Seven dropped Andrew O’Keefe after driver reported drug use in limo

Seven axed its star after a complaint he smoked an ice pipe - used for smoking methamphetamine - in the back of a production van en route home from a TV studio.

A tip-off from a limo driver employed by the producers of The Chase Australia brought down the curtain on Andrew O’Keefe’s television career after the driver reported the star for pulling out an ice pipe during a trip home from a Sydney production studio.

O’Keefe was quietly let go from Seven when his contract lapsed on or about December 31, 2020. No explanation was given at the time for his hasty departure.

Andrew O’Keefe leaving police custody in September, after spending the night behind bars. Picture: Channel 10

For the first time, television sources last week confirmed that the incident that compelled O’Keefe’s employers to axe its star from its roster came after a complaint that he had lit up and smoked an ice pipe — used for smoking methamphetamine — in the back of a production van en route home to Sydney’s eastern suburbs from a TV studio in Eveleigh.

The incident is understood to have taken place in October or November of 2020, just months before the star was arrested for allegedly assaulting Dr Orly Lavee, a haematologist and mother of two, in her Randwick unit after she accused O’Keefe, her partner of two years, of having an ice pipe in his possession at a party.

O’Keefe denied having the pipe on him at the Surry Hills party, and escaped conviction after the court dismissed two assault charges concerning Dr Lavee on mental health grounds.

Andrew O’Keefe worked for Channel 7 for 17 years. Picture: Ian Currie

In considering whether to grant bail this week, the court heard about both subsequent incidents O’Keefe is now defending.

In September last year O’Keefe pleaded not guilty to an assault charge involving a woman upon whom it’s alleged he spat and scratched her arm.

That matter returns to court in August.

This week’s matter concerned an incident involving a different woman and resulting in new assault charges being brought against O’Keefe, a former White Ribbon ambassador, at a CBD apartment last month.

Television insiders last week said O’Keefe’s driver was alerted to his passenger’s illicit back seat activities after O’Keefe turned on a light in the back of the van before lighting the ice pipe.

O’Keefe talking about anti-domestic violence charity White Ribbon.

The driver, hired by Seven Network production partner ITV Studios Australia to ferry Mr O’Keefe to and from recording sessions for The Chase after Mr O’Keefe had become increasingly unreliable, went directly to ITV Studios with his concerns.

ITV is the production company that produces The Chase for Seven after pitching the concept to the network prior to 2015, when the show had its local debut.

The Chase has been recorded at NEP Studio facility in Eveleigh since August 2020.

Previously it was recorded in Melbourne, where sources last week claimed O’Keefe, a 17-year veteran of Seven, had also required a driver to transport him to and from production sessions after he became unreliable, costing the producer tens of thousands of dollars in lost production hours.

Neither executives for the Seven Network nor ITV returned The Sunday Telegraph’s calls on Friday.

The Australian on Saturday further reported producers of The Chase had on a separate occasion found an ice pipe in O’Keefe’s dressing room, but it is not known if O’Keefe was disciplined over the discovery.

Seven is said to have given O’Keefe an ultimatum during contract negotiations in January/February 2020 after the network was forced to once again delay production of the top-rating The Chase, a spokesperson telling News Corp on February 6, 2020, “O’Keefe is taking time to manage and recover from a health issue” and would be absent for “months”.

O’Keefe fired back days later in the media on February 12, when he publicly contradicted Seven in a statement saying he said he was “fit and ready to film”.

After years of skirting around the mental health issues that have plagued O’Keefe for a decade, landing the star in rehab on multiple occasions — most publicly from 2019 when he spent almost three months at a rehab facility before checking out only to check in again months later — Seven finally cut ties with the troubled star who became a household name at the network as the host of Seven programs including Deal or No Deal, Weekend Sunrise, Dragon’s Den and The Rich List.

Unemployed for the past year, O’Keefe, who is now on remand at Silverwater Jail, has spent the past year living at the Meriton Apartments in the CBD, the site of his latest alleged assault.

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