Jackie Henderson, known as Jackie O, has admitted in her new memoir, The Whole Truth, that she remains “still ashamed” of segments from the Kyle & Jackie O Show, which she has co-hosted with Kyle Sandilands for over 20 years. She described one controversial moment as “unforgivable” and acknowledged that the show pursued ratings “at the detriment of my own morals and values”.
In the book, released on Tuesday, Henderson addressed the show’s most infamous incident in 2009, when a 14-year-old girl was connected to a lie detector live on air. During the segment, the girl’s mother asked if she had had sex, and the girl revealed she had been raped two years earlier. Sandilands then asked: “Is that the only experience you’ve had?” Henderson described the moment as a “wake-up call” and a time when “our hubris caught up with us”, though she also blamed the girl’s mother for “going rogue”. She noted that police, advocates and politicians criticised the show, and they were briefly taken off air.
The show, which moved from 2DayFM to KIIS FM in 2014, remains Sydney’s top-rated breakfast program. Last year the pair signed a 10-year contract worth an estimated $200 million. However, its expansion into Melbourne has not replicated that success, ranking eighth in the latest ratings. The show also faces an advertiser boycott, with companies such as AMP, Bendigo Bank, Flight Centre and Australian Super pulling or reviewing their advertising after a campaign claimed the content normalises “violent misogyny”.
Henderson also expressed regret over a segment in which a caller confronted a colleague about her alcoholism. The host detailed her own struggle with alcohol and drug addiction in the memoir, for which she attended rehab in 2022. She initially told listeners she was taking time off for long Covid, keeping the secret even from Sandilands. Reflecting on the segment involving the two colleagues, she wrote: “It was an episode I brought up much later in rehab, actually, because I’m still deeply ashamed of it.”
