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"That's screwed up." Why everyone is talking about Kyle and Jackie O's 60 Minutes' interview.

 

For days, 60 Minutes promoted its exclusive interview with KIIS FM radio hosts, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, as the time Sandilands would open up about a health condition.

In the show’s preview, Sandilands, 48, was teary-eyed when he looked at Henderson, 45, and told her he’d been hiding a medical condition for some time.

“I love you and it’s been wonderful,” he said.

The 60 Minutes preview shows an emotional Kyle and Jackie O. Post continues below video.

The preview then cut to interviewer Karl Stefanovic pointing out that Sandilands is crying.

“Why?” Henderson asked.

“There’s a condition that I’ve been diagnosed with that I haven’t spoken to anyone about,” Sandilands said, with the camera then showing Henderson wipe tears from her eyes.

The preview ended there, but Sandilands confirmed the moment was a prank during the full interview on Sunday night, leaving Henderson – and viewers – fuming.

"Are you joking?" Henderson asked during the show, with Sandilands responding "yeah".

"You had me - you so had me," Henderson said. "That was really cruel - a*sehole."

The prank was slammed as false advertising from viewers.

 

On Monday morning, Sandilands acknowledged the segment on air during The Kyle and Jackie O Show, saying his joke was his way of addressing his mental health.

"I don't have anything [physically wrong] that I know of... but there is something wrong, but it's not a medical thing," he said.

"The honest truth as to why I was so able to cry, like all that breakdown stuff so easy, was because inside I'm very sad.

"I'm not joking. Inside my person, I'm very sad," he said, choking up.

Henderson too got emotional, telling him he was going to make her cry.

Sandilands said the joke during the 60 Minutes interview was not the "right forum", but said his tears were genuine.

"It was real emotion... there is a great sadness in me that I just carry around. Every day."

He said he felt "very alone even though I'm constantly surrounded by people".

"You're not alone, though, that's the thing. Remember that," Henderson told him. "I reach out to you all the time, and I know a lot of the time you don't want it and you do put up this guard and you don't want people to see that side of you, but you can.

"You do have support. You do have real people in your life that care for you."

Sandilands did discuss his physical health at a different point in the 60 Minutes segment, telling Stefanovic his blood pressure was so high he could die "at any stage at any time day or night".

"Two weeks ago I had [my blood pressure] machine on and the blood pressure was good for the first time in 15 years," he said.

"That's when I got all emotional I started to well up, and nearly cried... because I thought 'Oh, maybe my pressure is under control. Maybe I won't just die one day'."

During the interview, the radio hosts spoke about the success of their 20-year partnership - as well as the scandals that have followed them everywhere.

In 2009, the duo put a 14-year-old listener on a lie-detector test on air and got her mother to quiz her about her sex life, which led to the teen saying she had been raped when she was 12.

"There's no way I would do that now. If someone suggested that as a segment, I would know, no, we're not putting a young girl on a lie-detector test," Henderson said.

She admitted "staying at number one is harder than getting to number one".

Typically, Sandilands responded to say he "doesn't give a f**k".

"Millions of dollars of marketing has been spent on me being a bastard," he laughed, describing Henderson as the "yin to my yang".

"I feel like I always have to talk over him to try and stop him from going a place where sometimes he doesn't get that if you go there, this is going to become a thing," Henderson said.

Feature image: 60 Minutes.

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Top Comments

david s 4 years ago 3 upvotes
Actually, this is very much "on brand" for the sort of "journalism" that 60 Minutes have been doing for some time now. It's why people go to the ABC if they actually want investigative journalism rather than any of the commercial networks.
rush 4 years ago 5 upvotes
@david s back in the day, it was a proper news show. George Negus, Ray Martin, Jana Wendt, Richard Carleton... proper journalists. This fake-out does not surprise me at all, it's sad to see how far they've gone downhill. 
fightofyourlife 4 years ago
@david s Exactly what I was thinking. I'm surprised anyone was surprised. Who looks to 60 Minutes for actual journalism these days?