Something To Talk AboutSummer series: in conversation with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson
Something To Talk About is continuing to publish across the summer break, and will be back with a brand new episode on January 12.
In the meantime, we are revisiting some of your favourites from the 50 episodes we released over the past year. Today’s conversation is with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, which originally aired April 27, 2024.
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For 23 years, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson have dominated radio airwaves in Sydney, and having appeared on various TV shows over the years, have become one of Australia’s most well-known double acts.
But despite their infamy, they very rarely do interviews together - and yet for today’s episode of Something To Talk About they agreed to sit down on the other side of the microphone to join host Sarrah Le Marquand for a no-holds-barred conversation that veers from the outrageous to the hilarious, and from the emotional to the unexpected.
On the eve of their show’s much talked about and risky expansion into Melbourne, they open up about what makes their relationship tick - both on and off air, whether they have any regrets over the controversies they have weathered over the years, and how they feel about being in very different chapters of their lives, with Kyle settled down as a happily married father just as a Jackie is hitting her stride as one of the most sought after single women in the country.
And, in one of the many surprising moments in the conversation, they both ponder an unlikely question: is Kyle Sandilands actually a feminist?
The Kyle & Jackie O Show airs from 6am weekdays on KIIS 1065 Sydney and KIIS 101.1 Melbourne. You can also listen via the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Find more from Stellar via Instagram @stellarmag or stellarmag.com.au
Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About Vistella podcast. I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and this year I have had the privilege of sitting down with some of the biggest names in the country. Because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something to Talk About. We're continuing to publish across the summer break and we'll be back with a brand new episode on January twelfth. In the meantime, each day for the next two weeks, we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes from the past year, and I'm happy to report that there have been a lot of popular episodes, but out of the fifty we released in twenty twenty four, we've narrowed it down to ten conversations to revisit over the summer break, and today you'll hear from Kyl and Jackie O. Despite being one of Australia's most well known double acts, they are very rarely on the other side of the microphone, but they allowed me the rare opportunity to turn the microphone around on them and as you're about to hear, it was a no holdsberg conversation that veered from the outrageous to the hilarious, and from the emotional to the unexpected. You are icons very overused word.
True in your case, Fraser, more of an argument.
You're going to have a stadium or at least a sweet named after.
You, or a hospital named after Yea.
Maybe the goal is that there'll be a stadium in Melbourne named after at the end of the year. Is that the measure?
Anytime soon?
The stakes are high. It's been a long time since either of you have really had to prove yourselves. Why would you do this to yourselves? Are you're feeling the pressure in terms of trying to win over Melbourne?
No, I don't think.
I don't think we tend to place pressure on ourselves. I think we just going to continue doing what we do and what we feel works. And I think we're just at the end of the day, we know we have good content and I feel that that is what will win over that Melbourne audience.
Good is good no matter where. I think. The world's so much smaller than it used to be. We're listening to podcasts from all over the world. No one's like, oh that Joe Rogan, He's not in Melbourne. We're not listening. People aren't stupid. This whole fakeness of the show's not made in Melbourne. Well guess what neither is the Today Show or Sunrise. Oh but people still watch it because people aren't fucking stupid and people aren't that state centered that they feel like anything outside of our city. But no one thinks like that. I don't even know where that where that sort of that sort of conversation started.
Well, I think it started originally before we had apps like the weather app and news services on our phone so readily accessible. We did rely on local radio stations to get that information. But now people aren't waiting to hear the weather on the radio, they're just looking at it on their phone.
Or looking into the sky. Well, you can do it the way we always but I.
Think, yeah, I do think at the end of the day, we're going to continue doing what we do. It's a show that works in Sydney, why couldn't it work in Melbourne.
Well, there are numbers because we have that iHeartRadio app as well, so there are hundreds of thousands already in Melbourne listening to that for years. So it made sort of financial sense to the management. Hey, we've got more people listening on the app from Melbourne than are listening to the broadcast in Melbourne, so it was it was a very It wasn't anything against Lauren Jason. They're a very capable show, but it just wasn't getting the momentum that the station needed. We had more people listening on the app, so it was a no brainer. I just said, put us into Melbourne if that's what you because when we renegotiated our salary, they were like, oh, that's outrageous, and I said, true, then we need to go into other states if you want to make that money stretch. I was like, that's like us being Coca Cola, but you putting Cherry Cola into Melbourne. Why would you bother just put Coke into there.
So you've talked about the fact that in this day of streaming and apps, it doesn't really matter where the show is broadcast from. So where will you be broadcasting from? Will you ever go and broadcast out in Melbourne, for instance, or is that something that you do?
Oh yeah, in Melbournely every week I've.
Been in Melbourne and we're not even on air yet.
She's at the tennis, she's at the Grand Priest at the football she's at the.
I do love Melbourne, so it feels like this great excuse to keep going back there now because it's been years since I've been hanging out there, and I used to live there so I know it well.
And during any old lovers, no, I didn't.
Have any because I was married to Feel when I lived there.
She's been married multiple times. It's hard to me to keep.
We'll get to that up with me.
So I feel like, yeah, absolutely will be broadcasting out of Melbourne as well.
And do you think that it's going to change the tone of the show of the content When you do your show tomorrow morning, Monday, April twenty nine.
Nothing will be different, nothing at all.
No.
A few we've had radio consultants, which I think is a huge waste of money. I'm the best consultant for this show, so we do. If it was up to a consultant, this show wouldn't even exist. The chant. The risk of you know, us doing more risky stuff or being very vulnerable, like you know, very emotional things, very risky things and everything in between happen on our show and you just don't get that, Like someone that might have cancer might get given away. You know, Oh, we'll give you a trip to swim with the dolphins. This is what radio normally does. Really does the way lady dying of cancer really want to travel all the way to Broom to swim with the dolphins. Probably not, but that's what radio does. That. There's this this we loop that they stay in talk for three minutes to a contest, only have white women on air winning contests. We say no to all of that. We've got lunatics, We've got all different ethnic groups on this show, and they love it because they don't get a platform anywhere else. If you listen to all other radios, it's mainly just a white, middle aged lady winning the contest. That's what radios taught them to do. And we really just turned everything. I said, let's sort of reflect the real community that we live in. Males females, sexual stuff, different ethnic groups, having different belief systems. We put it all on the air, but we talk about all this stuff and we sort of de demonize a lot of stuff that mental health issues. Half the people on our staff would never even be able to work anywhere else because they've actually been locked up in institutions. I'm not joking, that's true. And some people don't even really work here, but they still get paid. They come every day. It's just a very weird group, perfect folks we've collected, haven't we. Yeah, but it takes twelve of them to the job of three. But you know, we love them all.
Carl likes to take on injured birds just so you know, I'll have he always has.
There is a lot of injured birds in the media, Yeah, there are. I think most most media workplaces are probably quite dysfunctional and seq it's the same thing, because really, why would you do these jobs if you.
Were a normal human normally?
I wanted to ask you a little bit about your respective profiles because you have both worked on really big, high profile TV shows, so you're both highly recognizable and familiar to a national audience. But in Sydney you get papped a lot. Jackie. You can barely walk out without there being you know, five different articles about what you're wearing, where.
You're going you So, yeah, only last weekend there was photos of you everywhere and you were on a mission. You had some tight little number on did I jumping down the footpath with a mission?
Oh god, what's she on? A mission or is that just what the headline right, that's.
Probably what the Jackie.
Yeah, even I get tricked by headlines as well, even though a million have been written about both of us, and I think, if I know it's not true, I'm like, ah, they're lies. But I'll read something about you know, even Jackie like, oh she's at it again, she's out on dates again. I thought, because we haven't seen each other for two weeks before, this.
Is only the last week a bit to catch up on. And Kyle, yes, that's right, as you say, you also on the receiving end of a million different headlines. So I wanted to talk a little bit about is that experience different when you travel? Do you get recognized as much, say, if you're walking through the airport in Melbourne as you would walking out of the airport.
Well, I was for Easter. I was in Perth with my family visiting my wife's grandfather. He's ninety nine, so we took our son over and some of the other cousins, the little kids came over as well because we thought, you know, this guy's ninety nine, which this is a good time for all of us to visit and every like through the airport at Perth. Everyone was like, hey, what's up, and I was I was surprised. Idol has obviously been on, so you know, but I was surprised that I'm of the recognizable sort of thing was definitely there. But because you don't know, sometimes you read headlines if you're in another state, you don't listen to the show. You think, oh, what a big fat pig. He is half right, it's the big and fat thing. But there's way more to the show than a lot of people actually give us credit for. They hear the bad things or bastardized version of what someone wants them to think of us. But yeah, we're really happy with the show. We respect each other a lot. Yeah, I'm a bit susan her being single. That's always a worry. Yeah, you know, who knows. I just don't want her. I don't wandering down the wrong path. You know, she's a naive young woman.
I'm not naive all young or young you're right, that whole thing.
Oh yeah, so just in terms of that, yeah, recognition, I think, yeah, it's more intense in Sydney, There's no question.
I mean it makes sense that it would be.
No one's yelling at it. You're down at the Grand Prix.
Alvin is like it's just slightly more subdued. Not to say it doesn't happen, but it is. It is a little different, and it's funny. Like when I was in La of all places recently, I ran into a bunch of guys from Melbourne and I was so surprised because they had things saved in their album of all our segments. So they listened from Melbourne on iHeart and they were so obsessed with the show that they were going, look at this segment. I listened to this all the time. It's like an only lying prey.
Oh yeah.
And so sometimes out of nowhere it'll hit you. And then other times you'll be somewhere like Melbourne or even Sydney and just like no, no one recognizes you, like it's.
A sailing day. It does happen to me.
Maybe I blend in more and a more average looking possibly yeah, possibly have you.
Been too many servos to the service suburbs, Jackie, I even get recognized that much in a servo.
Maybe people just don't maybe don't recognize. Maybe I'm a more friendly face to approach me.
You're more approachable, maybe you stand out more. It's a wait thing.
See a lot of guys won't say anything to a beautiful lady. It's sometimes intimidating. They want to go.
It's not what would you know, really, do I look intimidating?
Just beautiful women intimidate people. They don't want to say anything, or they get nervous.
Yeah, I don't know anyway, But so that answers that question.
So, speaking about getting nervous, he said that you're pretty confident. You're not too worried about pressure.
No pressure, It's it's a thing of like, you can't do more than what you're doing, so why stress about the outcome?
I think that's how I've always been.
It's like I don't want to go home that day and then listen to what the competition are doing and then stress did they do that better?
Did we this?
Just doing things like that. So it's not that it's I've got all this confidence. It's more just I'm confident in the show's ability, and we're going to keep doing what we do and having fun and whatever happens happens, that part we can't control. And so I think it's just it will just be interesting to see how long it takes. If it's quick, if it's slow. I'm expecting both outcomes.
Well, how is that going to be? How do you expect those?
I'm happy with either I guess or just prepared prepared Sarah for having my back.
I'm prepared for both, not expecting, but prepared for.
I think I think that's exactly where I did. Well, Yeah, I think we just we're confident that the show is good. People are already listening and they can't they're not supposed to hear it from there.
Yeah, but it's fine if it doesn't happen straight away.
You know, they're not going to know really going to hear our show, and it's going to be so different than the other stuff. I'm not saying the other stuff shit because it's it's not shit. It's still commercial, good commercial radio. But it's we just we sort of reinvented how it's done in more of a sort of a friend way, you know what I mean. It's weird. It's very hard to explain. I don't want to say we're a genius.
Shut just shut up. I talk so much? Are you like far out? This guy rambles?
Oh no, no, I knew what I was getting in for it, So it's all that's what I got my little pink timer on me because for fifty.
Minutes to say how we're going for time.
No, we're tracking really analytics, numbers, ratings, readership, whatever part of the media you're working in, everyone's fixated on it. Radio ratings watching that is a sport. You've obviously had huge success in that area. You have one I think it was a thirty thirty nine consecutive.
I see. It's weird because the way the surveys are rolled out, so we only get paid on our position on the FM. We don't care about the AM. We're not trying to chase white lady funerals for their money. Two gbcon and to you to WS whatever all these old is and three aw. They can have all the white lady angel money. We don't want that. We are car sellers, grocery buyers, people buying electrical appliances, people taking holidays, experiences. That's where the main bread and butter money is. So we only really care really about being number one fm' that's the base of our salary. Same deal for Melbourne. So when they always go, oh been Fordham's number one but how do we have three times the amount of listeners. It's just a shit way the whole system's done. It's like you guys saying, oh, one person buys a newspaper, but nineteen people read it. How does anyone really know that that's bullshit? Half this rubbish the end of the day, whoever has the most amount of readers or the most amount of listeners, that's the winner. That's where we always are, and I'd expect us to get there pretty quickly in the Melbourne market, because Melbourne isn't Mars. It's the same human beings that live in every see. I live between Cannes Sydney, we travel a lot internationally. People are pretty much the same, nice spirited people love a laugh. That that's the difference of our show.
Let me just be the negative person coming in and saying, if it doesn't work, whatever that timeline is, you're saying, you would expect it to be pretty quick, Jackie. You've said like it could be quick, could take a while, So you're not quite sure what the timeline that you give yourselves would be. But if it doesn't work, what would you do?
Nothing?
Oh, in Melbourne, whatever, whatever happens, happens. I guess they if they don't, there's no.
Continue n there's no contingency plan for if it won't work. If it won't work, like what is don't work? Like? No didn't get shut down because they haven't been number one ever in Melbourne since Chrissy and Brownie left. They didn't just shut them down. They just hired the guys that we got rid of. But they never rated that well either. They're a quality show. Nothing wrong with the show. They just all the shows. People aren't really locked onto one show. There's no one in Melbourne that people love. The winner moves around a lot. That to me means no one really is locked onto one. Yeah, that's right now.
One because Sydney has a lot of loyalty.
And Melbury as well.
I feel just rearrangers all the time.
It's always anyone's game, anyone's prize really, So it's an interesting market to go into for that reason. And I think in a way that's really exciting because one minute you've got it and the next you've lost it, and then you've got it back again, and then someone else's different got it again.
This means no one is really rusted on to someone you know there's no super of a show. Yeah, maybe three aw have super fans.
What about though, for your personal legacy? So, as I said at the start, you've just had such a dream run here. Your success now is beyond any unique compare really in this local market, would you feel like that had been tarnished or dentisty? No?
Absolutely not Melbourne.
No.
And we're going to vary differently on this, I'd say, because I think how why would you let one failure be the mark of your legacy or even tarnish it in some way?
You remember me?
I think there's a lot of times when you do fall and that's okay, Like it's fine.
It's unforgivable.
Yeah, that's ego talking.
You know, we've done the national show before, like we've been in every city, Like we had the national Top thirty show then we did a year before Hami Snandy of setting up that national drive and we were number one in every market.
If it didn't work, asking is would you yeah, that's right?
Would you care? Do you feel that that would?
In my mind that he's got this.
Belief, I don't know how I reckon that's why Kyle is so successful to be honest because of his pure and utter belief without a doubt.
I only do things I totally believe it. Otherwise, don't do it, my mother.
But yeah, I don't believe that. That would to be honest, and if it does, that's fine. That would be in someone else's opinion, not mine.
All right, Before we move on from Melbourne, can I get my FM had on? And should we do a pop quiz for you? Were saying you've been spending a bit of time in Melbourne, so some of my Melbourne colleagues have helped me here.
Okay question?
Yeah, men asking the most hard questions.
No, it's okay.
I did this in front of the kids team in Melbourne and I was asked a few questions.
Oh my god, my answers were so far off.
It wasn't you met the staff in Melbourne?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, thing.
I did a Q and A with Will and Woody in front of them and I answered some embarrassingly bad answers to some Melbourne questions.
So we might overlap, so you might.
I was only asked about three go on, I'm.
Going to start. Obviously we all know Melbourne notorious afil mad City, which team won the Grand final last September.
Who cares I hate Collingwood?
Yes, yes, I don't have like a do you go? And Kyle's answer, did you not?
And I will not pay any attention to any sport going forward either.
What is the name of the most recognizable train station in Melbourne.
I'm going to be the one that was on Lego Masters the other night. What's it called dust? Yeah? They lit up white for the Bondai tragedy last week too.
Did you see that's nice?
Beautiful? Yeah? I was sending everyone love.
I liked that Rebecca jard has warned which luxurious beachside suburb is becoming a crime hot spot joint?
Yeah, she should keep quiet there, she must be. She's worried that. I've read that quite a lot. Poor they're carrying on about the crime and crime.
She has a right to say it, don't you.
Think she's really panicked about it? A couple of German shepherds and let him roam there, roam around the yard.
You'll have to get her on the show, and we've had before.
She's a nice chick.
It's talking specifically, I think.
Yeah.
And what Lame Way is renowned for its graffiti?
Oh, what's it called again?
Oh?
God, I don't know. What do you look at me for? How would I know? I don't hang around those scabby areas where there's graffiti.
I can't. I'm gonna have to pass on that.
It's Hosier Lane.
That wouldn't have got I didn't know it after all. So I hasn't been there, but I didn't know exactly. Take me to Is there a church there?
No?
I have been there, I just didn't know that.
Famous for its restaurants and cafes, Melbourne's Little Italy is located on what street?
Oh? Isn't it like on street? Maia? Mates?
And final question? Then if someone told you they were doing chap laps? What would that mean?
Hot laps around Chapel Street?
Oh? I thought it was using and over and over and over again, driving up and Down's Chapel Street.
They all do. I was there.
I was there.
I went to this club Electric on Chapel Street. My no, just the other day, like.
When I was the what are you doing in the club?
We were all out with friends and we're like, where should we go?
I was the one that said, I've heard Electric is so much fun, let's go there.
Well, you look at you. Yeah, you know you're in the never.
It was so so, so hectic. It was just like it took about half an hour, I'd say forty five minutes to get to the toilet and back because it was so packed.
And then were in the toilet.
Yeah, Like it was weird Kyle, because like girls had come out of the toilet and there'd be three of them, not.
Just one helping each other.
They must have been doing a pooh because they're in there for fifteen minutes.
How long did you stay there at the club?
Listen, every friend I was with was giving me the dirty eye, going how could you?
And I'm like, okay, I said, lean into it. Everyone.
They just lean into it.
We would have no, they didn't want to know. It was too much for you.
New friends, the friends of yourself.
Honestly, these people were like party friends and they still weren't out.
But what sort of friends have you got? A party friends?
Let's talk a little bit about this partnership on air off as I said, it's been staggeringly successful. You've worked together for twenty three years.
Yeah, I know, isn't that crazy.
You've been through a lot professionally, personally and of course in your own individual How.
Many weddings have we been for each other? Four?
No, three, you've only seen you didn't see me marry ugly Phiel.
No, I took his spot there when you guys broke up. Remember, no one even knew they were married Jackie.
Ugly Field to keep it a secret.
It's some weird radio secret.
Yeah, isn't that weird?
Could you imagine in the culture today it wouldn't even happen in something like that secret.
It wouldn't be able to because everyone's got access to all your information. Now, back then, there was no Google on anyone. There was no Facebook, and there was no Instagram. So when you said it, it was it unless you, like had some other person that knew them personally.
Do you remember the first night we ever worked with each other? How horrible I was and I didn't I hang up with Victoria Beckham multiple times?
Live terrible Live? Didn't it mispronounced every band like?
It was? Just? Yeah?
But well, why are we saying this? What was the original?
Actually? I was going to ask you, what was your first impression? Would you have ever foreseen that you would still be really good friends and working with twenty three years later?
On the first night.
I just talked about the first first.
Night you were I think I said, guys, I.
Think I sent a message to the program director, going I don't know if this is going to work. I was just so worried that this guy didn't know any of the any of the pop artist's names.
However, however, how long did it take me to figure it out?
Twenty four hours back?
Anything, I knew I did a terrible job on that first I was so nervous because Jackie was Jackie. Oh. I was just some loser from Triple M in Brisbane. So all I'd ever done is like he's easy top of Triple M, Like and that's it, that's what you didn't have any conversation. Then they send me to Sydney to work with Jackie and I almost crapped myself. I was like Jackie Oh, very nervous. She was like the queen of that nighttime radio. And I thought, God, this is my biggest opportunity ever. And then I knew I did a disastrous hanging up on Victoria Beckham, not once, not twice, like five times, four times a lot, ye know anything, I knew she wasn't into me, so I don't know how, but I just I researched, and what that's three years too late. So I researched, and I learned, and I figured out how to say bands names. I didn't know the Venger Boys, the Finger Boys. So I sorted it out and then boom, by that second night, we're on fire. We just we just a little bit.
Would you on that?
Like, yeah, you wouldn't even know in the first year that this would be a twenty four year relationship.
On breakfast mostly, do.
You know where?
It's crazy?
Do you know why? I think a lot of people say where how does it work? And I truly believe this. I think a lot of radio announcers that are on like duos or multiple people on the air, they feel that they compete against each other to either say the funny thing, or if someone is telling a story, someone wants to jump and oh that happened to me too, and it becomes like a subliminal.
Repetition like this, tension, resentment, conflict internally sometimes like that.
Hearing her stories and I respect her as a broadcast and as a human being, and I think she does the same. Although we've never I've never asked. I'm just assuming, and I think that genuinely caring, and I'm more worried about hearing her story than inserting myself into it. Even though we do a lot of insertions. There's a big difference. So I've never left here thinking, oh, that bitch spoke more than I couldn't.
We would never and that does exist. It does definitely does. So, yeah, i'd.
It's weird to you that you find out who were the Caddy ones, and it's quite shocking, like who would have thought that that person would be a bitchier? But you know, it does happen.
Yeah, it's funny.
We've never had that though, Like we could be interviewing someone and I could literally be seven minutes into the interview thinking I haven't really asked them anything at all, But I'll be thinking that's okay. Cole super into this one, so and I do the same, and then I'll take over another and it's like there is no I don't.
I guess there's just no there's.
No, like your one question that you can't operate like that. And I think of just enjoying each other and the friendship and the company and the humor. That's really what's kept us going all this time.
Do you ever think, either of you about what you would be doing today if you hadn't met and you hadn't started working.
Yeah, I'd be in prison, I feel I reckon.
I'd be a mom of eight.
Living on the Gold Coast with eight different husbands, yes, every every kid and a different father, all milking and for maintenance, living in a high eyes maintenance woman. Jackie said, I.
Think it's not far off ice I would have stayed on the Gold Coast and just ended up like who.
Knows, a big fat mess monster.
It's possible.
And after all this time, because you share so much of your life with your audience as well, do you still have the capacity to surprise one another? Are there moments.
Came back from holidays last year, she left to go on holidays looking like Roseanne bar and you came back looking like Elmik Furston. And that was the biggest surprise of my life. Never been more surprised. Even seeing my child being pulled out of my wife's stomach, that was not even as surprising as Jackie walking back through in a size six dress. I nearly died.
We do laugh that there is like all these different chapters of my life, and they're all so different from each other.
Very ugly for us. You go through have a little sealed section at the back where you go through our gross photos.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's probably worth doing.
And you have been through so many different phases of your lives, and your lives look so different now.
I used to be the one rooting the models, and she had a baby, remember, and somehow I've got the baby. She's outrooting the male model.
How good's life?
You got married last year? You and your wife teak and have a son. Otto you and I have talked about. You're on the other side of a divorce now your daughter Kitty almost a teenager.
Yeah.
A couple of questions. First of all, Jackie, does Kyle get asked how do you juggle at all? As much as you would have been asked that question.
Anyone. No one asked me anyhoe.
Oh my god, see.
Asked me how do I juggle? Juggle?
What father would?
Yeah?
And a career.
Well you know how fatherhood is. Oh, hi, I'm home. That's it. That's that's fatherhood done. Yeah.
See we get that all the time. How do you juggle? You know, how do you find the balance?
Is that socastic.
But no, they're genuinely interested in that.
But it's like, I suppose the mum does all the heavy lifting. Really, the mom's even at my place. Teagan does everything like she does everything. She's up early in the morning with him. She's at the park every day with him, at the beach every afternoon with him. Like, really, if you wanted a mum, that's the mum I wanted. Sorry, mum, Yeah, you know when knew as good as mum as my wife is.
Are you a hands on dad? Though?
Kyle By bath him every night of his life, We're put him to bed together. There's a whole routine going on. But on the weekends that's the only time I get to get him up, so I usually go in on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Teagan gets to sleep in two days out of the week because I'm up early and gone. That's his hands on as I am. But Teaking is way more hands on with I'm the dad who who sits on the couch and claps Oh good boy. Oh yes, you said start.
So when you come home you don't get handed the baby?
Oh yeah, no, there's no crossover, right, But he runs to me and we all and then I just stay home all day. So it's really me and teaking at home with him all day.
Okay, So Jackie you would know my question to Kyle there about the juggling. Kyle, you were really because it was obviously more criticism of us as a culture and the media that we ask people that all the time. And Jackie, I'm sure you've been asked countless times over the years, how do you juggle it all? How do you do that? So I was just curious observations.
Requirement.
No, it's funny, isn't it how he's never once been asked that.
Yeah, what have been your observations of Kyl and how fatherhood has changed him?
Oh?
Yeah, absolutely, Like it's funny.
Before Otto was born, he for years and years said if I ever have a child, I am never ever going to be that parent that shows people videos and photos.
And nothing worth the photos and videos. I used to said, Jackie was filth from the Merriton.
And now almost daily I get the daily check in of what Otto has been up to on the phone. Look, look, he says, Look, he actually did turn into that guy, and he did soften.
Absolutely.
I want to see it since you're the godmother.
I didn't want it, but I laughed that you said you would never do that, and he just yeah. I think I always saw with Kyle it would go either way. He'd either be a really absent father or a really hands on sort of you know, really don't have.
Any idea what I'd be like.
If you get I worried, it's that I worried that it wouldn't be for you, because you're a stubborn person and you love your freedom. But I've been really pleasantly surprised at how much he has changed in many different ways.
Thank you, Kyle.
You talked about Jackie and all of the publicity surrounding her. You got a shock when she walked into Jackie two point.
See all the fellas in that, and you see all the pap shots of all the handsome suitors or whatever they are.
What do you make of it? Because you're talking about the seasons of your life and how you've been in different chapters of your life. You're here in the baby spam era?
Can we call it that?
Showing Jackie the videos?
I feel that Jackie missed out and a lot of sex by being married so young and dedicated you were a dedicated wife. You weren't some hoe that was getting to groove on. You did everything right. I even knew your dream was to marry a guy like Hugh Grant and have a home like a house in some movie that you saw once. Yes, and you did all of that. You made house. I did it all. Married the English guy that was like Hugh Grant, like holy funny bloat, like a low governor, got the house, got the baby, and then realized this a shit. No.
Life is just not like a movie, right right, because.
A lot of people like staying in an unhappy relationship, like I sometimes stayed for years in relationships that I should have gotten out of earlier. I think I've done this my whole life.
We do that a lot.
Give given it a try, yet run away.
You just go, oh, is it just too hard? You know? Is it too hard, especially when you've got family.
Would you get married again or are you just looking for a little bit of filthy BONDI.
I'm not looking to get married again. I just would be open to it. I don't care really what whatever happens happens. I just don't have a set thing in my mind.
Have you heard the new mantra for Jackie, whatever happens happening, I amystals in YouTube.
No, I know that has never been Carl's man, just like whatever is meant to be will come.
Yeah, it's worked out well for you.
Yeah.
Do you foresee a day then or has there been a time when you've been in the exact same season of never?
Never?
And I find that really interesting that the universe makes sure that we're never on the same trajectory.
They're both married, they're both having baby. You're right.
I think in a way we always dreaded that, Oh what if we're both just super settled family.
Like there's nothing, we got nothing left.
Yeah, I was the show ho for years and now Jackie.
Is I've taken one for the team one.
I feel there might be more than one in there.
And when we come back, do Carl and Jackie have any regrets over the most controversial moments in their time on radio? I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the professional highs and lows that you've navigated, and obviously controversy and media stormps has always been something that's been part of the Carl and Jackie Oh Show story. Is there anything that you look back on now for each of you individually. Karl, obviously, you've obviously been at a lot of the center of some of these, yes outrage things that were said on air. Do you look back now and regret any of it? In particular? Is there anything that you would do over.
There's nothing I really regret. I learned a few lessons along the way. But any of the things that were ever said, or any of the perceived scandals, a lot of them was like maybe four percent, you know, ninety percent invented or spun or twisted, or sometimes there'd be headlines for weeks and you'd think, this real story that was a problem has turned into a complete, manufactured, twisted version of what reality was. So therefore, you it's very hard to defend or argue if someone's got the complete When you're hearing, like talkback radio stations telling everyone like a demonized story of something that was true, it's sort of almost like the horse has bolted and it's too late to go, oh, that didn't really happen. It wasn't as bad as that. So but some things have been bad. They've been my personal mistakes or offended certain groups over the years, or the light detector situation, but even that light detect the situation that was all that was a very twisted version of a real story. And I was copying the shit for all of that, which was fine by me, because I was looking. I was making sure that the mum and the daughter were protected in that situation. And you know, things went askew on the air and not the way we wanted them to go. And you know, I may have said something or that might have offended or sounded inappropriate, but that wasn't the intention. And then it took on a story of its own. But me running around and crying about it, that was never going to happen. So are you just weather the storm? You know, I could have run away and said, oh, they wanted me fired. A lot of people wanted me gone, and I just said, well, the reality is you're now reacting and wanting to fire me, reacting on a news story that's not even the actual truth. So I just said, well, you know, there's no way I'm going to leave. I really haven't done anything wrong.
And I think that there's a misconception that we kind of like to invite that sort of media attention.
We plan it, so we don't don't.
We never plan it ever, And I think that that I don't know.
I think there's some people out there genuinely believe that we love that and that we are looking for that, and it honestly couldn't be further from the truth, because we actually hate it when stuff like that happens. And you know, I think it's really hard to do a show, a three hour, four hour, five hour show, every single morning for twenty three years and not put.
A foot wrong.
Like you, you say things in life that you go, oh, I shouldn't have said that.
We all do that.
We all do it.
We're all guilty of it that I have said and done, and of course you look back and go, I wish I hadn't have said that. But I think it's it's human to trip up sometimes and have you know, our judgment calls are wrong, and yeah.
We're not always right. I know that might be shocking, but.
Not yeah, you're not going to get it right every day.
So I've never even thought of it like that. Over twenty three years is four hours, five hours every.
Day your conversation was recorded.
Anyone reading this, they'd go, yeah, there's things I've said to my friend, and you know.
Even the Pope would have to admit that, So.
It's going to happen.
It's definitely. Think. Let me talk a little bit then about just the changing culture and how you let that, if at all, inform the way that you talk about things, because we talk a lot about cancel culture. And then the flip side of that, of course, which I think is a less sexy but probably legitimate conversation, which is that all of us are also growing and learning as individuals. I mean there's things that I would say ten fifteen years ago and I think I cannot believe I said that.
Yeah, an episode of Seinfeld now, but even not even Seinfeld Modern Family, watch Modern Family, which was only teen years ago. There's nothing wrong with having a laugh.
No, I know, but I'm just trying to say what was said then would not be allowed now on TV.
So it's changing very very rapidly.
You know, I saw your TV shows are sanitized, shit, woke, rubbish.
Well this is where we're going to.
It's interesting because we want to be mindful of others, and we want to be more understanding of everyone and their situation. But sometimes I think that humor, especially with comedians, look don't go if you don't want to hear it. I mean, I guess there is an audience for it still, and I would hate to see it genuinely, just all be desanitized completely.
I think cancel cultures almost canceled itself anyway, now, isn't it.
Yeah, so it would be a shame that we couldn't just do a little bit of politically and correct humor.
But I don't know.
It is hard to know where the line is sometimes, And like you say, it changes every year. Every year there's something new and you go, wow, what was okay back then is not okay now.
But I don't feel that we've we haven't really changed what we say and do I still talk about anal and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, if.
You don't like it, you can go somewhere else. I could care less. We only really do this show for people who like it. But the cancel culture in itself, I was all for molesting movie producers, finger banging actresses. They need to be wiped off the planet. But you know, someone has their feelings hurt, too bad? I say, I might get my feelings hurt about something. I don't want someone's life to be ruined or them to lose their job. You just move on with life. People are woozes, people are looking for some people looking to be outraged, and how about doing something good for your own life rather than trying to ruin someone else's. It's a waste of time. And usually they seem like there's so many of them, but when you really look into the analytics of who it is, it's usually about thirty lunatics and it feels like it's the whole world, but it's actually not the whole world. Most of us don't carry on like that with all that bullshit.
I was wondering if there was anything for you personally that might have shifted in either of your values that you would think. I don't want to say that, not because I'm worried about it and canceled, just my worldview has changed. And I will give you an example from my world for instance that Stella, we have a policy where we don't ask people, particularly women that we're interviewing, if they're planning to have a baby yeah, or if they've got a baby, you're going to have a second baby. And that's just something that we organically came to because we discovered that we were asking that all. It could be people that absolutely don't want to have children.
There could be somebody that why can't they just answer that? Why can't they say?
If you they might have been recovering from a miscarriage, or they might have been in the middle of having God as anyone.
I agree with you on that. I think it's to ask a woman when are you having a baby?
Is so insensitive these aunties You're never allowed to speak again, that's all the libo imagine.
Imagine if that woman has been trying for years and years and she can't feel pregnant, She's getting asked that all the time.
Don't you think that feels like, oh, here we go again.
Now I'm putting her in a position where she has to say she can't you know, or she has to lie.
Can you go to a best something that I might be.
If you saw a guy with would you ask Jason Deroullo did you get a penis enlargement?
You know? Like I'm pretty sure a lot of people have wondered that.
I don't know.
I think sometimes we ask the experience he does, but we it's sometimes none of our business when we ask these questions.
I disagree definitely.
And asking it is someone pregnant? Back back, we used to ask that all the time, like, oh are you pregnant?
I mean, how rude?
Like why is that rude?
What if they don't want to?
Like mention society says it's true.
If they're only they haven't announced it yet. And then as if.
They just happily tell you, yeah, I'm pregnant.
But wouldn't they tell me if they wanted to?
If this is we're imagining ourselves as journalists asking questions? What are you allowed to ask? So?
Does it have to be that binary?
Then?
So Carl, when you said.
What's that word?
When I was saying, for instance, that's a question we don't ask, he said, oh my god, we're not allowed to ask anything anymore? Does it have to be that black or white?
Yes?
Can I ask a lot of questions, but have made a decision for me individually. I don't want to ask people that anymore. So, Yeah, my question was is there anything that you've individually reconsidered?
Jackie?
You're saying you have, But Kyle, does it have to be that way that? If there's one area I don't pre planned questions.
I really only have conversations like this I don't ever have a list of questions. So it's not.
Something something that you could think of that you would have asked twenty years ago and you wouldn't ask now.
I can't think of one thing I.
Can't either actually that you wouldn't already that you wouldn't still ask, like.
I want to know, but that may offend them. Then don't do interviews. Don't do interviews, you know what I mean? These are questions that I just want to know. But I suppose they're putting themselves out for an interview they're open to these. Wouldn't walk up to someone in the street, but in this setting, yeah, I would. I would ask anything that in a respectful way. I'm not sort of mocking them or I think there's a difference in the delivery, Like if I was, like if I was sounded disparaging towards them or or mocking them in any way, that I'd have a problem hearing anyone do that, And I certainly wouldn't, but I'll definitely like de demonize that, Like ask anyone any question. We've had people in here with no arms and no legs, and I say, what happens if you're on the couch at home, you need to go the toilet. These are just questions I want to know. And the guy says he falls off the couch and rolls to the toilet. He didn't have a problem with that, but that that really happened. I just want to know things that that are interesting to me, but never never designed to offend anyone.
So for you, it's really just about curiosity and not having a filter, and that's perceived sometimes by people as you were both saying, oh, they're looking to generate controversy where really.
But it's never a pre plan that if any of these producers came in and said here is a list of questions, it would be the last day they'd work here.
I want to also ask about the blow on effect of if there's controversy surrounding somebody in your life and then other people get tangled up in that, so it'd be really specific. Would be talking Kyl about your wedding last year where you had the Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi getting all outraged because there were people like John Ibrahim, who's a good friend of yours.
Sure, all at the same wedding, that's right. I remember the headline was like Prime Minister and mafia bosses and drug dealers all at the same wedding, and I thought, where's the Oh, how wonderful did the bride? Look? Where's that headline? But it's a legitimate question because it is a weird group for people that I know, and a lot of my friends, like the ones that let's say are tarnished with the bad brush, the John's, the Simon Mainstein's, they had some of my closest friends ever. And I really respected the Prime Minister when he was asked on live TV, why would you go there with those people? And I liked his answer was, well, I wasn't in charge of the guest list, like they didn't ask give us a list and then we'll decide whether we're coming or not. So I really respected him for that, because you're right, I never go anywhere and think, oh, I want to see who's going to the logis. I want to know if there's anyone there. I don't like. That's not how we all are, and I thought it was I I really I thought I've respected the Prime Minister for the way he handled it and a lot of people. I was even driving to the wedding and I heard I was listening to the ABC, which I never do, and there was his two old flops on there going, Ah, he's damned if he doesn't. He damned if he doesn't. Oh, he'll probably last there and first to go. He'll be there for twenty minutes. He's got to go because he told the guy you'd go. And I thought, and I'm in the wedding outfit, and I thought, just a bit disheartening hearing these ABC broadcasters talking about your wedding in a disparaging way. I thought, I don't know these guys, never heard of them, They don't know me. And I thought, oh, the poor Prime minister probably does feel obliged. But the Prime Minister was there from three in the afternoon. I think he was certainly not the first to leave. He didn't leave like ten o'clock at night. It was a proper guest.
So yeah.
And when he was leaving, I was talking to the Prime Minister as he was getting into his car with Jodie, and I said, oh, these idiots on the ABC, and he has, ah, mate, love a wedding. You know. I get on well with Albow. I'm not like politically even aligned to the Labor Party. Really with my income, I should be a liberal liberal all the way. But I liked I liked the guy. I think there's a lot about liking the human being and I don't really care. And I think he's the same way. That's why he came. I think he knew there was going to be a couple of rough types there.
Oh yeah, it would have been warned that it was most likely going to happen.
Yeah, probably. And then when the bomb sniffing dogs came through half an hour before the wedding, that really threw a lot of my mates. And there they were still.
Yeah, yeah, it would have happened.
Of course, the drug dogs is like, no, that bomb sniffing.
Dog sniffing You're all good. If they pick up everything.
They trained for the bomb only one thing checked.
Why not killed two birds with one stone and make that dog do double the work.
Because the other dogs needed a living as well.
You know, I want to just talk a little bit before we wrap up about money, because Jackie, you sat down with me last year for something to talk about, and one of the things we talked about was your status as a self made fe female millionaire multimillionaire.
Sorry you doesn't like to bring that up, but I don't know.
And those quotes went everywhere.
Did they say what happened?
Well, it was a really great conversation. Was talking to Jackie about how she and Kitty had gone to the auction for the house that she bought. I could have sent somebody else, and just about the visibility of that, really of a woman just saying yes, actually I've made this money and I'm proud of it. And Jackie, you were saying.
I blow it all in a crumbling piece of shit on the ocean.
Oh you watch you watch said As a man, they'd absolutely be owning that. As a female when you're single, it's quite scary to earn a lot of money because a lot of men can be intimidated by that. Your instinct is to downplay it. But we can't be like that. We should be proud of what really hard to get. Where We've had so many high profile women quoting you back to us yea on Stella and something to talk about comes up all the time. Were you surprised by that? How's that sitting with you?
This sort of status interesting? Actually, how much I feel if've changed since then? Because yeah, because I feel like if I if the Jackie back then felt she had to downplay her worth to somebody, and that's why then, Yeah, exactly why is the question? Why would I have felt the need to downplay that. It's not that I want to boast about it, but it's kind of sad in a way that you would feel the need to squash yourself and squash your worth and what you've done you should be I should have been proud of that.
You want to be more like you want to be more like me?
No, I want to be nothing like you.
Comes to bragging, but I feel I would never come forth with the information, But I certainly wouldn't want to downplay it either, because it's something that I should really be proud of.
And yeah, I think, like to me now, the way I see it is, I wouldn't ever hide it or downplay it.
If I met someone and if they were uncomfortable with it, then they're just not the right person, because I think that says.
More about them than it does me. And and that's an easy elimination.
Then you know, if they're if they're insecure that they're gone the next and I think if they're intimidated by that, then they're going to be intimidated by other parts as well, and it probably just won't work. So it's a good way to easily eliminate early on. And I think, yeah, maybe it was a fear that I had back then that if if they knew exactly how much I was earning, it's inevitable they will feel maybe in some way to emasculated by that. And maybe a lot will, but that's okay, you know, And I wouldn't. I think it was coming from a place of fear that no one will want to be with me. But then you've got the other ones that would want to, but for all the wrong reasons. Right, do you know I haven't come across any of those really like it's it's It is the opposite. They're more more often than not, they're intimidated by it. That's all right, Like you know, there'll be a guy that won't be and he'll be secure enough in himself to be okay with that.
Fantasizing that they're out there.
They do, absolutely they.
Do, probably already married and happy living in mossments.
We probably they're probably taking the good ones are gone.
Two of you famously have pay parody equally, Yah, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that, because Kyle, I know that it's been reported that you took a really strong line. The two of you have always negotiated.
Well. It wasn't because I'm a nice person. It was because I was in shock. She was like an icon in my when I was young in radio, I was like, I just never even thought I'd be good enough to be in work in Sydney or any capital city, Melbourne, anywhere. And then when I came here, and then because I remember, I came to you and said, oh, they're giving me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Oh, you and Phil must have earned so much together, and you were like, nah, Phil learned that eye money on whatever. And I was. I was in so much shock because to me, I'd never thought about a man earns more or a woman. I never thought of it, and I just I couldn't in my own gut think that I was going to get so much more than her. But she was the one that I'd been listening to for years and wanted to emulate. So I just went to the general manager without even discussing it with Jackie, and just said I don't feel right with this, you're gonna have to fix it all up. So it's the same, I'll take less. And the general manager was a female, and I think she was so shocked that she said, they asked me to come back in half an hour, and then she said, yeah, I'm not going to take from you, but you were one hundred percent right. It needs to be an equal pay. And then yes, so I never lost anything. Thank god, that's nothing.
You wouldn't have taken a payer I wanted to.
That was the conversation with Kathy.
Oh my god.
Yeah, so yeah, Jackie didn't know that I was having that conversation.
It's still yeah, it wasn't.
Even like a big deal there. She's like, oh no, no, no, that was That's what the I think male.
Hosted a lot of that ship back then, you know.
But yeah, that talked about it all and god, I did that one right thing twenty three years. Never done anything nice since.
It's still having these days a joke, by the way.
Out earlier this year on the pay gap that still exists in the industry be up to twelve percent.
Yes, it was great.
You were really vocal about it. Would you consider yourself a feminist?
I don't know, I've never thought of it. I really respect women. I think maybe it's because my mum and I when we were younger, she left my dad and we were a bit on the run, like I'd moved from school to school to school, and I'd see Mum chain smoking in the at night in that like looking out the window, terrified. So I've always been had a really soft side, and I put it down to that. You and I've discussed this before.
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it is.
Yeah, I don't like seeing women suffer in any way, and that maybe from being a young boy more likely like some sort of childhood trauma than me being a nice guy, because I can be an asshole as well, but not not.
Like you can.
Of Yeah, it's like you're in I think the essence of you is feminist. I think you say things sometimes that are anti feminist, but then you also say them that are really pros.
I wouldn't wear cross No.
I know, not that much. You don't have to wear crosss Lesbians.
Not part of the official definition of being a feminist. I think commitment to general.
Be a feminist on the project, would they invite me on as a feminist? No, I don't know, but I do. I love women. I respect women. I never understood the difference between if someone's working in a factory putting baked beans in a box, why would the man get more? That's just ridiculous to me, It's stupid. I was even surprised that it's still a thing, because it should be just fixed a million times over.
And after the break. Is there any question I could ask Carl and Jackie that they would find offensive? The answer to that when we come back, it's just touched upon. You've caused outrage and offense over the years. In the occasional interview a person storm out of the studio. Is there anything I could have asked you today that would have offended you?
No? Nothing. I don't get offended.
I don't think so.
Do you get offended?
Very rarely.
I feel like everything that could possibly have been said or asked of me has been by him by me, desitized.
Me to yeah, I have total immunity. Hit me.
But see, my brother has got a similar sense of humor. But if he says what I say, people are like, oh, yeah, because I don't come from a nasty place like I come from a place or mischievous rather than than gronky. You know what I mean?
No one likes Yes, it is true, isn't it?
Because absolutely I would be offended at certain things that were asked of me if I didn't know the person. That's totally different. But I think when you know the person that has nothing that you could ask me that I don't think would offend me. But in the street, if I don't know you, oh yeah, there's a line, that's for sure.
And here we are back to the lines again, back to that bathroom down in Melbourne.
Yeah, I was at the Clovely Hotel the other day and this guy comes up to me and he's a huge fan of the show.
He was what she was there to watch UFC and he's like, can I get a photo?
Thanks Grandma for the unnecessary extre information.
Was I need to set the context of the type of crowd that was there? So the UFC sets the context and he asked for a selfie And then he came back like three minutes later from the bathroom and said.
Thanks so much. I just did a line off your face.
And here you are not here, you are laughing when most wold be so offending.
See what I mean?
She thought, Wow, I've never been told that before, So that goes, and that's in the book.
What did you even say in the situation?
He said to me, I know you don't do it. You say you don't do it on it, but do you want one? And I'm like, no, I actually don't do.
It, Michael Jackson. Those couldn't handle half a decent line. Did it immediately?
I don't think why you didn't snap that man.
Her feet. Absolutely, this is what I worry about her out there in the cold, hard world, all these types.
We will pick this up, shall we in six months?
Yeah, let's do it.
Yeah, we'll see how much we've grown since the last interview.
It was so quick, I'm.
Afraid I have to wrap you up.
No, I've been I've gone away. I hope you enjoyed that episode of the summer series or something to talk about. Make sure you're following us if you're not already, because we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes of the past year until we're back with the brand new episode on January twelve.
