Kyle Sandilands apologises for Virgin Mary ‘joke’ that sparked national outrage

Kyle Sandilands spent the first eight minutes of his radio show saying sorry for his “dumb” comments that sparked national outrage.

Kyle Sandilands issued a lengthy on-air apology on radio this morning for the “dumb” comments he made about the Virgin Mary but made it clear he won’t be getting sacked anytime soon.

The KIIS host sparked outrage just over a week ago when he “joked” on his breakfast show that the Virgin Mary was probably impregnated “behind the camel shed”.

“I thought Mary was his (Jesus’) girlfriend but apparently it was the mother,” he said.

“And the mother lied obviously and told everyone, ‘Nah I got pregnant by a magical ghost’. Bulls**t.”

He also called anyone who believed in the Bible story “dumb”.

“You might believe everything that was written down 2000 years ago to be absolutely accurate. Good on you, you’re dumb. Dumb as dog sh*t,” he said.

The comments prompted people to protest out the front of the KIIS FM radio station last week in Sydney and were condemned by religious leaders around Australia.

RELATED: Jackie O wanted Kyle sacked after their disastrous first radio show

Protesters outside the KIIS FM studio at North Ryde last week. Picture John Grainger

Kyle and Jackie O weren’t on air last week due to the radio survey break, but the controversial radio host addressed the issue at the start of this morning’s show.

“Am I going to quit? No. Am I going to get fired? No. Am I sorry? Absolutely I am sorry,” he said. “I never intended to purposely upset anyone. Obviously, I have upset people and I am sorry for it. There’s nothing else I can do but to say, hey, I am sorry for that.”

Kyle claimed that someone published his mobile phone number online after his Virgin Mary comments and he received hundreds of angry calls.

“Some were very, very aggressive, a lot of people hung up … there were threats,” he said. “But the main thing I took out of it was, you know me, I believe everyone has the right to their own opinion and their own religious beliefs and no one has the right to take that away from them. But what I didn’t realise until I started taking these calls was that I’d stepped on the belief of other people and that’s what I’d done wrong.

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Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O host the number one FM breakfast show in Sydney.

“It was a joke and it was a hugely bad decision, poor taste. I didn’t plan that joke … I was just spit-balling live here. I didn’t realise the gravity of it and it really upset a lot of people. Even friends of mine were like, ‘Bro, how could you say something so dumb like that?’

“I get upset at the fact that I’ve caused a lot of grief to a lot of people. That’s never what I meant to do. I was just trying to make people have a laugh and I didn’t realise I was trodding (sic) quite heavily on very gentle territory for a lot of people.”

This is the third time Kyle has apologised for the comments he made on air on September 19. He initially apologised in a press release sent out by ARN (the company that owns KIIS FM) and was also filmed saying sorry by a paparazzo who tracked him down in LA where he is currently broadcasting from.

“We’ve all made mistakes in our life and this is just one of the many that I’ve made,” Kyle said on air today towards the end of his eight-minute apology. “You can add it to the list.”

‘I am sorry’ - Kyle issues an apology on air. pic.twitter.com/zq4QynF52X

— Kyle and Jackie O (@kyleandjackieo) September 29, 2019