Jackie O reveals drug addiction battle, Kyle Sandilands kept in dark
Radio host Jackie “O” Henderson broke down on air on Thursday morning while tearfully revealing a private lengthy battle with drug addiction and her subsequent recovery.
During a planned-yet-halting emotional statement from the broadcast veteran, Henderson said that, two years ago, she was taking up to 24 powerful Panadeine Forte painkillers per day and up to 14 potent Stilnox sleeping pills, all mixed with alcohol.
Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson.Credit: Instagram
It was only brought to an end by a month-long stay in rehab in November 2022 at the famed Betty Ford Centre in Palm Springs, California.
“I feel like I’ve been given this position where I have a platform and I can speak to so many people,” Henderson said. “I don’t wanna look back one day and think I had an opportunity to help someone by sharing my story and I chose to take the coward’s way out and kept it secret.”
In what was a wrenching departure from the titillating norms of The Kyle and Jackie O Show, the co-host of the polarising KIIS FM program told listeners how she began dabbling with painkillers and sedatives as a way of relieving stress and some sadness (around 2017, when her marriage to former photographer Lee Henderson began breaking down), before ultimately sinking deeper into her substance abuse issues during pandemic lockdowns.
She chose to break her two-year silence on Thursday by reading aloud from the prologue of her upcoming memoir, Jackie O: The Whole Truth.*
Henderson, pictured with Sandilands, has revealed her drug addiction and recovery.
Good Weekend magazine will feature the first exclusive print interview with Henderson about her ordeal this Saturday, in a cover story explaining how she turned to pills and alcohol while feeling “diminished, untethered and alone” in her new life.
Henderson was audibly nervous before making the announcement, about something she said she hadn’t been forthcoming or truthful about.
“You’re becoming a man?” joked Sandilands.
“It’s Friday the 11th of November, 2022, around 10am …” she began, “and I’m hanging on by a thread.” Her chosen passage ended with her entering the rehab facility, and then tears.
“I’m not crying because I’m ashamed,” Henderson told listeners, “but because I kept this in so long, and saying it out loud to everyone right now is scary, in a way. I didn’t know if I should share this ... There are people who are going to judge me.”
The revelation was met with resounding support from her colleagues, from newsreader Brooklyn Ross – “I’m proud of you, Jackie!” – to Sandilands: “I don’t know what to say, I’m scampering around here trying to make light of it, but it’s heavy.”
Henderson described how hard it was – even at her worst – to recognise that she was in a dark place. “Addiction is a disease and it warps your way of thinking,” she said. “I just thought a sober life would be the most miserable thing ever. It changes your way of thinking – it wants you to stay in the addiction. It’s so powerful.”
Henderson has kept her secret until now to focus solely on her health, with only a small group of trusted confidantes, including her manager, personal assistant, and parents, being let in on the extent of her problem.
She also revealed how her manager, veteran network executive Gemma O’Neill, drove the decision to enter rehab, when Henderson initially wanted to try tapering off the drugs herself. “Gemma said, ‘No, we’re going, we’re doing it.’ I believe she saved my life. I actually do.”
Close friends, extended family, and even her co-host Sandilands were kept in the dark until Thursday morning. “Where do you draw the line?” she said of her decision to close ranks around the personal problem. “I just didn’t want anyone to know until I had at least gotten a year or more of sobriety under my belt.”
Sandilands said he understood: “I’m sorry you didn’t think that you could share it earlier, but these things do creep up, don’t they,” he said. “Slowly, slowly.”
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Now free of her secret, Henderson opens up in Good Weekend (and her memoir), reflecting on everything from what it’s like working with Sandilands, to embracing singledom in her 40s, and how their show has struggled in Melbourne so far.
“I can only speak to my experience because my addiction is so different to anyone else’s,” Henderson noted. “But people can ask me anything they want, and I’m OK with that. I brought this up, I put it out there myself, so I’m well and truly OK talking about it. I’m excited that I can be more authentic than I’ve ever been.”
* This reporter helped write Henderson’s upcoming memoir, Jackie O: The Whole Truth, published by Random House next Tuesday.
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