Jackie O has stepped away from her KIIS FM breakfast show following a fiery on-air confrontation with longtime co-host Kyle Sandilands.
Opening Monday’s program, Kyle addressed her absence, telling listeners: “You might notice Jackie is not here. I spoke with her yesterday. She wants a couple of days off to gather her thoughts.”
He added that their communication over the weekend had been limited to text messages rather than a phone call.
The fallout stems from a tense exchange during Friday’s broadcast, when Kyle criticised Jackie’s recent performance on the show, linking it to her interest in astrology and star charts.
A star chart, or birth chart, maps the planets at the moment of a person’s birth and is used in astrology to interpret personality traits and life patterns.
“Your fixation on this has made you almost unworkable,” Kyle said. “You are off with the fairies with this s***. It’s mental.”
A visibly shocked Jackie responded: “I totally am offended by you saying something like that.”
Kyle did not back down.
“Well too bad (that you’re offended) … It’s too much. It’s affecting everything else. You’re too fixated on it. Every segment, every time you’ve spoken, you don’t even know what’s going on.”
He went further, claiming colleagues had raised concerns.
“You are not doing the rest of the job and everyone in this building has mentioned it to me,” Kyle said. “Everyone has said, ‘what’s going on with Jackie? She’s off today.’”
Jackie became emotional as she defended herself on air.
“I would never say things like that about you,” she said through tears. “It’s a total attack, it really is. Kyle, to say ‘you don’t know what the F is going on, you’re not doing your job,’ that’s an attack and I wouldn’t do that.”
Kyle replied bluntly: “it’s not an attack, it’s an actual fact, babe, I’m sorry.”
Jackie maintained she was fulfilling her role, saying, “I come in here and I do my job and I do it well,” but Kyle disagreed.
“I wouldn’t say that lately, no,” he said.
The tense exchange concluded with Jackie suggesting Kyle could host the show with someone else if he was unhappy.
“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Kyle said. “I didn’t say you’re not very good, I said you’re off with the fairies, you are unfocused, you don’t give a s***.”
Despite the heated disagreement, the pair remained on air together for another hour, although the atmosphere was noticeably strained.
Kyle and Jackie O signed a 10-year contract with ARN, the owner of KIIS FM, in late 2023, keeping them on air together until the end of 2034.
