The family of Billy Guyton, the first NZ professional rugby player diagnosed with brain disease CTE, says he reached out to the Auckland Blues for help with his mental health but was told not to bring his problems to work.
Guyton died in Nelson in 2023 of a suspected suicide at the age of 33.
He was later found by the Neurological Foundation’s Human Brain Bank to have had stage 2 Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked by neuroscientists to repeated head knocks and contact sports.
Guyton retired from rugby in 2018 after too many concussions having played as a halfback for the Māori All Blacks, Tasman Makos, Crusaders, Hurricanes and the Blues.
Guyton, New Zealand's first professional rugby player diagnosed with CTE, died after struggling with his mental health. His whānau now ask where rugby was when he needed it most. (Source: Sunday)
TVNZ’s Sunday programme has seen a video recorded by Guyton in 2018 where he talks about his struggles with mental health.
In the video he said: “So I rang my doctor and I tell her that I think I'm bipolar and I'm either going crazy or going very mad. Because I can't stop my thoughts.”
Guyton’s paranoia came to a head while playing for the Blues in 2016 and 2017.
“I was in a very negative state about why they were being negative towards me, I was making up stories in my own head, what was I doing?” he said.
As he became more irrational and volatile, Guyton said he went seeking help and was called in to speak with some of the Blues leadership team.
“They said, ‘Bill you just got to leave you sh*t at home, OK’,” he says on the video.
“You think, well, c*** if you knew what was going on in my head, you'd f***ing know, you wouldn't be able to leave it at home - Jesus - and I almost wanted to jump over the table and punch them.”
His father John Guyton told Sunday: “I think it’s pretty disgusting really to shunt somebody off like that, like they're talking about mental health and to shunt him off like that. And told him not to bring his personal life to work, that’s pretty reckless.”
Seventeen concussions
Guyton’s medical records show he took 17 concussions over his rugby career. The head knocks he received had actually changed the shape of his brain.
Professor Maurice Curtis, deputy director the Neurological Foundation’s Human Brain Bank, said the two hemispheres of the brain, which would normally be fused together, had actually separated because of the repeated head knocks.
Professor Curtis said: “It's quite possible that Billy Guyton had both CTE and bipolar disorder. But certainly the symptoms of depression, anxiety, mood swings, those sorts of things are absolutely common in CTE.”
When Guyton’s claims were put to The Blues, the club said all the people involved at the time have since left and that the allegations cannot therefore be proved or disproved.
It added: “At the Blues we care for both the mental and physical health of all our players and staff – it is our number one priority.”
More than 300 ex-rugby players are currently suing World Rugby for failing to protect them from head injuries.
Former All Black prop Carl Hayman, who was diagnosed with probable CTE and early onset dementia at 42, is one of them.
NZ Rugby acknowledges an association between head knocks and CTE but says more work needs to be done to prove it causes symptoms such as depression, anxiety and dementia.
SHARE ME