Sam Burgess has choked up over the death of his father Mark and how it impacted his life in an emotional grilling on SAS Australia.
After previously opening up about the breakdown of his marriage to Phoebe Burgess and his drug driving charge, the NRL star got candid on the bond he shared with his father during Tuesday night’s interrogation.
“I guess my work ethic comes from my dad,” Sam told Directing Staff (DS) Ant Middleton and Mark ‘Billy’ Billingham.
The 32-year-old, who was reportedly paid between $150,000 and $200,000 to appear on the show, said his dad was his biggest influence.
“He was just a good man. He was just a really good man. He had four boys and was just kind and he was tough and he was just a great man,” he said of his father, who died when Sam was just 18 following a battle with motor neurone disease.
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Sam Burgess has teared up over his father’s death and how it impacted his life in an emotional grilling on SAS Australia.
(Image: Seven)“[It’s a] crap disease, it’s awful,” Sam said. “It’s pretty demoralising. Your muscles sort of eat away and everything just stops – you become just a body, really with the same mind. Everything just stopped until he passed away.”
Sam said his father passed away just weeks after watching him play his debut football match in the UK in 2006.
“I told him not to come because I’d worry about him in the stand when I wasn’t with him. It was freezing and I knew he was deteriorating,” he said.
“Anyway, I saw him in the crowd. I started shaking my head, I was laughing that he got his way to the game through one of the parents. And he was freezing cold and from that night on he was in hospital for a couple of weeks and he passed away a couple of weeks after that.
The 32-year-old, who was reportedly paid between $150,000 and $200,000 to appear on the show, said his dad was his biggest influence.
(Image: Seven)“One of the biggest things that hurts me in life is he never saw my brothers play professionally. At that age, you just never know how far they’re going to get in their careers and they’ve all gone on to have wonderful careers. It’s one of the biggest things that hurts me – he never seeing us all play together.
“He taught me enough before he passed away to carry on my life.”
During an interrogation last week, Sam, who shares Billy, two and Poppy, four, with his ex-wife was unable to hide his emotions as he spoke about his past.
“I don’t think I was the greatest husband at times,” he said.
“I embarrassed my wife. I’d had an affair with a girl, a woman in Melbourne. That’s true.
During his last interrogation on SAS Australia, Sam opened up about the breakdown of his marriage to Phoebe.
(Image: Getty)“I was away on tour and regretful that it happened. It would’ve been a tough place for Phoebe to be.”
During the breakdown of their marriage, Sam was forced to retire from the NRL due to a shoulder injury, which he admitted was hard for him to accept.
“It was a bit of a knife to the heart,” he revealed on SAS Australia.
“I couldn’t accept it. I knew two games in I couldn’t do my job anymore, so I retired. It was s**t.”
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