Nathan Cleary lifts the lid on one of the lowest points in his NRL career which caused him to ‘hate himself’

NRL superstar Nathan Cleary has opened up about one of the lowest moments in his footy career which caused him to hate himself and lie to his parents.

In April 2020, NSW Police fined the Penrith Panthers playmaker after he was caught breaching social distancing rules when a TikTok video emerged of him dancing with five women on Anzac Day.

Initially, Cleary had claimed he was at home practising self-isolation and the girls in the video were down the road drinking, so he let them wait for an Uber at his house.

He also claimed the girls were only at his house for ten minutes and lied about leaving his house to pick them up, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The footy star has now expressed his remorse over the scandal, saying he hated himself at the time.

‘I was just hating myself really – just regret,’ Cleary explained on Channel Nine’s Marlee & Me podcast. 

‘The moment was bad, but how I reacted after it was what I was most disappointed about.

‘It took me to a place where I wasn’t even totally honest with my parents. That killed them.

Cleary was fined by New South Wales police after he was caught breaching social distancing rules when a TikTok video emerged of him dancing with five women on Anzac Day 2020

‘Even thinking back on it now, it was so stupid. But that hurt me the most – seeing them, and how it effected them.

‘That’s what made the realisation for me – things might not go the way you want it to, you might do silly things, make mistakes, but be true to yourself and be honest. especially to those close to you.

Cleary says he thinks the incident has probably made him closer to his parents in the long run. 

‘It took a little while to get my head around what I’d actually done, but then I sort of flipped it and I wanted to make those people who were in my corner proud of me and I wanted to be a better person and learn from this moment,’ he said.

Cleary (pictured with girlfriend Mary Fowler) said the scandal has made him want to be a better person and has made him closer with his parents

‘…The way I acted was poor, it was bad and I knew that. I couldn’t change what I’d done, but I can control what I did in the future and the person I was.’

Cleary was a standout for the Panthers last week against the Sharks, as he marched his side into a historic fifth NRL grand final.

The Panthers will take on the Melbourne Storm in Sunday’s grand final.