‘You may get your wish: I may be dead’: Sandilands to undergo surgery for brain aneurysm
Kyle Sandilands has revealed on air that he will undergo surgery for a brain aneurysm, telling listeners that “a life of cocaine abuse and partying are not the way to go”.
Sandilands was absent from Friday morning’s program, revealing the reason on Monday morning’s show.
“I was told by my medical team – which sounds like I’m already very sick, to have a medical team – that I have a brain aneurysm, and it requires immediate attention, brain surgery,” he told listeners.
Sandiland said he had suffered a series of debilitating headaches, which forced him to seek treatment.
“So, if you just tuned in to us after all these years, lap it up,” he joked. “And if you’re in Melbourne, you’re coming to the party too late. You may get your wish. I may be dead.”
Never one to miss a good opportunity for theatre, Sandilands brought his brain scan in to show his co-host, Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, pointing out the aneurysm, and declaring: “If that bursts, I die instantly.”
Sandilands said the news has understandably taken a toll on his family, saying of his wife, Tegan Kynaston: “Every time I look at her, her eyes well up with tears. She is already counting down the days.”
The radio star said he is expected to be off air for eight weeks, which will no doubt impact ARN’s plans to focus attention on the stubborn Melbourne breakfast market, of which Kyle and Jackie O were only able to capture 5% of listenership during the final radio survey of 2024 – making it the eighth-most listened to breakfast show in the city.
Kyle & Jackie O
ARN’s former chief content officer Duncan Campbell told Mumbrella late last year that Sandilands had agreed to tone down the “graphic sexual content”, as Campbell put it, in order to win over an uninterested Melbourne radio audience.
“We know it’s a longer game now and a longer battle, if you like,” Campbell said. “We’re preparing to reset and help change perceptions next year with more marketing.”
Campbell said the network believes, “with the removal of the graphic sexual content, the show’s much, much easier to listen”, while admitting it “takes time to change perceptions, obviously”.
The fact Sandilands agreed to tone down the content of the show is telling of his ambition for the city.
“I mean, he wants to win in Melbourne,” Campbell confirmed. “There’s no doubt about that.”
The show had planned a number of Melbourne-based broadcasts in the first quarter of 2025, in order to win over skeptical audiences, but with Sandilands out for at least eight weeks – a timeline that is as tentative as any major surgery schedule tends to be – any Victorian victory may have to be put on the back burner for now.
Luckily, with a ten-year contract, there’s plenty of time – and 200 million reasons – for ARN and KIIS to turn things around in Melbourne.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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I don’t wish bad things on anyone, but do we believe him after all the years of lies and pranks on others ?
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This may, or may not be a shining example of the boy/man who cried wolf!! Could this be the greatest radio prank ever? I hope not. Hope he recovers and this gives him some life perspective that makes him a better name. But I doubt it.
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If it needs immediate attention, why isn’t it being operated on then and there?
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