Jackie O reveals drug addiction battle, Kyle Sandilands kept in dark

Radio host Jackie “O” Henderson broke down on air on Thursday morning while tearfully revealing a private lengthy battle with drug addiction and her subsequent recovery.

During a planned-yet-halting emotional statement from the broadcast veteran, Henderson said that, two years ago, she was taking up to 24 powerful Panadeine Forte painkillers per day and up to 14 potent Stilnox sleeping pills, all while drinking excessively.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson.Credit: Instagram

It was only brought to an end by a month-long stay in rehab in November 2022 at the famed Betty Ford Centre in Palm Springs, California.

“I feel like I’ve been given this position where I have a platform and I can speak to so many people,” Henderson told listeners. “I don’t wanna look back one day and think I had an opportunity to help someone by sharing my story and I chose to take the coward’s way out and kept it secret.”

In what was a wrenching departure from the titillating norms of The Kyle and Jackie O Show, the co-host of the polarising KIIS FM program choked up and paused while explaining how she began dabbling with painkillers and sedatives as a way of relieving stress and some sadness (starting around 2017, when her marriage to former photographer Lee Henderson began breaking down), before ultimately sinking deeper into her substance abuse issues during pandemic lockdowns.

She chose to break her two-year silence on Thursday by reading aloud from the prologue of her upcoming memoir, Jackie O: The Whole Truth.*

“It’s Friday the 11th of November, 2022, around 10am … ” she began. “And I’m hanging on by a thread.” Her chosen passage ended with a description of the moment she entered the rehab facility, and then tears.

Henderson, pictured with Sandilands, has revealed her drug addiction and recovery.

“I’m not crying because I’m ashamed,” Henderson said, “but because I kept this in so long, and saying it out loud to everyone right now is scary, in a way. I didn’t know if I should share this ... There are people who are going to judge me.”

The revelation was met with resounding support from callers and from her colleagues, including newsreader Brooklyn Ross – “I’m proud of you, Jackie!” – and, of course, Sandilands.

The latter leaned on humour at first, joking that they should change station billboards to describe Henderson as a “recovering drug addict” versus “current drug user” Sandilands. But he was also, at times, uncustomarily lost for words.

“I don’t know what to say,” he admitted. “I’m scampering around here trying to make light of it, but it’s heavy.”

Sandilands also asked how Henderson came to access so much prescription medication, but she declined to answer. She later described how hard it was – even at her worst – to recognise that she was even stuck in a dark place. “Addiction is a disease, and it warps your way of thinking,” she said. “I just thought a sober life would be the most miserable thing ever.”

The 49-year-old kept her secret to focus solely on her health, with only a small group of trusted confidantes being let in on the extent of her problem.

Henderson’s manager, veteran network executive Gemma O’Neill, was one of them, and ultimately drove the decision to enter rehab, after Henderson initially wanted to taper off the drugs herself.

“I believe she saved my life,” Henderson said of O’Neill, her best friend and business partner. “I actually do.”

Meanwhile, other close friends, extended family, and even her co-host Sandilands were kept in the dark until Thursday morning. “Where do you draw the line?” she said of her decision to close ranks around the personal problem. “I just didn’t want anyone to know until I had at least gotten a year or more of sobriety under my belt.”

Sandilands understood: “I’m sorry you didn’t think that you could share it earlier, but these things do creep up, don’t they,” he acknowledged. “Slowly, slowly.”

Good Weekend magazine will feature the first exclusive print interview with Henderson about her ordeal this Saturday, in a cover story explaining how she turned to pills and alcohol while feeling “diminished, untethered and alone” in her new life.

Now free of her secret, Henderson opens up in Good Weekend, reflecting on everything from what it’s like working with Sandilands, to embracing singledom in her 40s, and how their show has struggled in Melbourne so far.

On Thursday morning at 10.01am, the otherwise standard instalment of their long-running program ended with a kicker perhaps only Sandilands could make: “Even if you’re on crack, we still love you, Jack.”

* This reporter helped write Henderson’s upcoming memoir, Jackie O: The Whole Truth, published by Random House next Tuesday.

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