The truth about Kyle Sandilands, from father Peter Sandilands

EXCLUSIVE: Disgraced Kyle Sandilands' father speaks for the first time about his son's vulnerability and ambition, which could now cost him his career.

Kyle Sandilands

LIKE father, like son. Peter Sandilands was shopping at a Brisbane supermarket when he saw a mum of plus-size proportions put a packet of chocolate biscuits in her trolley.

Without drawing breath, Sandilands turned to the woman's child and asked: "Are those biscuits for your mum, or you?"

The woman shot him a dirty look.

Sandilands' wife Di was embarrassed and escorted him into the next aisle. "No wonder your son is like you," she told him. "He's got his mouth from you."

Peter's son is 2DayFM's controversial shock jock Kyle Sandilands. Now the family's hereditary disconnect between brain and mouth is threatening the career of its most famous member.

Gallery - Kyle and Tamara

Gallery - Kyle and Jackie O

In the process it has raised questions about one period when he was 15 and 16 years old, during which Sandilands has said he was homeless.

There are several versions of events and Sandilands may have felt he was homeless because he could not return home.

Sandilands, 38, has claimed he was homeless in the Brisbane suburb of Wynnum for almost a year after his divorced mother and father told him he was unwelcome.

But in an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, his father Peter _ a 62-year old former salesman and part-time Brisbane bus driver _ gives  a different version, saying he was on the streets only for "a night or two". 

Kyle Sandilands was unavailable for comment this week. But appearing on Andrew Denton's Enough Rope on the ABC in 2007, he said he was kicked out after holding a huge party at his mother's house in the mid-1980s as a 15-year old.

"I rode my bike off into the sunset and never went home," he said.

Asked how long he lived on the streets, he said: "A bit under a year."

However, Peter, while admitting Kyle was not living with him or his ex-wife during the period, claims he was always aware of where Kyle was.

"We have always said it's about time something came out about this homeless business," he says.

"He always did have a home but he couldn't get on with his stepfather and his behaviour at that time went from bad to worse."

He recalls his son staying in "a horse float behind the shopping centre for a night or two" _ then spending a year at friends' homes "until he wore out his welcome".

One of Kyle's former classmates at Wynnum High also does not recall a sustained period of homelessness and says: "He might have spent one night as a street kid."

But  Peter's sister Jill Stevens _ Kyle's aunt _ insists her nephew did spend time on the streets: Six months.

"I don't care what his father says, how he tries to play it down. He lived in a horse float for six months with runaway kids," she says.

The 15-year-old Kyle triggered the showdown when he put on the party at his mother's house while she was away for a bowls weekend.

Kyle has described the party as being wild with "sex and drinking".

But the bowls event was rained out and his mother and stepfather returned early. Stevens recalls: "There were 150 kids. I fully understand why they [his mother and stepfather] were wild with him. They told him he wasn't welcome. Kyle rode his bike to his father's place, but he was told: 'Your mother's just rung me and you're not welcome here either.' So Kyle rode the streets."

Stevens, a nurse, remembers Peter searching for Kyle at Brisbane discos: "He'd be in the DJ's booth, hiding."

A change was needed fast. It was agreed to send him to Townsville to stay with his aunt. Stevens recalls the conversation with her brother: "We said: 'Somebody's got to look after him, or he'll end up in bloody jail'."

He lived in Townsville between the age of 17 and 22 and Stevens now looks on Kyle "as my fourth son".
 
His early work years were marked by a procession of jobs. There were stints at a Brisbane butchery, at Townsville's Dick Smith Electronics and at labouring jobs for friends' fathers. He worked for Red Tulip chocolates but was sacked.

There was another Kyle, a "loving  boy" and a vulnerable teenager: "The kid was still crying at 17 because he wanted his mother and father back together. I said: `It's not going to happen. They've been divorced since you were eight or nine'."

Stevens says he remains vulnerable: "Every now and then he'll say some things, and I'll know he hasn't forgotten."

Sandilands has said of his parents: "I have a great relationship with them now, although this cloud still looms, so it's never been discussed."

His aunt believes this affected his relationships with women.

"He would get close to getting into a relationship, then he'd run. He was scared about his parents' divorce," she says.

Running counter to Kyle's relationship vulnerability was his determination to get ahead.

Peter remembers Kyle's ambitions to emulate the Rolls-Royce owning father of one of his Wynnum High friends, Jamie Howson, now an ABC radio personality.

Peter recalls Kyle saying: "I want a Rolls-Royce like him." (Sandilands now owns a Rolls-Royce Phantom.)
Stevens says he fell in love with radio when he was 21, just as she started to despair of his job record. He visited a friend of her son's, who had a Sunday night show at Townsville station 4TO, and was smitten.

He bluffed his way into a job at 4TO. He eventually made it on air and became a radio journeyman through Cairns, Gladstone, Darwin, Perth and Brisbane.

In 2000 he left Brisbane's MMM and moved to Sydney to replace Phil O'Neil as on-air partner of Jackie O on Austereo's national Hot 30 show. Six years later the pair made it to the big time of 2DayFM's breakfast show.

Peter says his son's abrasive public presence is merely a character: "What you hear on radio is nothing like the man you see in private. It's an act."

He describes his son _ who he sees "four times a year" and rings regularly _ as "kind hearted". Stevens points to acts of generosity: "There was a housekeeper who lost her husband in a car accident. Her little boy was nine and he was badly injured in the crash. Kyle personally bought the woman a car."

Peter Sandilands is hurt by the hatred towards his son: "I get offended with all the nasty negative comments when they don't even know the boy."

Peter mentions  "tall poppy syndrome." He is sensitive about recent stories showing his son has $2.2million in debts _ a $1.71 million mortgage on his St Ives home and a $530,000 mortgage on his Rolls-Royce. He says Kyle's estimated $4million a year earnings make him more than able to pay them off.

His earnings will fall now he has been axed as a judge on Australian Idol. Peter thinks the show has erred: "It has become boring."

But Stevens offers some advice: "He needs to stop and think a little before he spits things out."

Peter recalls how he was told of his son's latest controversy over his controversial remarks that Magda Szubanski should be put in a concentration camp.

"A Jewish friend of mine texted me, saying: `Your son's done it again.' I asked him: 'Did you take offence.' And the Jewish friend said: 'No, because I know there's no malice'."

"It was probably like my chocolate biscuit remark."