‘I’m ending the show today’: Jackie O’s bombshell radio announcement

The powerhouse radio presenter has dropped some huge news on the Kyle and Jackie O show this morning.

Jackie “O” Henderson has announced that she’s taking a break from radio for health reasons.

The shock announcement comes just days after she and KIIS FM co-host Kyle Sandilands defeated Ben Fordham to top Sydney’s latest round of breakfast radio ratings.

Jackie, 47, shared the news on Monday that she had been struggling to recover since contracting Covid-19 earlier this year and had been advised by her doctor to take extended leave allow her body some time to rest.

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The popular radio host is taking a break.

She told listeners she would be off air for “the next couple of weeks” but did not give an exact return date.

“Ever since picking up that virus, I’ve been to the doctor several times and he said because I’ve been pushing myself every day, after the show all I’ve been doing is sleeping and I’m not getting better,” Jackie explained.

“I feel it’s got worse. I can hear it,” Kyle told her.

“I just have to take some time off,” she replied. “I’m ending the show today. As in now.

“You know how much this show means to me, you know how much I push through everything, and I would not be doing this unless I absolutely had to.”

After Kyle joked: “Are you dying? You have cancer?”, she replied that she just needed “proper, serious rest”.

“(The doctor) basically said, ‘if you keep doing this, this is going to get much worse,’ and I’ve taken his advice,” Jackie told her co-host.

“I rarely take doctors’ advice, I’m usually like, ‘nah, it’ll be fine’.”

Jackie then promised that she would be “all better” and “back soon” - insisting it was “just for a couple of weeks”.

However, once she logged off, Kyle admitted: “I feel like I’ve been broken up with.”

News.com.au has reached out to ARN, the network who owns KIIS, for comment.

Jackie O and Kyle at last month’s radio awards.

It’s certainly been a huge year for Kyle and Jackie, who were inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Australian Commercial Radio Awards last month.

Elsewhere in the recent ratings survey, The Kyle & Jackie O Show also scored the highest number of listeners recorded for any Aussie radio show ever, with 818,000 listeners, up 80,000 from the previous survey in September.

Just last week, Kyle and Jackie O spoke to news.com.au about their future plans, insisting they had no plans to retire despite having spent 22 years in the hot seat together.

“[Retirement] will be the day I die,” Kyle said.“We already know Jackie is going to stay on air crying and wearing black for the rest of her life. And then there’ll be 15 years of re-runs. Just like a Friends cast member.”