Are Jackie O’s health issues behind quickie house sale?
Puzzled real estate pundits say Jackie O could have doubled the her estimated $2m profit on her Woollahra pad had she been prepared to list it and wait a few weeks, so what was the hurry?
Confidential
Don't miss out on the headlines from Confidential. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The quickie sale of Jackie “O” Henderson’s Woollahra home has puzzled real estate pundits who insist she could have doubled her profit had she listed the property on the open market and been prepared to wait a few weeks.
In January it emerged the radio star had sold the immaculate newly renovated four-bedroom three-bathroom house in Woollahra for $12-$13 million.
Jackie O paid $11 million for the home in June 2020.
Sources on Friday said that once stamp duty of $500k is deducted, this might represent only a $1 million profit in a booming eastern suburbs market.
While some last week claimed Jackie O was selling the Woollahra home to escape the paparazzi, others believe the property about-face has more to do with her admission last year of recurrent health issues.
In November the KIIS FM breakfast host took an early mark from her radio gig saying she was battling the effects of Long Covid and needed to extend her two-month Christmas sabbatical to cope with the fatigue.
She was soon on a plane out of town though — overseas to a destination unknown — and soon after she had touched down in LA and by December she’d made Fiji where she enjoyed Christmas with her daughter.
Jackie O was also celebrating a lucrative new contract with weight loss company WW (formerly Weight Watchers) — her second contract with the company in two years.
Her goal, this time, or say so sources, is around 12kg.
Jackie O previously admitted having quickly regained the weight she lost with WW in 2021, which reports place at between 10 and 20kg.
That was during Covid when, in the absence of nights out with our family and pals, many of us were also lifting our lockdown spirits with home delivered Pad Thai and a bottle of red.
If reaching her goal weight and feeling better about herself isn’t incentive enough to brush off the kitchen scales, “O” stands to make around a million dollars as WW’s slimming ambassador.
That will be for the second time.
Almost worth the physical and emotional dietary seesaw isn’t it.
The cash will also help make up the estimated seven-figure shortfall from her hasty Woollahra property sale.
This column understands Jackie O is now telling mates she’s on the lookout for a penthouse apartment rather than a house — a low maintenance and suitably glamorous solution for a busy woman with both radio and TV commitments.
Hopefully it will elevate her spirits and assist with that Long Covid recovery as to date we’ve seen zero medical evidence the strict (and in our experience, joyless) WW program can.
McBRIDES IN BATTLE OVER MOTHER’S WILL
Military lawyer turned whistleblower David McBride and his barrister sister Louise McBride are set to face off in the Supreme Court this month over the estate of their recently deceased mother Patricia.
Youngest of four siblings David is challenging the will of his late mother in a matter which, according to family sources, is painful for all involved.
The McBrides are the children of the celebrated Dr William McBride, the Sydney society obstetrician credited with linking the morning sickness drug thalidomide to birth abnormalities in 1961.
After later being struck off the NSW medical registry in 1993 after a medical tribunal found he had falsified scientific research relating to other drugs, at age 71, Dr McBride was reinstated in 1998 and returned to practising medicine.
Dr McBride died in 2018, aged 91, three years before his wife Patricia who died in 2021.
Close sources maintain the family estate was much depleted by that time with Dr McBride repeatedly forced to dip into the family coffers and sell assets including property to defend his name during the 1980s and 1990s.
This column understands art collector and socialite Louise, who is a taxation law specialist, was one of the executers of her mother’s will and that the matter currently before the court concerns probate.
Just as his father controversially turned whistleblower on drug companies after his suspicions concerning thalidomide were found to be true, in 2014 David turned whistleblower on the Australian special forces when he began leaking documents to the ABC relating to alleged war crimes committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan.
The leak resulted in the ABC investigation “The Afghan Files”, broadcast in 2017 and, later, in 2019, a police raid on the national broadcaster.
In 2018 McBride, who had served two tours of duty with the Australian Army, was arrested for his part in the leak.
Despite the subsequent Brereton Report finding evidence of war crimes by Australian SAS soldiers serving in Afghanistan, McBride was charged with five offences including unauthorised disclosure of information, theft of Commonwealth property and breaching the Defence Act.
The divorced father goes to trial this year and faces the prospect of being jailed for the rest of his life.
McBride’s friends say he is currently under great stress, both psychological and financial.
It’s understood he is hoping for a greater slice of his mother’s estate to pay his legal bills.
In separate court action, Louise McBride was in court on Thursday in a dispute against Charles J Bannister of consumer class action firm Bannister Law.
Bannister Law is also listed in a separate dispute against Louise, this tie as defendant, which goes before the District Court on February 20.
This column understands Bannisters has previously represented Louise in legal matters.
SIMONE SILENT AFTER WARNIE ESTATE SNUB
Simone Callahan was maintaining a dignified silence last week following word she had, unsurprisingly, been overlooked by her former husband Shane Warne in his last will and testament.
Warne left an estate worth $20 million when he died in March 2022.
The will, signed and finalised just three months before his death, grants around $6.2 million to each of his three children with Callahan, around $400k to his brother Jason and around $500k each to a niece and nephew.
His parents, Keith and Brigitte, were also overlooked in the will suggesting Warne never expected to predecease them.
But it was Callahan, who stuck by her unfaithful ex when many wives wouldn’t – and at least once reconciled with him – who many thought might get a special mention in the playboy cricketer’s will.
The couple were married for a decade from 1995 before splitting for the first time in 2005.
They reconciled briefly but split again in August 2007 after Warne mistakenly sent Callahan a text intended for his lover. That message – “Hey, beautiful, I’m just talking to my kids, the back door’s open” – put paid to the happy reunion and for a while the couple’s friendship as well.
Callahan was however well provided for in the couple’s divorce.
She left the marriage with her share of the Brighton family home which the couple later sold in 2007 for $8 million and reinvested her slice in a $1.8 million property in Brighton 2008.
BOURIS BITES BACK
Sources for Mark Bouris have denied rumours the mortgage broker has quietly started seeing Tiffany Tilley, ex-wife of Ben Tilley.
This column’s sources were last week certain Bouris and Tilley had been seen keeping company.
“Nonsense,” came the response from Bouris’s spokesman.
The two haven’t seen each other “in years” and were never previously involved despite rumours to the contrary.
The mother-of-two certainly hasn’t wanted for suitors since her split from poker player Ben Tilley in 2017.
Having been linked briefly to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ frontman Anthony Kiedis she took up with Josh Laws, the son of Golden Tonsils himself, John.
Josh Laws, as readers of this column will recall, next reunited with old flame Manon Youdale.
O’KEEFE CAUGHT ON THE FLY
For two decades, game show host Andrew O’Keefe was one of the best dressed men on national television.
With the help of Channel 7’s expert wardrobe department, Australians associated O’Keefe with a consistently polished demeanour.
He was a consummate professional who managed to juggle two or three personas.
By night he wore expensive high quality suits and ties and could have slipped seamlessly behind the newsdesk and filled in for one of 7’s authoritative news anchors.
By day he paired well-cut blue jeans with open-neck retro vibes shirts and leather boots, giving us an intriguing glimpse of a rock ‘n’ roll pedigree that was both cool and natural.
Yet it was on the beach on his day off that O’Keefe really sparkled.
His collection of vivid Lycra racing briefs, rarely the same pair seen twice, kept photographers on their toes.
It was when O’Keefe stripped down to togs and chest hair, that he appeared most himself – full of megastar confidence as he strutted like a great peacock on the sand just metres from captivated paparazzos.
Last week, sadly, it was a different O’Keefe we saw when he appeared outside a Sydney court with his trouser fly undone, his face grim as he navigated the media pack following his court appearance on assault charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
One is left wondering just how many O’Keefes there might be.
Big name Sydney hospo groups open new venues
Winter. Rising cost of rent and electricity. The constant stream of established restaurants announcing their closures. Who would want to open a restaurant now? Turns out, quite a lot of people actually!
Tammy Hembrow’s ex has rumour mill spinning
The rumour mill is spinning again, with whispers that Tammy Hembrow’s ex fiance, Reece Hawkins, may have a new love interest.