Kyle Sandilands - Controversy

Controversy

In July 2004, Sandilands and Henderson were involved in an on-air verbal altercation with Jay Whalley, lead singer of rock band Frenzal Rhomb over an incident which occurred at the bassinthegrass music festival in Darwin. Henderson reportedly arrived to MC the concert nine hours late and then attempted to speak with the audience during the band's already dramatically reduced set time. Frenzal Rhomb played music over Jackie O so she could not be heard on stage. In a subsequent phone conversation with Whalley, broadcast on the Kyle and Jackie O Show, Whalley alleged that Jackie O and Sandilands threatened Frenzal Rhomb's label to have Frenzal Rhomb's songs banned from Austereo radio stations. As a result of the incident Sandilands' old friend and manager Ryan Wellington was removed as the producer of the Kyle and Jackie O Show by the Austereo network.

In July and August 2005, Sandilands was accused of "cooking the charts" by giving airplay to Ooh Aah (a song by his then girlfriend, Tamara Jaber). The allegations were made on TV current affairs program Today Tonight. In 2006 Sandilands won a defamation suit, with the court ruling that Today Tonight had defamed the radio host.

On 4 August 2006, Sandilands used his radio program to call Fiona Connolly, a columnist from Sydney's Daily Telegraph, "fat" and a "liar". After calling her the "chick that I hate at Sydney Confidential" he also stated he "... would hire a private investigator to film her and her family then I'm going to put it on a website and I'm going to show everyone what members of her family do that are dodgy ..." He has since been banned by Austereo management from mentioning Connolly on air.

In March 2007, Sandilands made an on-air reference to a police officer who had issued him a speeding ticket, referring to the officer as an "arsehole" and to the Highway Patrol as "scum". This was reported on the media watchdog show Media Watch as 'Kyle Bile'.

On 2 July 2007, Sandilands and Jackie O were involved in a on-air clash with Australian music personality Molly Meldrum, who described Sandilands as "arrogant", "fat" and "talentless".

On 20 August 2007, Media Watch examined Sandilands' on-air comments asserting that smoking was not as harmful to people as many institutions would lead people to believe and that the statistics presented by these institutions are falsified. These comments led to the Cancer Institute of New South Wales pulling their "13-QUIT" advertisements off the network. Media Watch further reported that on 20 July 2009 Jackie O and Sandilands 'cruelly' and 'sadistically' taunted a refugee from Pol Pot's Cambodia and meted out similar treatment to the woman's 19 year-old niece whilst on-air.

In 2011, he was described as a "loudmouth misogynist" after attacking a television journalist on-air.