Kyle Sandilands has publicly questioned his former co-host Jackie O Henderson's long-standing claim that her manager Gemma O'Neill was her best friend for 20 years, saying the characterisation came as a shock to him and others in their circle.
Speaking on Daily Mail Australia's podcast The Debrief with Savanna Young, the 55-year-old radio star traced his own history with O'Neill back to the year 2000, when she was a teenager working the afternoon reception shift at 2DayFM after school.
"We have got to go right back to the year 2000 at 2DayFM, where Gemma was in her school uniform at 3.30 in the afternoon," Sandilands said. "She was the afternoon switch girl at reception."
He said O'Neill eventually rose to become executive producer of the Kyle and Jackie O show, but described the relationship as largely professional. "We knew her. She was always around," he said.
When Henderson later described O'Neill as a best friend of two decades, Sandilands said he was stunned. "I was taken aback when I was told we'd been best friends for 20 years and I thought, 'Well, that's complete bulls***,'" he said, adding that in his view the pair barely knew each other until more recently.
He stressed he was not disputing the current closeness of the friendship, only its timeline. "I'd known Gemma for 20 years as well," he said. "But I'm not here to say whether Jackie's friendship was stronger than mine with her or not."
Sandilands said the bond between the two women intensified during Henderson's battle with prescription pill addiction, which the radio host has spoken about publicly. "That's when Gemma rescued Jackie from this pill thing," he said. "She saved her life, according to Jackie."
He said he understood why the experience forged a deep connection. "Maybe because Jackie did think that she went to Gemma for that pill problem and she thinks Gemma saved her life," he said. At the time Henderson sought help, Sandilands noted, O'Neill was working as a content director at a rival radio network.
Sandilands said the surprise was widely shared. His manager Bruno Bouchet and others in their circle, he said, were equally puzzled. "I was quite surprised because I'd never heard her name. Ever."
He also denied a rumour that O'Neill had negotiated contracts for both stars, saying his deals were handled by Bouchet and his legal team. He added that he had long pushed for Henderson to receive equal pay. "When I met her, she was the star and I was just the no one from the bush," he said. "I paid the legals for that every year. Jackie would just get a mirror image of it."
Despite his scepticism about the timeline, Sandilands stopped well short of criticising the friendship itself. "Maybe it's like she's never had a friend like her, and she's known her for 20 years, but the friendship's really strong at the end," he said. "Who am I to say?"
