Merrick Watts has revealed he won’t be appearing on SAS Australia, following inaccurate reports of Ant Middleton confirming his return to the Channel Seven show.
Speaking on The Fox’s Fifi, Fev & Nick on Tuesday, the 50-year-old comedian set the record straight after the Herald Sun reported he’ll be taking on the role of a DS team member.
‘A few people have asked me, but this is the first time I’ve spoken to the media about it because the media didn’t bother to ask me about it at all,’ he said on radio.
‘They just went and wrote it, and I read it, and I was like, “That’s interesting, I didn’t know that.” So that’s news to me.
‘So look, I mean, I’m just waiting for the call Now from Channel Seven to tell me that I’ve got the job. But other than that, I don’t have the job. It’s not true.’
Co-host Fifi Box asked Watts if the position ‘was even an option’, to which he replied: ‘No. Not only have I not been spoken to about it, no one has been spoken to about it. It’s never come up.’
‘I don’t know how this came about. Somebody’s obviously had a bit of a laugh,’ he added.
‘It’s unfounded, untrue. I won’t be returning to SAS Australia.’
Merrick Watts (pictured) revealed he won’t be appearing on SAS Australia, following inaccurate reports of Ant Middleton confirming his return to the Channel Seven show
The role of the DS is to push the contestants through the course before reporting back to Chief Instructor Middleton on their progress and ability.
On Friday, former UK Special Forces soldier Ant Middleton reportedly told the NewsCorp publication that Watts will be part of the directing staff, making him the first Australian DS member on the program.
‘Merrick Watts, he is coming on as one of the DS, the directing staff, he is going to be by my side on the next SAS,’ he said.
‘I guess the cat is out of the bag now. We have to keep evolving it (the show), keep it fresh.’
Watts successfully passed the gruelling selection course during the first season of SAS Australia in 2020.
Following his stint on the program, the radio presenter revealed how signing up for the gruelling Channel Seven show has helped him get through his darkest times.
Watts successfully passed the gruelling selection course during the first season of SAS Australia in 2020
On Friday, Ant Middleton (pictured) told the Herald Sun that Watts will be part of the directing staff, making him the first Australian DS member on the program
The father-of-two said he was in the ‘worst mental state’ he’d ever been in before agreeing to go on the show.
After speaking to his doctor, he saw a psychologist and even did a 10-week mediation course, but ‘nothing’ was working.
‘I felt like I was chipping away,’ Watts said during an interview with Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa at the time.
‘I did all the right things, I spoke to a psychologist, I spoke to my doctor, I did a 10-week meditation course. Nothing was working. I know that what I needed was to rebuild my confidence.’
Watts said he knew that going on SAS Australia would help him ‘rebuild his confidence.’
‘When I’m confident I’m very, very capable. When I’m not confident I go back into my shell… I knew that just the process of getting ready for SAS Australia would be enough to rebuild my confidence and I was right,’ he explained.
‘I look at myself, a year ago and when I signed up for this show I was in the worst mental state I’ve ever been in. I look at myself a year later and I’m in the best physical and mental state I’ve been in in my entire life.’
He finished: ‘It’s been extraordinarily good for my mind and my body.’
During his appearance on SAS Australia, Watts admitted his confidence took a hit after losing his radio career ‘about three years ago’.
‘For 20 years, I worked in radio, and I was phenomenally successful. I had a number one radio program, getting massive ratings, earning a lot of money. It was a really, really good time. And it ended,’ he reflected, during his interrogation with the SAS Directing Staff.
‘You do something like radio for 20 years nonstop. You get used to a certain way of doing things, and then when you’re out of it for a little while, it’s exciting and then it’s kind of cool and it’s a release.’
‘But then all of a sudden, there was a period where I just didn’t have a lot of work. There was a moment there where I just went, “What’s next for me? Who am I? What am I going to do?”
‘I lost my self-confidence and I lost my strength and myself. That slowly started to manifest into anxiety and depression.’
Watts confessed that his struggle with anxiety and depression was what prompted him to sign up for the show.
‘I’m doing this course to completely change myself from what I was. Everybody knows me as just a happy-go-lucky kind of guy…’ he explained.
‘But I haven’t felt that way for a while. And I want to feel that way again.’