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On Thursday morning, radio presenter Jackie “O” Henderson sobbed as she talked about her long, personal struggle with heroin addiction and her eventual recovery.
Henderson made a prearranged but hesitant emotional statement, claiming that two years prior, she was consuming up to 14 strong Stilnox sleeping medications and 24 strong Panadeine Forte painkillers daily, while also drinking extensively.
Only a month-long stay in rehabilitation at the renowned Betty Ford Centre in Palm Springs, California, in November 2022, ended it.
Henderson said to the audience, “I feel like I’ve been given this position where I have a platform and I can speak to so many people.” “I don’t want to look back and realize that I had the chance to help someone by telling my story, but I took the coward’s route and kept it a secret.”
The co-host of the controversial KIIS FM program broke down in tears and paused as she described how she started experimenting with painkillers and sedatives as a way to cope with stress and some sadness (beginning around 2017 when her marriage to former photographer Lee Henderson started to fall apart), before eventually delving deeper into her substance abuse issues during pandemic lockdowns. This was a heartbreaking departure from the titillating norms of The Kyle and Jackie O Show.
She decided to read aloud from the prologue of her new memoir, Jackie O: The Whole Truth, on Thursday in an attempt to end her two-year quiet.
She started, “It’s Friday, November 11, 2022, at roughly 10 a.m. “And I’m barely surviving.” She described the moment she walked into the recovery center before crying as her selected chapter came to a close.
“I’m not crying because I’m ashamed,” Henderson said, “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 … some people are going to judge me.”
The revelation was met with resounding support from callers and her colleagues, including newsreader Brooklyn Ross—“I’m proud of you, Jackie!”—and, of course, Sandilands.
The latter first relied on humor, suggesting that station signage should be changed to portray Henderson as a “recovering drug addict” rather than Sandilands as a “current drug user.” However, he also occasionally found himself at a loss for words.
“I’m at a loss for words,” he acknowledged. “I’m trying to make light of it by scuttling around here, but it’s heavy.”
Jackie O talks about her fight with drug addiction on television.
Henderson refused to respond when Sandilands questioned how she obtained so much prescription medicine. She then talked about how difficult it was for her to acknowledge that she was trapped in a dark place, even when she was at her worst. She asserted that addiction is an illness that distorts one’s perspective. “I simply believed that living sober would be the most miserable thing in the world.”
The 49-year-old only told a select few close confidantes about the severity of her issue, keeping it a secret so she could concentrate entirely on her health.
One of them, senior network executive Gemma O’Neill, Henderson’s manager, was eventually responsible for Henderson’s decision to check herself into rehab after she first sought to taper off the medications.
Henderson stated of O’Neill, her best friend and business partner, “I think she saved my life.” “I do.”
Her co-host Sandilands, other close friends, and even her extended family were kept in the dark until Thursday morning. Regarding her choice to unite over the personal issue, she said, “Where do you draw the line?” “I simply didn’t want anyone to find out until I had been sober for a year or longer.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t think you could share it earlier,” Sandilands said, acknowledging that these things do come up. “Slowly, slowly.”
Henderson’s first exclusive print interview on her experience will appear in Good Weekend magazine on Saturday. The cover article will describe how she turned to drugs and alcohol because she felt “diminished, untethered, and alone” in her new existence.
Now that her secret is out, Henderson talks candidly in Good Weekend about her experiences working with Sandilands, enjoying her 40s single status, and the show’s first struggles in Melbourne.
The usually typical conclusion to their long-running program came at 10.01 a.m. on Thursday with a statement that maybe only Sandilands could make: “Even if you’re on crack, we still love you, Jack.”
This reporter contributed to the writing of Henderson’s memoir, Jackie O: The Whole Truth, which Random House will release on Tuesday.
