Australian comedian Tim Ross has responded after his former radio co-host Merrick Watts opened up about their “brutal” professional split.
‘Merrick and Rosso’ went their separate ways after an 11-year partnership in 2009, when Ross exited their popular radio show to pursue other ventures.
Watts has spoken out several times over the years about his former comedy partner – more recently, he said their dissolution was “brutal” and “devastating”.
Speaking on Mumbrella’s podcast Mumbrellacast in response to Watts’ comments, Ross dismissed reports of a rift, saying the pair were “like brothers”.
“Merrick and I, the way I describe it, we’re like brothers, you know? No one else understands what happened at that time,” Ross explained to host Neil Griffiths.
He continued: “There’s a few people we work with who we’re very close to that were in the trenches with us, but we have so much shared memories.
“We have beautiful in-jokes that no one else gets, like some sort of ridiculous f**king secret language.
“We always share stories about when people come up and tell us about something.
“What really unites us in our friendship is that shared history. We’re really, really lucky to have that bond.”
It comes after Watts’ recent comments on Nova Podcast’s Head Game, in which he told host Ant Middleton how he felt when he and Ross “fractured” at the end of 2009.
“It was brutal, it was tough. It’s not really something I talk about a lot … but it was really devastating at the time,” Watts said.
“I was focused on wanting to follow a certain trajectory that I felt innately was the right way to go and that was probably in conflict to the way we were doing things and the way we were working together.”
He added, “I think we just exhausted ourselves as a unit and we’d done everything, we’d even lived together, and then I got my own family and got different priorities.
“Then I kind of wanted to forge my own identity … which I thought would be a lot easier than what It was. It’s taken a long time and still we’re not separated … it will always be Merrick and Rosso.”
Watts has spoken out several times in the past – most candidly during a 2020 episode of Hughesy, We Have A Problem when he revealed that a “communication issue” over money had caused a rift between them two years earlier.
“To be completely honest, there is a grudge. I’ve been holding a grudge for a period of time now,” he revealed, saying he had fielded a lucrative offer in November 2018 for the duo to reunite.
He called Ross to discuss the offer, which he was keen to take up – then Ross never called him back, he claimed.