‘I have made it this far on my own … have not stomped over anyone to get here’

Jackie ‘O’ Henderson — one half of KIIS FM’s Kyle & Jackie O Show — is arguably radio’s $100m woman after a deal inked late last year. She says she’s got there by being kind and empathetic.

Melbourne’s new ‘it’ girl is a cashed up blonde with Barbie doll looks and a taste for designer labels who runs with the celeb set.

But in a twist, while she is the woman every PR wants on their guest list, she doesn’t live in Melbourne.

Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, one half of KIIS FM’s Kyle & Jackie O Show alongside Kyle Sandilands, is the city’s ‘most wanted’ as she and her controversial co-star crashed their way into Melbourne’s breakfast radio market.

She has a mild interest in AFL, loves the Australian Open and was not fussed by her first visit to the Australian Grand Prix. Twice married, she is single and dating, with her choice of dinner partners a source of unending fascination to eager paparazzi.

Cashed up blonde with Barbie doll looks, Jackie O, is Melbourne’s new ‘it’ girl.

Despite being on-air at 6am, Henderson’s work wardrobe is wall-to-wall designer labels and her dramatic weight loss last year resulted in endless headlines.

As part of The Kyle & Jackie O Show’s expansion into Melbourne, Henderson will be making regular trips south.

Sandilands, meanwhile, will stay put in Sydney.

Henderson was in Melbourne over the weekend with her manager Gemma O’Neill who is also her partner in Besties, a business that offers exclusive guest speaker events, private holidays and luxe products.

Their first effort in the celebrity speaker touring space was bringing Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow to Sydney in October last year.

Henderson, 49, is not short of a dollar.

Starting out as a junior real estate agent with Ray White on the Gold Coast as a 17-year-old in the late 1990s, Henderson met ‘Ugly’ Phil O’Neill when he was hosting the night show at Sea FM and she called in to try and win tickets to a Guns N’ Roses concert.

Soon the pair were married and Henderson had chucked in her real estate gig and was O’Neill’s on-air partner.

O’Neill’s radio career brought them to Melbourne.

“I lived in Melbourne for almost three years in the late 1990s, I lived in St Kilda,” Henderson said.

Jackie O at Australian Fashion Week. Picture: Getty

When the pair’s marriage ended and the show moved from Melbourne to Sydney, Sandilands was given the chance to work with Henderson.

They clicked as an on-air team and as business partners.

It was Sandilands who blew a gasket around the year 2000 when he discovered he was earning $258,000 to replace O’Neill on the Hot30 Countdown while Henderson was on $80,000.

He fought for pay parity and the pair have maintained pay equality in their radio roles since.

The pair own The Kyle & Jackie O Show together and signed a 10-year, $200m deal with the Australian Radio Network, the owner of KIIS FM, late last year meaning Henderson is arguably radio’s $100m woman.

While Sandilands has been more than happy to splash his cash very publicly over the years, Henderson keeps her investments a little closer to her chest.

Harking back to her earliest job, real estate has remained an interest.

She sold her ‘forever’ dream home in Sydney’s Woollahra for about $13m in 2023 before spending $13.24m on an oceanfront home in Clovelly in March last year.

She now plans to spend more than $5m renovating it.

Henderson said she had not been a “hard arse bitch” to get to the top of the radio pile.

Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson launch their show in Melbourne.

“I kind of am happy with where I have come,” she said on the Share My Mood podcast.

“I have made it this far on my own. I have had a very successful career and I like to think I have not stomped over anyone to get here and I have always come from a more kinder, empathetic angle.

“To get to the top you don’t have to be this cold, hard arse bitch at all, you really don’t.”

Sandilands said in April that part of the success of The Kyle & Jackie O Show was their autonomy.

“We don’t actually work for KIIS,” he said.

“We have our own company and they hire us, like what Channel 7 does when they buy Australian Idol, they franchise the licence.

“They have franchised our show from Jackie and I.

“We are not really told what we can and can’t do, we just entertain each other and that is the end.

“They get what they get no matter what we decide to do on the air. No one is sitting there going ‘Aw, you should not have said that, you should not have done that,’ because it is none of their business.”