Everyone deals with loss differently, but when Rick Ness’s mother died of cancer at the age of 55 in 2018. Gold rush the star struggled mightily to find her footing in the months and years that followed.
The veteran gold miner went into an emotional tailspin, which pushed him into a depression that he addressed at the beginning of the reality show’s 13th season. “I don’t know what’s causing it,” he said in one episode. “I don’t know if you’ll ever find out.”
Ness, 42, discussed his mental health journey with PEOPLE days before his debut Gold rush new season.
“I had problems with my mental health. All kinds of things were happening,” he admits. “I’m a gold digger with a stigma. I don’t really ask for help, you know what I mean? I’ve always been like that. And there were just things going on in my head, and I didn’t know what they were, because I didn’t know anything about depression and things of that nature. And so I just thought I’d deal with it myself and try to figure it out, which is hard when you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
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Rick Ness in the 14th season of ‘Gold Rush’.
Courtesy: Discovery Channel / Raw TV Limited
Ness decided to take a year off from work, which he had largely disappeared from Gold rush Season 13 to spend “a lot of time” alone and come to terms with the loss of his mother. Taking time off in a fiercely competitive business like gold mining, however, can mean falling behind and potentially handing your hard-earned millions of dollars to the competition.
“This job is easy to come in, easy to leave. It’s a very volatile business,” he says.
But the reality show fan favorite felt he had no choice but to slow down.
“If I didn’t, in which direction was this train going? [in] he wasn’t good,” he explains, adding that many things, including “the stress of this job,” got the better of him. “I had to take a step back. It wasn’t good for business, but it was good for me. And at the end of it all, I’m just happy to have another shot at this.”
Parker Schnabel returns to ‘Gold Rush’: ‘Many people have come and gone, but we’re still here’
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Rick Ness weighs gold in ‘Gold Rush’ season 14.
Courtesy: Discovery Channel / Raw TV Limited
In Season 14, Ness returns to gold mining, selling his mother’s house to rebuild his business in a valiant attempt to regain some of his former glory.
“I’m starting with a little money in the bank, so I have to start from scratch with a lot of used gear and whatever I can afford to get going,” he says, adding that he enlisted one of his closest friends, Brian “Zee” Zaremba, as his partner. Ness says of the truck driver, “I tapped him because he’s one of the few people I’ve stayed in touch with who I know I can trust.”
By returning to the Yukon, Ness hopes to prove the skeptics wrong. “A lot of people didn’t think I would come back,” he adds. “A lot of people didn’t think they’d ever see me up here again.” Parker Schnabel, who employed Ness for six years before Ness finally decided to go on his own after Season 8, defended his longtime friend against the cynics, telling them “Rick survived” and not to be “surprised to see him back up here says Ness.
“It was touching,” he continues. “It shows that we have a long history … He knows me pretty well. It really meant a lot to me. It was hard to come back.”
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Schnabel, 29, faces his challenges in the Gold rush the upcoming season as it decides whether to scale back its operations or take a big risk by spending $15 million on more mining land. Schnabel also pondered whether to support his longtime friend or give in to his competitive instincts.
“I’m just super competitive and I see you as a competitor,” Schnabel tells Ness during their chat with PEOPLE, “but you’re a great fit for the show. You’re Great suitable for mining.”
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Parker Schnabel in the 14th season of ‘The Gold Rush’.
Courtesy: Discovery Channel / Raw TV Limited
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If Ness has learned anything from the ups and downs of the past few years, it’s that he’s “subject to everything that everyone else on this Earth is.”
“I’ve always been a big guy, usually the biggest guy in the room,” Ness explains. “As a young adult, [I thought] I was invincible. … There was still this thought of myself where I can handle anything. But the weight of the world can break anyone and I had to accept that.”
“When I finally came to terms with it, it made it easier to overcome,” he continues. “I’ve also always been someone who doesn’t shy away from anything I’ve done or anything I might do. Proud or not, I’m not going to hide from it. So I decided to share it [my journey]because it’s a part of me, and if it helps someone else, then that’s a good thing.”
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14th season Gold rush premieres Friday at 8:00 PM ET/PT on Discovery Channel, with the entire series streaming on Max.
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the text crisis line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
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Source: HIS Education