Kyle and Jackie O split after 22 years as a radio duo
Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson eyeball Mumbrella during the ARN upfront (Mumbrella)
Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson are no longer a radio team, after 22 years of hosting the top-rating Kyle and Jackie O Show together, ARN Media has tonight announced.
The pair were little more than a year into a ten-year, $200 million contract with KIIS parent company ARN, the biggest radio deal in Australian history.
The announcement:
ARN calls an end to The Kyle & Jackie O Show
In an announcement to the ASX marked price sensitive, ARN said that Jackie Henderson had told it she no longer wanted to be part of The Kyle & Jackie O Show, and her contract had been terminated.
Setting up a potential high stakes legal battle with Sandilands, ARN accused Sandilands of “serious misconduct” and said he will be off the air for at least the next fortnight. Henderson has been offered a new show in the future.
Henderson hasn’t been on air since Friday, February 20, after a bust-up during that morning’s show that morning, where Sandilands accused Henderson of being unprofessional, claiming it had been a problem for months.
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The fight, which was removed from the podcast version of the show, started while Henderson was looking at stars chart on her phone while on air.
Sandilands said Henderson’s “fixation” with star signs has made her “almost unworkable”, and that she was “off with the fairies” — to which she took great offence.
“It’s too much,” Sandilands continued. “It’s affecting everything else. You’re too fixated on it. Every segment, every time you’ve spoken, you’re off with the — you don’t even know what’s going on.”
The fight lasted five minutes, including multiple interjections from team members. Sandilands said Henderson was “not doing the rest of the job, and everyone in this building has mentioned it to me”.
“Everyone has said, ‘What’s going on with Jackie? She’s off today.’ Everyone you can see has said something over the last month at some stage.”
Henderson was close to tears during the argument.
“I’m not tiptoeing through this for another couple of weeks,” Sandilands said, later adding that “it’s affecting the whole sound of the program.”
Henderson pointed out that Sandilands’ actions also affect the show.
“As I said, this is constant,” he continued. “You don’t know what the fuck is going on all the time, because you’re looking at that phone, playing in the stars, and it’s ridiculous.
“You can enjoy that, but you can’t take over your whole life.”
Henderson was absent from the entire next week’s worth of shows, and despite Sandilands telling listeners she’d be back on air the following week, she didn’t return to the show.
The announcement:
SYDNEY, Australia – Tuesday 3 March 2026 – ARN Media Limited [ASX: A1N] announces that
Ms Jacqueline Henderson has given notice that she “cannot continue to work with Mr Kyle
Sandilands.” Accordingly, ARN has terminated the services agreement with Henderson Media
Pty Ltd, under which Ms Henderson presents the Kyle and Jackie O show. Ms Henderson will
cease to present the Kyle and Jackie O show. ARN has also offered to Ms Henderson the
possibility of an alternative show on the ARN network.
ARN has also provided written notice to Mr Kyle Sandilands and Quasar Media Services Pty
Ltd (Quasar Media) stating that it considers that Mr Sandilands’ behaviour during the show on
20 February 2026 is an act of serious misconduct which is in breach of ARN’s services
agreement with Quasar Media, under which Mr Sandilands presents the Kyle and Jackie O
show. Mr Sandilands has been given 14 days to remedy this breach. If it is not remedied, ARN
will terminate the services agreement with Quasar Media, and in that event Mr Sandilands will
cease to present the Kyle and Jackie O show. During the 14 day period, Mr Sandilands will not
take part in the show.
The KIIS breakfast show will be taken off-air effective immediately, with interim arrangements
made for the show.
The development will likely come as a relief for ARN Media. Thanks to the failure of the show to rate in Melbourne and advertiser boycotts orchestrated by MFW, the $20m per year deal has been loss-making.
However, ARN’s new metro radio boss, Dave Cameron, believed to have started in his role only yesterday, now faces the huge headache of not having a breakfast show in the key markets of Sydney and Melbourne.
I guess she must have seen it coming…
Mercury Retrograde strikes again!
I’m frankly glad the dire duo are no longer together.
The sooner Vile is off air the better. Ms Henderson/JackieO was the only redeeming feature to ameliorate the boorish, ignorant & arrogant presence of her co-host.
He was unpleasant, abusive and sociopathically narcissistic and disruptive whenever a topic or subject required the slightest EQ or double digit IQ..
Whenever he was off – “UNWELL” in the phrase used for Jeffrey Bernard of UK Spectator infamy – due to his oft admitted/proclaimed/boasted about use of illegal drugs – Jackie carried the show and made it an entirely different experience, enjoyable and entertaining.
My preference would be for her to team up with the current E/P Natalie Penfold and perhaps the newsreader Brooklyn Ross and present a fun, non abusive and richly interesting program.
Never understood why people like this type of nasty bogan f.m radio that demeans women, is homophobic , racist etc
Jackie O has enabled his behaviour for many years untill there was pressure to get higher ratings on a VERY lucrative contract..ratings in Melbourne were dismall so she finally broke…
Im thinking there is much more to this story that involves the MF Witches who were relentless activists and targeted their sponsors to get them off air..
I’m waiting for that story to be told
… ARN management/HR spent the past week goading her on, doing anything they could to get out of this $20M white elephant contract, and Jackie fell for it.
ARN management got lucky here, but shareholders should still kick them out for being so reckless to start with.
Do you reckon their offer to her of a different show on the network will have 10yrs & $10milly attached to it? It shouldn’t, but considering ARN management, who knows.
Sell A1N.AX at market on the open & never look back.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind!
Watch that share price climb now they can get out of the expensive contracts – phew says Stephenson!
It was in the stars.
sah-weet
ARN Media will be STOKED that they got out of that deal!
Finally, some good news!