Andrew O’Keefe dropped from Channel 7 after being arrested on domestic assault claims

He’s been dropped by Channel 7, but the claims against Andrew O’Keefe are just the latest in a long history of personal highs and lows.

Seven’s former golden boy Andrew O’Keefe has had a string of ups and downs played out in the public spotlight.

Most recently, the TV game show host and former White Ribbon chairman, 49, was arrested in Sydney and charged over an alleged domestic assault.

Police will allege O’Keefe assaulted his rumoured partner, Sydney-based doctor Orly Lavee, at an apartment in Randwick just before 1am on Sunday.

O’Keefe has appeared on Australian TV screens for more than a decade and made his debut on the sketch comedy series Big Bite on Channel 7.

His career with the network continued to grow, and he went on to present the network’s breakfast program, Weekend Sunrise, from 2006 to 2017, and Deal or No Deal from 2003-2013, before taking up hosting duties for The Chase Australia.

In 2017, the former lawyer and classically trained singer was also recognised as a Member of the Order of Australia “for significant service to the broadcast media as a television presenter, and to social welfare and charitable organisations.”

From a marriage breakdown to a booze-fuelled incident outside infamous Melbourne nightclub Revolver, and rehab stints this is how O’Keefe’s controversial personal life has played out in public.

Mobile phone video footage of TV presenter Andrew O'Keefe during drunken late night celebrations outside the Revolver nightclub in Melbourne in 2009. Picture: supplied

SEPTEMBER 2009

O’Keefe goes on a boozy binge that sees him crawling along Melbourne’s Chapel Street.

At the time, the Deal or No Deal host did not deny he was caught in an intoxicated state outside a South Yarra nightclub.

“I thrive on hard work and when the work is done I like to gather everyone together and celebrate, as we have so much to celebrate from what has been a very successful year,” O’Keefe said at the time.

“Let me reassure everyone that I am a family man, and take that very seriously, and would never set out to deliberately offend anyone.”

A video taken on the night, details of which were later revealed in the Herald Sun, shows O’Keefe flat on his back with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

He is then seen crawling along the footpath before struggling to his feet and heading off along the footpath with a blonde female friend.

APRIL 2014

O’Keefe’s father, former judge and ICAC commissioner, Barry O’Keefe, dies.

Andrew O'Keefe at the State Theatre in Sydney. Picture: Tim Hunter

NOVEMBER 2017

O’Keefe announces he is separating from his wife of 18 years, Eleanor, a social worker and the mother of his three children Barnaby, Rory, and Olivia.

Following their divorce in 2019, O’Keefe tells Sunrise viewers, “Everyone hits a part of their life where they really question what it’s all about and who they really are, whether what they have done for the last four or five years means anything.

“And I think, when I split up from my wife, that was my time. And the thing I always believed in most of all in this life was the power of love and combining with someone to make something special, and when I lost that, I thought well, it was all meaningless.”

DECEMBER 2017

O’Keefe steps away from Weekend Sunrise after co-hosting the popular television show for 12 years.

Andrew O'Keefe with Weekend Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage during a segment for the show. Picture: supplied

SEPTEMBER 2018

NSW Police catch O’Keefe driving an unregistered vehicle in Vaucluse.

The car was under his estranged wife's name, with O’Keefe telling police he was unaware that the registration had lapsed a month earlier.

O’Keefe later pleaded guilty in court and was issued a 12-month conditional release order without recording a conviction.

MARCH 2019

O’Keefe gets into an altercation with a photographer outside Sydney’s Downing Street Court, where he was appearing for the charge relating to driving an unregistered vehicle.

Video footage shows O’Keefe appearing to swat the AAP photographer with a folder.

While the photographer said O’Keefe’s folder connected with his head, O’Keefe’s version of the story was a little different.

“Mate, if a photographer chooses to get in the way of my folder, that’s the photographer’s fault,” he told AAP at the time.

OCTOBER 2019

White Ribbon Australia, an organisation aimed at eliminating domestic violence against women and co-founded by O’Keefe, goes into liquidation.

Andrew O'Keefe confronts an AAP photographer outside owning Centre Local Court in Sydney. Picture: supplied

OCTOBER 2019

Six months after checking himself into a Sydney rehab facility following his emotional and mental collapse, O’Keefe has revealed he wasn’t “treating myself terribly well”.

“I got to a point where I knew it wasn’t sustainable, to work, to grieve, to feel pain and not to sleep and so I took myself off to the clinic,” O’Keefe said.

It would be two months before he returned to work.

“(Seven) was repositioning certain players with the network,” he said.

O’Keefe would not be drawn on rumours of what contributed to his collapse, prompting his rehab stint.

“I was already entirely exhausted to a point where the issues of my marriage dissolution were becoming more grinding, day by day,” he said, breaking his silence to speak to The Sunday Telegraph.

“I wasn’t in good health, I’d also suffered (the) loss of friends and family at the same time. “There’s another issue that I won’t go into that was particularly poignant that came up after 40 years which I knew the existence of, but had never really impacted me in the way that it did.

Host of The Chase, Andrew O'Keefe. Picture: Ian Currie

FEBRUARY 2020

O’Keefe states during an interview that he was “fit and ready to film”.

A statement from Seven earlier that month explained his absence: “Andrew O’Keefe is taking time to manage and recover from a health issue”.

MARCH 2020

O’Keefe has a stint in rehab following a relapse of the health crisis that forced him to take three months leave from Seven’s The Chase in 2019.

Following two separate stints in a Sydney clinic that year for what he previously described as “exhaustion”, O’Keefe checks into a facility.

JANUARY 2021

49-year-old O’Keefe is arrested for an alleged domestic assault on his partner, Orly Lavee. The pair have been dating for over a year, and in 2020 rumours circulate that the pair have secretly married when both O’Keefe and Lavee are spotted wearing rings on their wedding fingers.

Following the arrest, NSW Police told News Corp Australia, “Just before 1am, officers from Eastern Beaches Police Area Command attended a Randwick unit, after reports a 41-year-old woman had allegedly been assaulted in a domestic violence related incident,” a spokesperson from NSW Police said in a statement to News Corp Australia.

“Following inquiries, police arrested a 49-year-old man nearby about 3.30am.

“He was taken to Maroubra police station where he was charged with common assault (DV) and granted conditional bail.”

O’Keefe is set to appear in court on Thursday 4 February 2021, where police will allege O’Keefe punched Lavee in the face, punctured her lower lip, pulled her hair, kicked the back of her legs and spat on her.

Sources close to the star say O’Keefe plans to fight the allegations in court.

FEBRUARY 2021

Seven announces they have cut ties with O’Keefe.

“The program hosted by Andrew, The Chase Australia, is not currently in production,” a Seven spokesperson tells the Daily Telegraph.

“The program is produced for Seven by ITV Studios Australia. Production will resume soon and a decision about who will host future series still has to be made.”

White Ribbon Australia then released a statement distancing themselves with the organisation’s former chairman.

“We are saddened to hear that Dr Orly Lavee has allegedly been assaulted by Andrew O’Keefe, a man who was previously aligned with White Ribbon Australia and is now charged with assault,” executive director Brad Chilcott said.

“There is never any excuse for violence or abuse.

“We stand in solidarity with every victim and survivor of men’s violence against women, and believe men who use violence must be held to account. Every man should take this (allegation) as an opportunity to reflect on their own attitudes, behaviours and relationships with the women in their lives,” Mr Chilcott said.

Originally published as Andrew O’Keefe dropped from Channel 7 after being arrested on domestic assault claims