combined was a lot to deal with. When you get to that stage in your life where you’re battling and you throw all that in the mix and you play it out in the news, on television and wherever else it appeared, it’s a lot to deal with. I’m not complaining about it. I’m just stating the facts and I’ve had a good going over, I think that is fair to say.
MS: True. How heavily did it wither your self-worth did you think?
GL: As I said, when it strips you of your ego, you ask all sorts of questions of yourself. My yardstick or measuring stick in terms of all of that is my boys. I understand I’m public and I understand the public listen to this show and I understand you need some support but I’m not asking permission from the broader community about how I live my life, just as I don’t expect to ask you how your living yours. You don’t need me to give you permission on what you want to do, you know what I mean? So I’ll just go back to my boys, I’ll look them in the eye and sit down and talk with them make them understand and live with that.
MS: It seems to be that you have studiously avoided referring to Nicky. You’re still in a relationship with Nicky, correct?
GL: I am. I’m not studiously avoiding it, I’m avoiding, as I said to you earlier, aspects of my private life.
MS: I need to ask you this. I think it is of interest and people say to me when they know I’m interviewing you that it is of interest. Do you think if you and Nicky had of broached this with Billy before he found out, that things might have been different?
GL: Well you’re assuming that we didn’t talk to him.
MS: Did you?
GL: Well that’s for Bill and I, and Nicky. I’m not trying to be clever about this. There’s no easy way Mike to have broached that subject and I’m not saying I was jumping out of my skin to talk to Bill about it, there’s no doubt about that but yeah, there’s innate difficulties with all of that. Whether you could do things differently, in hindsight maybe but as I said, I know there’s a lot of hurt that has resulted from it and I’ve got to live with that and carry that. As you said, Nicky and I are together and I’m eternally grateful that she was able to support me through the back half of this and hopefully that is the end of it. I would like to think there is no more interest in it.
MS: We haven’t seen you publicly in Melbourne, haven’t we? I think you were seen in New York recently but we haven’t seen you and Nicky in public recently, have we?
GL: What do you mean?
MS: Do you go out? Do you socialise?
GL: (laughs). We go and have some dinner. Do you understand why I find that a hard question from you? I could expect that from the front parts of the paper but who cares if we go out or not?
MS: Well I think we do.
GL: Who does?
MS: There is me, as a member of the public…
GL: Do you care where we go out for dinner?
MS: If I saw a photo in the paper of Garry Lyon and Nicky Brownless out, I would be interested in it. We have this morbid fascination with famous people, and I’m one of them. Not the famous people, one that has got the fascination.
GL: I accept that and I accept that you’re going to learn about most things that go on with your life via media.
MS: Sam Newman is a friend of both you and Billy. I know Sam, for all his peculiarities, is a very loyal person. I suspect that you have heard from him regularly. Is that true?
GL: I have. There have been an enormous amount of people who have been unbelievably supportive and not all of them agree with the situation I find myself in, but they understand where I am and what I’ve been through and the toughest assessments come from the people who love you the most. I accept all that and Sam has been brilliant. I say this all the time and no one wants to listen. He is a part of that self-made persona that he wears almost proudly, which is so diametrically opposed to the person he is, as you know. He’s been great.
MS: If there’s been one light moment, I suspect that it has been that the cult status of Nathan “Gaz” Lyon. Are you aware of that – that Nathan Lyon has got your name as his nickname. Has it brought a smile to your face?
GL: I watch the cricket and when Matthew Wade was reinstated as the wicketkeeper, it became as clear as day. I don’t know, apparently my boys say it’s out there in broader social circles. I think people get half-drunk where they are and it’s become part of the vernacular, which is strange. He, by the way, wouldn’t have any idea who I am, which is even funnier.
MS: I think he does now mate. Welcome back. I know this has had its torrid moments but I am pleased that you’ve done it and I am looking forward to working with you on SEN this year.
GL: I am too. The old adage is that you never complain, you never explain but you have to talk. As I said, I accept where people are coming from, who have found this difficult. It wasn’t meant to offend them personally - this is the broader public I am talking about - I accept that some people won’t embrace what I’m doing here because they don’t agree with where I’m at but I’m just looking for – and I know this is very new age – inner peace.
MS: You’re entitled to that.
GL: A couple of things have happened, stepping back into this media world which is as combative as playing footy at times, where you think I need to fly the flag and take that up.
MS: Well you are different because you would have whacked me ten times in the old days by now.
GL: Yeah but balance is where we are at. But anyway, I am looking forward to working with you. Part of this whole process is working with people you enjoy working with and SEN Breakfast with Hamish and Tim and Bob Murphy and Huddo and Sammy McClure, it’s going to be a good place to work and hopefully people enjoy it.
MS: Good luck mate.
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