Jackie O announces departure from breakfast show she hosted with Kyle Sandilands

Jackie "O" Henderson has quit her hit KIIS FM radio show, ending a 25-year broadcast partnership with controversial co-host Kyle Sandilands.

In an ASX announcement on Tuesday, ARN Media, the owner of KIIS FM, said Henderson "has given notice she cannot continue to work with Mr Sandilands".

"Ms Henderson will cease to present the Kyle and Jackie O Show," the statement said.

ARN said the Kyle and Jackie O Show would be taken off-air "effective immediately".

Henderson took more than a week off from their top-rated show after being lashed by Sandilands in an on-air tirade on February 20.

The network has also issued a written notice to Sandilands, stating it considered his conduct "an act of serious misconduct", which was in breach of his contract.

Sandilands will stay off-air and has been given 14 days to "remedy this breach" or "cease to present" the show.

He had been hosting the show in her absence, previously telling listeners: "It's a tender situation here."

'It was hurtful'

During the episode, the pair discussed the overnight arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the United Kingdom at the time.

"I'm going to do that fixed star astrology chart on him, and see what it says," Henderson said early on in the show.

"Your fixation on this has made you almost unworkable … you were off with the fairies," Sandilands said later on, referencing her looking up the former prince's horoscope and starting the seven-minute argument on-air.

She said he was being unfair, and he continued on to say she was "not doing the rest of the job, and everyone in the building has mentioned it to me".

"I would never say anything like that to you," she replied, audibly tearing up.

"I don't have any personal issue with you, but who's to tell you these things? No-one … It's not about love."

Henderson described the exchange as an attack, and Sandilands said it was "not an attack, it's an actual fact, babe".

"It was hurtful … I come in here and I do my job and I do it well," she says.

"I don't know, I wouldn't say that lately, no, I wouldn't agree."

"You know what? You get someone else then instead of me … if you don't think I'm doing my job well."

History of controversy

During the pair's broadcasting partnership, Sandilands has been reprimanded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for breaching the Broadcasting Act on several occasions.

In 2009, their show was taken off the air after it was found to have breached guidelines when Sandilands asked a teenage girl who had been raped about her sexual experiences while she was attached to a lie detector.

Last October, the media watchdog threatened ARN with action to force the pair to rein in their "vulgar, sexually explicit and deeply offensive" content.

Despite the controversies, the pair were signed onto a 10-year contract worth a reported $200 million with ARN Media.

One of the longest contract signings in Australian commercial history, the duo were meant to remain with the network until the end of 2034.

With an on-air partnership stretching as far back as 1999, Sandilands and Henderson took over the breakfast time slot for Sydney's 2Day FM in 2005.

The show was a ratings success for Southern Cross Austereo and attracted several commercial radio awards.

In October 2013, the duo announced their abrupt departure from the network and signed with rival network ARN.

Months later, the KIIS 1065 brand was launched.

At one point, Sandilands and Henderson's show attracted an audience of 797,000 people in Sydney each weekday morning and held 16.3 per cent market share — the largest of any Sydney radio station.

The pair ended 2025 with a 12.7 per cent share in Sydney, slipping to second position on the network ratings list.

Their show on Sydney's KIIS 106.5 was being broadcast to sister station KIIS 101.1 in Melbourne, where it flopped to 5 per cent.