Former Channel 7 star Andrew O’Keefe’s troubled past as he faces a Sydney court on assault claims
He was once one of the Seven Network’s brightest stars, but Andrew O’Keefe has had ups and downs as he made national headlines.
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Seven’s former golden boy Andrew O’Keefe has had a string of ups and downs played out in the public spotlight.
The TV game show host and former White Ribbon chairman, 50, was arrested in Sydney this week and charged with counts of intentionally choking a person without their consent, three counts of common assault and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after a verbal argument.
“Police have been told an argument ensued, with the man allegedly assaulting and choking the woman before she was able to leave the unit,” police said.
O’Keefe has appeared on Australian TV screens for more than a decade and made his debut on the sketch comedy series Big Bite on Channel 7.
His career with the network continued to grow, and he went on to present the network’s breakfast program, Weekend Sunrise, from 2006 to 2017, and Deal or No Deal from 2003-2013, before taking up hosting duties for The Chase Australia.
In 2017, the former lawyer and classically trained singer was also recognised as a Member of the Order of Australia “for significant service to the broadcast media as a television presenter, and to social welfare and charitable organisations.”
It is yet to be determined if the latest events will jeopardise his Australia Day honour.
After 17 years with Channel 7, his contract was not renewed and he left the network in February last year.
From a marriage breakdown to a booze-fuelled incident outside infamous Melbourne nightclub Revolver, and rehab stints this is how O’Keefe’s personal life has played out in public.
SEPTEMBER 2009
O’Keefe goes on a boozy binge that sees him crawling along Melbourne’s Chapel Street.
At the time, the Deal or No Deal host did not deny he was caught in an intoxicated state outside a Prahran nightclub.
“I thrive on hard work and when the work is done I like to gather everyone together and celebrate, as we have so much to celebrate from what has been a very successful year,” O’Keefe said at the time.
“Let me reassure everyone that I am a family man, and take that very seriously, and would never set out to deliberately offend anyone.”
A video taken on the night, details of which were later revealed in the Herald Sun, shows O’Keefe flat on his back with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
He is then seen crawling along the footpath before struggling to his feet and heading off along the footpath with a blonde female friend.
APRIL 2014
O’Keefe’s father, former judge and ICAC commissioner, Barry O’Keefe, dies.
NOVEMBER 2017
O’Keefe announces he is separating from his wife of 18 years, Eleanor, a social worker and the mother of his three children.
Following their divorce in 2019, O’Keefe tells Sunrise viewers, “Everyone hits a part of their life where they really question what it’s all about and who they really are, whether what they have done for the last four or five years means anything.
“And I think, when I split up from my wife, that was my time. And the thing I always believed in most of all in this life was the power of love and combining with someone to make something special, and when I lost that, I thought well, it was all meaningless.”
DECEMBER 2017
O’Keefe steps away from Weekend Sunrise after co-hosting the popular television show for 12 years.
SEPTEMBER 2018
NSW Police catch O’Keefe driving an unregistered vehicle in Vaucluse.
The car was under his estranged wife’s name, with O’Keefe telling police he was unaware that the registration had lapsed a month earlier.
O’Keefe later pleaded guilty in court and was issued a 12-month conditional release order without recording a conviction.
MARCH 2019
O’Keefe gets into an altercation with a photographer outside Sydney’s Downing Street Court, where he was appearing for the charge relating to driving an unregistered vehicle.
Video footage shows O’Keefe appearing to swat the AAP photographer with a folder.
While the photographer said O’Keefe’s folder connected with his head, O’Keefe’s version of the story was a little different.
“Mate, if a photographer chooses to get in the way of my folder, that’s the photographer’s fault,” he told AAP at the time.
OCTOBER 2019
White Ribbon Australia, an organisation aimed at eliminating domestic violence against women and co-founded by O’Keefe, goes into liquidation.
OCTOBER 2019
Six months after checking himself into a Sydney rehab facility following his emotional and mental collapse, O’Keefe has revealed he wasn’t “treating myself terribly well”.
“I got to a point where I knew it wasn’t sustainable, to work, to grieve, to feel pain and not to sleep and so I took myself off to the clinic,” O’Keefe said.
It would be two months before he returned to work.
“(Seven) was repositioning certain players with the network,” he said.
O’Keefe would not be drawn on rumours of what contributed to his collapse, prompting his rehab stint.
“I was already entirely exhausted to a point where the issues of my marriage dissolution were becoming more grinding, day by day,” he said, breaking his silence to speak to The Sunday Telegraph.
“I wasn’t in good health, I’d also suffered (the) loss of friends and family at the same time. “There’s another issue that I won’t go into that was particularly poignant that came up after 40 years which I knew the existence of, but had never really impacted me in the way that it did.
FEBRUARY 2020
O’Keefe states during an interview that he was “fit and ready to film”.
A statement from Seven earlier that month explained his absence: “Andrew O’Keefe is taking time to manage and recover from a health issue”.
MARCH 2020
O’Keefe has a stint in rehab following a relapse of the health crisis that forced him to take three months leave from Seven’s The Chase in 2019.
Following two separate stints in a Sydney clinic that year for what he previously described as “exhaustion”, O’Keefe checks into a facility.
FEBRUARY 2021
Seven announces they have cut ties with O’Keefe.
“The program hosted by Andrew, The Chase Australia, is not currently in production,” a Seven spokesman tells The Daily Telegraph.
“The program is produced for Seven by ITV Studios Australia. Production will resume soon and a decision about who will host future series still has to be made.”
JUNE 2021
O’Keefe had two domestic violence charges against him dismissed on mental health grounds after a magistrate found he had been suffering a bipolar episode at the time.
Outside court, the 49-year-old told reporters he was focused on looking after his health and was grateful for magistrate Ross Hudson’s decision to dismiss the charges and order him to continue an intensive treatment program.
“I thank His Honour for managing that balancing act very well, I think,” he said.
“I agree with everything His Honour and the court said about the need to protect the community from domestic violence and it’s a real shame (to end up in this position).”
JANUARY 2022
The new charges against O’Keefe arose from a complaint from a woman who reported the alleged incident to police on Wednesday.
He was arrested at his Kent St unit at 4.30am on Thursday.
Police will allege O’Keefe assaulted his business partner.
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