Sandilands hits new low with ‘hurtful’, ‘unhelpful’ monkeypox business

Kyle Sandilands seemingly achieved the impossible this week by reaching a new low in breakfast FM radio in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

For decades Sandilands and his sidekick Jackie “O” Henderson have become two of the wealthiest media identities in Australia by dishing up a daily fare of shock, controversy and tawdry titillation, but this week critics of the 51-year-old accused the new father of going “too far”.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O remain on top of the FM ratings.Credit: ARN

And in the process, Sandilands, who appeared on the back of a float in the 2018 Sydney Mardi Gras, has deeply offended the marginalised groups he claims to have long championed, including gay men, who are confronting potentially the greatest health crisis and stigma to impact them since the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the 1980s.

The Kyle and Jackie O Show on KIIS FM regularly courts controversy, and has the largest audience of teenagers in Sydney, raking in millions of dollars in advertising revenue for the station’s owner ARN.

In the first hour of Tuesday morning’s edition, which was still available to download online on Friday, Sandilands left listeners gobsmacked after making a series of sexist, homophobic, crude and lewd comments, ranging from group sex acts and “hairy armed old lesos” to catching thrush from “dirty girls” and “not letting any gays near” his newborn son for fear of catching monkeypox.

He described the virus as “the big gay disease” and that “it’s only the gays getting it”, before asking a gay caller to the show if he was fearful of getting it because of his sexuality, asking if he’d “seen the dirty scabs that everyone gets”?

Sandilands also said he was concerned about getting the disease from promiscuous gay colleagues, saying “I’m putting my life in the gays’ hands as well”, even though the show’s medical expert, dubbed Dr KIIS, said the virus had a low mortality rate.

Sandilands pushed on, questioning the unidentified doctor if he could get the virus by touching a gay person, declaring that if he were a doctor, he would erect a sign saying “no monkeypox patients admitted” to thwart “dirty monkeypox victims”.

“Comments such as this are not just hurtful, they are also deeply unhelpful,” a spokesman for Australia’s peak LGBTQ health body, the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, told PS.

“Right now, thousands of gay and bisexual men are doing the right thing by monitoring for monkeypox symptoms, to look after their health and that of their partners. Over the next few months, we will be asking these men to come forward to be vaccinated.

“Comments such as this are not just hurtful, they are also deeply unhelpful.”

A spokesman for the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations

“When people hear segments such as this, it inflames stigma and deters people from visiting healthcare clinics to be tested and vaccinated.

“We would be very happy to provide a private briefing for Mr Sandilands so that he can play a constructive role in the national monkeypox response.”

But it was only one of several low points in Tuesday’s show, which also included Sandilands repeatedly referring to a sexual encounter with “two blonde rats” in a hotel room in Brisbane while the then prime minister Julia Gillard was staying in a neighbouring suite.

Henderson nervously giggled and told Sandilands he was “disgusting”, but her co-host continued undeterred, referring to the encounter as “like filling up two cars at the petrol bowser, but you weren’t sure which car to fill up first”.

He also said that in the midst of the liaison he had “run out of coke” and had to “run downstairs to get some more gear” while “I was wasted”, “panicked” and “freaked out” when he bumped into Australian Federal Police officers he mistook for hotel security, but who were actually guarding Gillard. He then said the women waiting back in his room were “on the hook” and “on ketamine”.

Sandilands’ manager Bruno Bouchet referred PS’s queries to ARN management, which issued a statement on Friday saying: “Kyle is renowned for his colourful vernacular. We appreciate that those unaccustomed to his expressions may consider the content opinionated, and the range of topics discussed on the show are not to everyone’s taste.”

Island hopping and Murdoch spotting

After a week of hide and seek around the many secret coves and picturesque bays of the Whitsundays, Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch’s stylish new super yacht Istros departed the waters off Hamilton Island this week just as the annual race week celebrations were cranking up.

PS hears a party of six were on board, including the former supermodel Sarah and her media mogul hubby, who has been making headlines with his defamation action against the media minnow Crikey.

The Murdochs’ stylish yacht Istros.

Perhaps they were simply not in the mood to mingle, which couldn’t be said for the likes of celebrity neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, 63, and his rumoured new fiancee, Traci Griffiths, 47, a former model and pet apparel designer who he treated in 2011.

The couple touched down on Thursday and were quickly swept off to their romantic hideaway on the island, hot on the heels of fellow lovebirds, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her medico boyfriend, doctor Dr Reza Adib. They were also keen to keep a low profile earlier in the week when they shunned selfies with fans. The Queensland leader, freshly blonded, saying she had taken “a few days leave” to unwind on the island.

Equally intriguing was the sighting of Deborah Hutton with her ongoing paramour and spiritual guru Andrew “Marshie” Marsh, the pair hobnobbing with the silvertails, a far cry from Marsh’s most recent legal battles. At the same time his former wife, Holly, was celebrating her 50th birthday back in Sydney with a posse of her most loyal supporters.

Nadia Fairfax at the Hamilton Island Race Week Paspaley White Luncheon.Credit: Ken Butti

Christine Salter.Credit: Ken Butti

The roll call of glamour couples paraded about during race week, with thoroughbred racing royalty Kate Waterhouse and Luke Ricketson, fashion darling Nadia Fairfax and Michael Wayne, expat media maven Laura Brown and her freshly minted hubby Brandon Borror-Chappell and a solo Ian Thorpe.

But on Friday it was all eyes on Paspaley heiress Christine Salter, who turned up at the annual White Luncheon wearing a spectacular “collier” necklace festooned in giant South Sea pearls, blue, orange, and pink sapphires, diamonds and rubies. Inspired by nature, it is the showpiece of Paspaley’s new “Wild” collection launched at the event and took over a thousand hours to create. PS hears it will set you back around half a million dollars.

Brandon Borror-Chappel and Laura Brown.Credit: Ken Butti

Billionaires buy into Whitsundays

Around the azure waters of the Coral Sea, all the chatter at present is about the surge of billionaires buying up some of the most dazzling islands in the Whitsundays, many of which lay derelict, desperate to be resurrected after a series of cyclones.

But Sandy Oatley, patriarch of the Oatley family which owns Hamilton Island and has poured a billion dollars into it over the past decade or so, says they have no plans to offload it.

Sandy Oatley on Hamilton Island.Credit: Nic Walker

Unlike the owners of the one-time home of Club Med, who are capitalising on the current demand for Queensland’s tropical islands by offering up Lindeman Island, which comes with 637 hectares of national park and seven private beaches.

Having owned the island located in the Whitsundays for a decade, the China-based White Horse group has decided to sell it with price expectations of more than $20 million.

Lindeman has been closed since January 2012 after being devastated by Cyclone Yasi.

Billionaires Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes have been island shopping.

Billionaire Annie Cannon-Brookes, the wife of Atlassian founder and climate crusader Mike Cannon-Brookes, recently paid $24 million for Dunk Island in Far North Queensland.

Other recent sales include Lizard Island to Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s investment company Tattarang; Long Island to the Oscars Hotels group; Hook Island to pub baron Glenn Piper’s Meridian Australia; and the Elysian Retreat on Long Island was sold to Shayne Smyth, the founder of Perle Ventures and travel insurance group Cover-More.

Harsh reality for TV show

There’s at least one boat not welcome around Hamilton Island: the one that carries the crew and guests from the tragic television series Below Deck Down Under.

Last September the local version of the American reality TV show Below Deck, was filmed around the Whitsundays on the aging superyacht Thalassa, which was docked at the Coral Sea Marina for a number of weeks.

PS hears producers of the show, famous for its wild shenanigans, were keen to do a bit of product placement with Hamilton Island businesses, but despite the exposure to millions of viewers around the world, many felt it wasn’t quite their “market”.

Andrew Hornery travelled to Hamilton Island as a guest of the Oatley family.

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