Merrick Watts has revealed he will not appear on SAS Australia, following inaccurate reports from 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 right after the Herald Sun reported that he will take on the role of a DS team member.
“A few people have asked me about it, 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 the radio.
“They were just going to write it, and I read it, and I thought, ‘That’s interesting, I didn’t know that.’ So that’s news to me.
“So look, I mean, I’m now waiting for the call from Channel Seven to tell me 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 feature was “even an option,” to which he replied, “No. Not only have I not been talked about it, it hasn’t been talked about to anyone. It was never discussed.’
‘I don’t know how this happened. Obviously someone was laughing,” he added.
‘It’s baseless, isn’t it. I’m not going back to SAS Australia.’
Merrick Watts (pictured) revealed he will not appear on SAS Australia, following inaccurate reports from Ant Middleton confirming his return to the Channel Seven show
The role of the DS is to guide participants through the course before reporting back to Lead Instructor Middleton on their progress and skills.
On Friday, former British Special Forces soldier Ant Middleton reportedly told the NewsCorp publication that Watts will join the directing staff, becoming the first Australian DS member on the programme.
“Merrick Watts, he’s coming as one of the DS, the directing staff, he’ll be by my side at the next SAS,” he said.
‘I think the cat is out of the bag now. We have to keep evolving it (the show), keeping it fresh.”
Watts successfully completed the grueling selection course during SAS Australia’s inaugural season in 2020.
After taking part in the programme, the radio presenter revealed how signing up for the Channel Seven show helped him through his darkest times.
Watts successfully completed the grueling selection course during SAS Australia’s inaugural season in 2020
On Friday, Ant Middleton (pictured) told the Herald Sun that Watts will be part of the direction, becoming the first Australian DS member on the programme.
The father-of-two said he was in the “worst mental state” he had ever been in before agreeing to go on the show.
After talking to his doctor, he saw a psychologist and even took a ten-week mediation course, but “nothing” helped.
“I felt like I was crumbling,” Watts said at the time during an interview with Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa.
‘I did the right things, I spoke to a psychologist, I spoke to my doctor, I took a ten-week meditation course. Nothing worked. I know I had to rebuild my confidence.”
Watts said he knew a stint with SAS Australia would help him “rebuild his confidence”.
“If I’m confident, I’m very capable. When I lack confidence, I go back into my shell… I knew that just the process of preparing 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 ever been in. “I’ve been there all my life.”
He ended with, “It has been extremely good for my mind and my body.”
During his appearance on SAS Australia, Watts admitted his confidence had taken a hit after losing his radio career ‘about three years ago’.
‘I worked in radio for twenty years, and I was phenomenally successful. I had a number one radio show, got huge ratings and made a lot of money. It was a really nice time. And it ended,” he thought during his interrogation with the SAS Directing Staff.
‘You’ve been doing something like radio non-stop for twenty years. You get used to a certain way of doing things, and then when you’re out of it for a while, it’s exciting and then it’s kind of cool and it’s liberating.”
‘But then suddenly there was a period when I just didn’t have much work. There was a moment when I thought, “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 itself in anxiety and depression.”
Watts confessed that his struggles with anxiety and depression pushed him to apply for the show.
‘I’m doing this course to completely change who I was. Everyone knows me as a happy, fun-loving type…” he explained.
‘But I haven’t had that feeling for a while. And I want to feel like that again.’