Jackie ‘O’ Henderson reveals shock career move after opening up about her secret drug and alcohol addiction

Jackie ‘O’ Henderson has opened up about a shocking new career change after revealing her past battles with drugs and alcohol.

The 49-year-old radio host stunned listeners on Thursday when she shared harrowing details of her journey with addiction while speaking to her co-host Kyle Sandilands on their radio show.

Jackie has since revealed her dream of opening her own rehabilitation center and has already started looking for property for the facility.

In conversation with the Sydney Morning HeraldJackie shared her plans and said the center would be ideally located in a bushland environment and would be affordable for all.

The multi-millionaire broadcaster added that it has considered up to 20 hectares of bushland south-west of Sydney as a possible location for the centre.

“I can only speak about my experience because my addiction is so different from anyone else’s,” Jackie said in the candid interview.

‘But people can ask me anything they want, and that’s fine with me.

“I brought this up, I brought it out myself, so I’m okay with talking about it. I’m happy that I can be more authentic than ever before.’

Jackie also shared how she felt it was important to be open about her past addiction and turn her back on feelings of shame.

‘Who cares if someone judges me? “I’m tired of burying the parts of me that aren’t perfect in everyone’s eyes,” she said.

It comes after the svelte beauty shared her personal story of addiction with listeners on the Kyle and Jackie O Show this week.

Fighting back tears, Jackie shared that she checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in California in November 2022 when she took an extended break from The Kyle and Jackie O Show that she previously claimed was due to long Covid-19 -period.

And now the shock jock has spoken out about her dream of starting her own rehabilitation center. She shared details of her plans in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday

Betty Ford is known for treating Hollywood stars like Keith Urban, Robert Downey Jr. and Lindsay Lohan and charges between $45,000 and $90,000 AUD for a one-month stay, depending on the program.

Jackie revealed on air that her old friend Gemma had been instrumental in getting Jackie into rehab.

Jackie emotionally credited Gemma with saving her life by convincing her to go to the Betty Ford Clinic.

She recalled, “It came to a head and [Gemma] was such a great friend. She said, ‘I’m sorry Jackie, but you’re not going to cut this off, it’s never going to work. I’ll let you go to rehab at the end of the week and then we’ll go.”

“I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, that kind of Gemma is so over the top. I don’t have that big of a problem that I have to go to Betty Ford.”

“And she said no, we’ll go and we’ll do it and I thank God she did,” Jackie admitted.

“Thank God there was someone like her because I believe she saved my life.”

She said they took an overnight flight from Australia and boarded at the ‘last minute’ to avoid being seen, then flew to LA where Gemma stayed with her for two days before checking into the Betty Ford Clinic .

She said Gemma accompanied her to LA and helped her board the plane ‘unnoticed’ as she discussed keeping her addiction a secret for two ‘long and painful years’.

Jackie said she was looking for a bush property for her uncompleted rehabilitation center, which she hoped would be affordable and accessible to all.

At the time, Kyle – who was unaware of Jackie’s drug addiction – told their listeners that Jackie was taking a break to “focus on her health” after contracting Covid.

Instead, she was secretly flown from Australia to undergo 28 days of treatment at the world-famous drug rehabilitation center for an addiction to painkillers, sleeping pills and alcohol.

At the height of her addiction, Jackie was taking approximately 10-12 Stilnox/Zolpidem sleeping pills and 24 Panadeine Forte per day and taking these while drinking alcohol.

Stilnox users are warned not to drink alcohol as it can slow down the airways and make it difficult to wake up.

Jackie said Betty Ford told her not to change “anything” about her use before she arrived because it could be “dangerous,” so she still took the pills the day she flew to the US.

Jackie also said she went “back and forth” on deciding whether to share the news publicly before detailing the extent of her addiction in her upcoming memoir The Whole Truth, scheduled for release on October 29.