A high-stakes legal dispute unfolding in Australia’s radio industry has taken a sharp new turn, with parent company ARN alleging that star host Jackie O Henderson’s workplace bullying complaints against her long-time co-host Kyle Sandilands were filed in bad faith, as a strategic maneuver to exit her existing contract and secure a preferred programming timeslot. The explosive allegations are laid out in formal court documents submitted to Australia’s Federal Court by ARN, through its subsidiary CBC (Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation), which first published the details on Thursday.
Henderson, one half of the once-popular KIIS FM breakfast duo with Sandilands, has already filed a legal claim alleging she was unlawfully terminated from her multimillion-dollar role at the station, centered on her accusations that Sandilands engaged in repeated workplace bullying that violated her employment rights. But ARN’s formal defense directly contradicts this narrative, arguing that the bullying allegations are not rooted in genuine workplace harm, but in a premeditated push to renegotiate Henderson’s contract.
“Ms Henderson and Henderson Media reserved their right to make a report to SafeWork NSW was not done in good faith and for a proper purpose,” ARN stated in the publicly released court filings. The company added that the entire bullying complaint process was designed to pressure CBC into abandoning the terms of Henderson’s existing binding contract, and granting her an alternative programming daypart that the network was under no legal obligation to provide.
ARN further noted that under Australian workplace regulations, Henderson could have filed her bullying allegation while continuing to fulfill her contractual obligations to work alongside Sandilands during the investigation process. The company argues this path was never pursued because Henderson had already decided she wanted to move to a different timeslot and new show, a claim backed by a citation of an affidavit from Henderson’s own manager, Gemma O’Neill.
The public rift between the long-time co-hosts first erupted in February, when an on-air exchange between Sandilands and Henderson turned hostile. During that segment, Sandilands publicly attacked Henderson, calling her “off with the fairies” and criticizing what he called her unfocused work performance stemming from a “fixation” with astrology. “You’re off with the fairies, you’re unfocused, you don’t give a s***,” Sandilands said on air at the time.
In June, ARN finalized a separate settlement with Sandilands, details of which were made public in an official filing to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Under the terms of the agreement, Sandilands will receive a total payout of $12.09 million over the next three years, and the network will also enter a revenue-sharing partnership with the host that includes $1.5 million in allocated advertising airtime for Sandilands’ projects over the three-year term.