Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson are back in contact almost three weeks after he delivered a belittling tirade against her on live radio that put their show in mortal peril, sources close to the controversial broadcaster have said.
Sandilands has six days left to fix what the station described as his “serious misconduct”, in which he berated Henderson to the point where, according to their ultimate employer ARN, she could no longer work with him.
This masthead has previously reported that would require him, while suspended from work, to regain Henderson’s willingness to partner with him again on their Kyle & Jackie O Show at radio station KIIS FM.
A resumption of contact between the pair, who were on a combined $200 million contract to present the show for 10 years, could be a first stage to returning to the air. A source close to Sandilands, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter is legally sensitive, said the pair were “aligned” on wanting to put the feud behind them and are back in contact.
“Both see [the removal of the show from air] it as it is: ARN jumping at the opportunity to try and save money,” the source claimed.
Neither Sandilands nor Henderson’s camp would comment. ARN also declined to comment.
Even if the pair does reconcile, any return would probably be under substantially different circumstances. Henderson’s contract to present the show via her private company was torn up by ARN, which is valued at just $111 million, last week.
Sandilands was suspended for two weeks and the company has said it would terminate his contract if he could not “remedy” his alleged misconduct. In the meantime – and despite issuing a statement that was highly critical of ARN – his contract is still in place.
Rival breakfast host, 2GB’s Ben Fordham, told his listeners on Wednesday that Sandilands’ statement appeared to be an effort to win the public back.
“He knows he’s cooked, so he’s fighting for his job, hoping he can whip up support from listeners and the public,” Fordham said.
ARN has been in financial freefall since the $200 million deal was announced in 2023. The company has suffered both due to The Kyle and Jackie O Show’s poor ratings results in Melbourne, an advertiser boycott, and the stalled rollout of the show into both Brisbane and Adelaide. It also has a regulatory cloud lingering over its head, with the outcome of a lengthy investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) still pending.
Sandilands released an explosive statement on Tuesday evening, alleging his employer did not run a fair process before suspending him and tearing up Henderson’s contract.
As a result, ARN’s decision is now being challenged by Sandilands, whose camp believes the allegation he has breached his contract is “invalid”. He urged the company to “honour our agreement” on Tuesday.
Henderson has also engaged legal representation. Henderson says she did not quit the show, though ARN has formed the view that by informing the company she could not work with Sandilands going forward, she was therefore unable to deliver on her services agreement, which is to perform The Kyle & Jackie O Show.
“I am not going to pretend that everything about this situation is simple. Jackie told me she was hurt and I accept that. But we have had disagreements before and we have always worked through them,” Sandilands said in his statement on Tuesday.
“That is what partners do. We never needed lawyers or ASX announcements to sort things out. I believe we could have sorted this out, too, if ARN had given us the chance.
“The truth is that ARN terminated Jackie’s contract on the same day it accused me of a breach. It suspended me from work. All of this happened while I was being told to sit quietly and say nothing. That is not a genuine process.”
ARN, which has a new CEO in former Nine sales boss Michael Stephenson and an almost entirely new executive team, has remained silent since it released the ASX announcement last week. Nine is the owner of this masthead.
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Calum Jaspan is a media writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Melbourne. Reach him securely on Signal @calumjaspan.10Connect via X or email.From our partners
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