Kyle Sandilands: Sacked radio shock jock files legal action against ARN after on-air blue with Jackie O

As promised, it’s going to get ugly before it gets better.

Sacked radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands would probably love to be covering this story right now, rather than be the subject of it. Imagine the commentary he would be offering to his hundreds of thousands of voracious listeners.

Instead, he’s the one generating the headlines as battlelines are drawn between him and the media network who was, not long ago, so enamoured of him and his work, they signed a deal to pay him and co-host Jackie “Jackie O” Henderson $200 million over 10 years.

Sandilands has officially filed legal action against his former employers, ARN, after his contract was terminated last week.

His legal team served documents in Federal Court on Friday, against ARN and its subsidiary, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation.

Sandilands claimed that the axing of his lucrative and unprecedented contract was invalid on the basis there was no act of serious misconduct or breach of contract. He said it was “unconscionable” under Australian Consumer Law.

ARN said it disputed Sandilands’ claims and that it would fight the lawsuit, and in a statement to the ASX, added that it could not reliably estimate the outcome or the potential financial impact it would have on the company.

After a two-week deadline set by ARN to “remedy” an alleged breach had passed, his contract was terminated on March 18. Sandilands said at the time, “I don’t accept it. My lawyers told them last week this would be invalid. And guess what? It is”.

He had threatened to fight ARN — “I’m not done, not by a long way” — and now he’s made good on his promise.

Reportedly, in his corner is heavy hitter lawyer Philip Boncardo, who had successfully represented Antoinette Lattouf in her action against the ABC after she was dismissed from a fill-in broadcaster position by the ABC in 2024 over a pro-Palestine social media post.

The legal brouhaha is shaping up to be one of Australian media’s biggest stories this year after the long-time co-host relationship between Sandilands and Henderson imploded on February 20.

Sandilands had berated Henderson on air for what he had claimed was her lax work ethic after she attempted to connect the former prince Andrew’s Jeffrey Epstein dramas with his astrology chart.

The bruising exchange between the pair led to Henderson seemingly walking away from the show. She never reappeared after that show, and ARN released an extraordinary statement on March 3 which claimed that it had terminated Henderson’s contract after she had informed them she could no longer work with Sandilands.

At the same time, ARN said it had suspended Sandilands and had given him 14 days to fix what it claimed was a “breach” of contract.

Sandilands later revealed, “Let me tell you what actually happened here. Jackie and I had a blue on air. That’s it. The kind of thing we’ve done a hundred times in 25 years. And ARN took the situation and decided to try and burn the place down.

“They sacked Jackie. They suspended me. They wouldn’t even let me pick up the phone to call her or anyone else on the show.

“Then — and this is the bit that gets me — once they’d made it impossible for the show to go, they turn around and say, ‘You didn’t fix it. You’re fired’.”

Despite directions to not contact Henderson, Sandilands said he had reached out to his former co-host, and offered his apologies, and acknowledged that what he had said during that now infamous segment, had been hurtful to her.

Henderson has only spoken once since the initial on-air bust-up, and that was via a statement in which she disputed narratives that she had “quit” or “resigned” from the show, and that she was also exploring legal options about her terminated contract.

The Kyle And Jackie O Show had been one of the most successful media brands in the country with the controversial radio duo reigning the airwaves and ratings in Sydney for decades.

ARN had sought to capitalise on the pair’s popularity when it signed them to those $100 million each contracts in late-2023, with ambitious plans to expand their presence and syndicate the show nationally.

It was to start with the Melbourne market, but that’s also where it ended.

Melbourne proved to the hostile to their brash and crude antics, which over the years had landed Sandilands, Henderson and their networks in a lot of trouble with the broadcast regular ACMA, advertising boycotts and the court of public opinion.

The Victorian capital was immediately reticent to embrace the Sydney-based celebrities and in their last ratings period, finished in eighth position, well below their predecessors, Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips, who had been shafted to make room for Sandilands and Henderson.

The continuing trouble had created an under-pressure environment for not just The Kyle And Jackie O Show but also ARN, which faced waves of mass redundancies as advertising revenues plummeted.

The show was also hit with the results of an ACMA investigation last week which found cited “repeated breaches of the decency provisions” of the Commercial Radio Code of Practice.

ACMA imposed further conditions upon ARN for five years for The Kyle And Jackie O Show as well as any program on which either may appear. Non-adherence could, in a worst-case scenario, threaten ARN’s licence to broadcast.