Jackie ‘O’ Henderson “cannot continue to work” with Kyle Sandilands and has quit the Kyle and Jackie O show nearly two weeks after the pair had a fiery on-air clash. Kyle has been suspended for “serious misconduct”.
Media company ARN Media announced the program had been taken off-air in an ASX statement on Tuesday. Jackie will no longer present the show, however ARN has offered her “the possibility of an alternative” on the network.
The media company has also come down on Sandilands, stating that it considers his behaviour on February 20 “an act of serious misconduct which is in breach of ARN’s services agreement”.
“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,” the statement read.
“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.”
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Embarrassingly, the bombshell statement comes after Kyle revealed some “good news” about Jackie earlier that day.
“Anything that’s got my name on it, I have to sign off on it, so I signed off yesterday on … some sort of statement coming from Jackie’s camp,” he said.
“The only thing I noticed [from the statement] is that Jackie will be returning in the future. So that’s a good sign… so the intention is to come back, which is fabulous.”
He revealed KIIS FM had a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the fallout between Kyle and Jackie, which erupted on February 20 during a discussion about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest.
Jackie started discussing the royal’s birth chart and how it might have influenced his personality.
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Kyle explained to his listeners that if the feud with Jackie did not resolve, it wouldn’t mean the program would end.
The pair signed a mega deal with the radio station to host their breakfast slot until 2034, which was worth $200 million.
“Regardless of how this ends up, the show will surge forward regardless of who’s here and who’s not here,” Kyle said.
“Jackie’s intention is to come back to the show, so the show’s not over.
“Regardless of what these experts say about the contract, Jackie’s contract and my contract are separate with the company, so therefore if I died right now, Jackie would continue on with the show.”
Kyle’s blunt message to speculation about radio show’s future
Kyle had also hit out at all the media commentators who have been hedging their bets that the Kyle and Jackie O Show’s days are numbered.
“It’s upsetting to other people involved that work for us or manage us to have all these so-called experts flapping lies around,” he said.
“It doesn’t do anything good for the situation.”
Kyle told reporters on Monday that he has reached out to Jackie to apologise for what he said, and she replied saying she needed some space.
She was rumoured to return to air on Monday, but she was noticeably absent and Kyle said she would be taking the rest of the week off to “gather her thoughts”.
Mid-last week, Kyle admitted that what happened between them was not appropriate and he wished he handled it differently.
“ I obviously upset her and maybe in hindsight I shouldn’t have said it on the air, but we say a lot of things on the air here,” he said.
“It’s never meant to hurt her feelings and obviously it did, and I regret hurting her feelings.
“No one wants to hurt someone, especially someone you care for.”
What happened between Kyle and Jackie O?
Kyle and Jackie were talking about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest in the UK when she started discussing the stars and how his birth chart influences his behaviour.
“I don’t mean to be rude, as I said fascinating, but I don’t think it should be at the detriment of everything else on the show,” he said.
“It’s affecting other things. Your fixation on this has made you almost unworkable.
“You are off with the fairies with this s**t, it’s mental.”
Kyle even likened her to a “drug addict”, even though his radio co-host has spoken about addiction issues in the past.
“You are not doing the rest of the job, and everyone in this building has mentioned it to me,” he added.
“Everyone has said, ‘What’s going on with Jackie? She’s off today’.”
But Jackie was completely taken aback by his comments and was clearly emotional.
“I’m totally offended by you saying something like that,” she said.
“I would never say things like that about you.
“You make out like you’re perfect, but there are so many things that you don’t do, and I would never bring them up, and I would never say what people say.
“I don’t want to get into a tit for tat, I think it’s mean and nasty. I don’t have a problem, but if I brought up the things people say.”
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