Once upon a time, long before there was a “Kyle and Jackie O”, an 18-year-old Gold Coast girl named Jacqueline Last called up Sea FM hoping to snag some free tickets to a Guns N’ Roses concert.
The man on the other end of the line was nighttime host “Ugly” Phil O’Neil and the pair had instant chemistry, as news.com.au kindly reminded us.
Within two years, they were married and not long after that they’d moved to Sydney to co-host one of the biggest radio show’s in the country, the Hot 30 countdown.
Jacqueline Last had become Jackie “O” and Ugly Phil was a pretty big deal.
Unfortunately, the couple's marriage ended — and after five years on air together so did their professional relationship not long after.
Speaking with Rachel Corbett on her podcast You’ve Gotta Start Somewhere, Phil explained the reason he decided to move on from their show at the height of its popularity, which actually had very little to do with his ex-wife.
"[You] look back and go, 'Wow, that was fantastic, why didn’t I love that more?'" the 54-year-old said.
"There were the interstate appearances you had to make and I was working non-stop for five years for six to seven days a week."
"It became all-consuming. I was tired of doing the Hot30. I was like, 'Hey, I’m 37 years old and I’m mates with the guys from Hanson who are 15. I’m too old for this’.
“I got offered a job in London to go and work there and I just needed to get away,” he said.
It was 1999, a young Kyle Sandilands was brought in as his replacement and the rest is, as they say, Australian radio history.
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