‘Torture your soul’: Insiders reveal ‘dark, toxic’ days with Marty Sheargold

Who’s the Marty Sheargold when the mics are switched off? Former staffers, insiders and execs tell James Weir of the “volatile” million-dollar megastar.

Former colleagues of disgraced radio jock Marty Sheargold have revealed the “volatile” character who for decades was allowed to behave in “dark and toxic” ways while being paid millions of dollars.

“There are two different Martys and it varies on his moods,” one radio staffer told news.com.au. “When he’s good, he’s great. And when he’s bad … he’ll torture your soul.”

Hours after the Triple M host “mutually agreed to part ways” with the network over comments he made about the Matildas women’s national football team, insiders – speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of backlash within the radio industry – told news.com.au the shock remarks were just a glimpse of the Sheargold who loomed when the microphones were turned off.

“It was how he used to talk about women all the time off the air,” one radio executive said. “Then, on the air, he’d tone it down and try passing off the comments as a joke.”

Marty Sheargold, pictured hosting The Marty Sheargold Show on Triple M — a program he launched after leaving Nova’s successful Kate, Tim & Marty show that insiders say was fuelled with tension.

In the Matildas rant that quickly went viral after Monday’s broadcast, Sheargold said the professional sports team reminded him of “year 10 girls” and said he would “rather hammer a nail” through his penis than watch women’s sport.

Then further recent remarks surfaced, in which Sheargold said on-air to a female colleague that endometriosis was a “made up” health condition.

“I feel sorry for his two daughters,” one radio employee said of the father-of-two.

By Wednesday, the 53-year-old broadcaster – who abruptly went on an “extended break” from his daily radio duties in 2023 blaming “mental exhaustion” after a drunken incident that saw him reportedly make some offensive remarks and leave a corporate box early at the AFL Grand Final – had quit his program. Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), owner of the Triple M network, swiftly distanced itself from its star performer.

“It’s indefensible. He made a really bad error and I don’t think we’ll hear him on FM radio again,” said Craig Bruce, a former radio executive who worked with Sheargold on his first radio show at Adelaide’s SAFM in the early 2000s.

“There’s nothing he can do to come back from this.”

Guy Dobson, a former chief creative officer and program director at SCA who oversaw Sheargold and Fifi Box when the pair hosted The Shebang program on Triple M in the mid-2000s, said the comedian “has a self-destruct button”.

“Marty is a talented bloke … but, like most talented comedians, they’re tough to handle,” he said.

News.com.au has spoken to a number of radio staffers and executives who witnessed first-hand the turbulent behaviour of Sheargold, a man who they say has struggled with fame and whose “anger” and “volatile” nature came hand-in-hand with ratings success.

Various people who have come forward said the broadcaster didn’t hide his dislike of certain colleagues, including some co-hosts like Kate Ritchie, who he worked with for almost seven years at Nova on their national drivetime show, Kate, Tim & Marty.

“He wouldn’t talk to her during the ad breaks,” one staffer said.

Kate Ritchie credited her former Nova co-hosts Tim Blackwell (centre) and Sheargold with her success after accepting an ACRA in 2018.

‘There’s nothing he can do to come back from this,’ says a former colleague and radio exec about Sheargold’s latest incident.

Sheargold’s daily antagonising of Ritchie on-air became part of the trio’s trademark shtick and the program (described by a former Nova executive as “one of the all-time greatest shows”) grew into a juggernaut, regularly winning the ratings along with industry awards. One insider says, at its peak, Sheargold was making about $2 million per year.

In a 2018 interview with news.com.au, Ritchie, a former Home And Away actor who pivoted into broadcast, was quick to label her co-host’s taunts as playful rather than cruel, comparing it to sibling ribbing.

“There was healthy tension between Marty and Kate,” says an insider who worked closely with the show.

But behind the scenes, the reality was seemingly more twisted.

It’s claimed Sheargold’s disdain for his co-host escalated to the point where he refused to be sent emails that were also addressed to her.

Attempts to contact Sheargold about the claims made in this story were not responded to.

While Ritchie couldn’t be reached for comment for this story, she credited her co-hosts Sheargold and Tim Blackwell with her on-air success after accepting an award at the Australian Commercial Radio Awards in 2018.

Comedian Meshel Laurie, who co-hosted the Nova show with Sheargold before Ritchie joined, said she became “unemployable in the industry” after making complaints about men she worked with in radio.

“Marty’s a complicated guy and I have complicated feelings about him,” she said on her Can We Be Real? podcast, following this week’s furore about her former colleague.

“The reason he was working with us was because I begged my bosses to hire him because we’d been friends for 20 years. I knew he was a genius. And I did love working with him for a while. (But) These guys can just become unmanageable.”

One staffer who worked with Marty recalled the time as “traumatic”.

“The bad behaviour combined with feeling helpless,” they said. “I’ve tried to block that time in my life (from my memory).”

Staffers across various Sheargold shows describe his behaviour as ‘volatile’. L: Sheargold. R: Ritchie. Top centre: Kate, Tim & Marty. Bottom centre: Meshel, Tim & Marty.

Guy Dobson said he had a “hate-hate relationship” with Sheargold during his time managing the star at Triple M in the mid-2000s but described him as an “incredible talent”.

“He’s got a lovely presence on air. Just, every now and again, he doesn’t know where the line is,” he said. “He’s dark, broody, moody. Cynical. But that’s his whole act, right? That’s the act. If you understand the act – he’s the cynic – then you understand the jokes.”

One staffer who worked at SCA while The Shebang was on air said relations between Sheargold and Box became fraught.

Years later, Marty even admitted to having “fallen in love with myself beyond words” at the time.

“We were doing lightweight chit-chat that was based on me being mean or rude or unflattering, and Fifi being asked to cop that five days a week. And that wore her down as well,” he said on the Game Changers Radio podcast in 2016.

“I just became really punchy, really aggressive ...”

A former employee who worked with Sheargold on a different show recalled the host starting arguments over who got to speak first on-air after the top-of-hour news headlines.

“Marty got the prime spots and everyone else had to work around him so it was his way or the highway,” they said, describing the presenter as “volatile, irrational, difficult, overpowering and quick to anger”.

“It was such a dark and toxic time. It was a horrible time in my life.”

One of Sheargold’s former bosses recalled doing whatever necessary to keep the host happy.

“You cajole, you placate, you separate, you do anything to make sure the show runs smoothly,” they said.

Another radio boss who oversaw one of Sheargold’s programs said it became part of their management strategy to have as few people as possible working with the performer.

“He’s a tough guy to manage. If you didn’t know your stuff, he’d eat you for breakfast,” they said.

“If he doesn’t like something, he’ll let you know very directly. But I think that’s great. I’d much prefer that than someone talking behind my back.”

A former colleague of this radio boss said Sheargold would frequently rant behind the executive’s back – raging for hours about perceived slights.

Sheargold and Fifi Box hosted The Shebang on Triple M in the early 2000s.

Radio veteran Craig Bruce remembered Sheargold being “great fun to work with” when they co-hosted an Adelaide breakfast show for 6 months in the early 2000s. But, as the comedian’s career began to soar and he scored lucrative national radio gigs headlining his own shows, the cynicism that endeared him to listeners was no longer an act.

Sheargold seemed to struggle with his fame.

“I remember meeting up with him in Sydney and it was an unhappy time,” Bruce said. “He was doing breakfast at Triple M in Sydney. He said, ‘My goal when I eventually leave radio is I want to be able to walk through the airport and have no one know my name.”

In recent years, the broadcaster has also established himself as a popular panellist on Channel 10’s Have You Been Paying Attention and acted on the small screen in ABC comedy series Fisk.

Many of those who have worked with Sheargold describe a complicated and often dark personality who enjoys making people uncomfortable by nudging the limits of appropriateness. Recently, on his Triple M show, Sheargold joked that he was surprised he hadn’t been cancelled yet.

Bruce, who now hosts the Game Changers Radio podcast, messaged Sheargold just days before the Matildas incident to say how “excellent” and “funny” the Triple M show was sounding lately. When one of Bruce’s four daughters sent a TikTok clip of this week’s damning rant, Bruce was “horrified”.

“Is that the same Marty I knew?” he wondered.

“In most cases when Marty would do this, it was funny – he knew where the edge was. But for some reason on Monday, he went over the edge. And it was shocking because, after 20 years, I thought he knew where that edge was.”

Sheargold has since issued an apology for his remarks about the Matildas.

“Any comedy including mine can miss the mark sometimes, and I can see why people may have taken offence at my comments regarding the Matildas,” he said. “I sincerely apologise.”

One former radio staffer said Sheargold’s downfall this week has been “a horrible couple of days” because it “brought up a lot of trauma” from their time working with him.

“But I love what’s happening to him now,” they said.