Jackie ‘O’ Henderson has revealed the shocking extent of her drug and alcohol addiction in surfaced footage taken just before her rehabilitation stint.
Footage of the 49-year-old radio star, who checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in 2022 for drug and alcohol addiction, shows her sitting in the gutter of a parking lot outside the admissions office as she smokes her last cigarette while awaiting Covid results -test.
Another image shows Jackie flying business class as she travels “incognito en route to California and rehabilitation.”
The never-before-seen photos have been revealed in her new memoir, The Whole Truth, which details the radio star’s extensive drug use.
In the memoir, Jackie explains that she began taking “codeine pills with a glass of wine” in an attempt to escape reality.
“It was informal at first, until it wasn’t anymore. “Honestly, while over the years when times got tough I would go to the pharmacy and grab some Nurofen Plus to take the edge off, now things were different,” she writes.
‘To experience any kind of high, I had to take about ten Nurofen Plus tablets at a time for years. Now that I was deeper in my addiction, I was taking that much three or four times a day.’
Jackie admitted that her addiction began to take a turn after her divorce from Lee Henderson, whom she married from 2003 to 2018.
Shocking footage shows Jackie ‘O’ Henderson sitting in the gutter of a parking lot outside the Betty Ford Clinic in California as she smokes her last cigarette before being admitted
The divorce meant she spent less time with daughter Kitty, now 13, causing her to suffer excruciating periods of grief and loss.
‘In an attempt to cope with the loneliness and guilt I felt, I made another bad decision. I started taking sleeping pills – Stilnox – on the days I was alone, as a way to numb the loneliness,” she continues.
“It was a cowardly way to deal with my pain and find comfort in what was slowly becoming an addiction.”
At the time, in 2018, the Australian government began a crackdown on the purchase of over-the-counter painkillers, putting an end to the purchase of codeine without a prescription.
Another image shows Jackie flying business class as she travels “incognito en route to California and rehabilitation.”
Jackie shares the room she stayed in, where she went through “remarkable” recordings
It wasn’t long before Jackie got her hands on a ‘stronger codeine painkiller’, Panadeine Forte, through a contact and started ‘taking fewer tablets for the same high’.
The former Masked Singer judge began tapering off her use on the days she was due to have her daughter, but her body had already become dependent on the drugs.
“If I went a few hours without it, my hands would start shaking and shaking. I started getting chills and stomach cramps, and nausea and diarrhea came on much faster than you would think,” says Jackie.
“If I didn’t want to feel dizzy and faint, I needed something to get me through it.”
Elsewhere in her memoir, Jackie describes the great lengths she would go to to hide her addiction from friends and explained how she would hide and throw away the empty pill packets she kept in her home.
Jackie admitted her addiction started to take a turn after her divorce from Lee Henderson, who she married in 2003 before splitting in 2018. Pictured together in 2007
“I didn’t want to put them in a bin… I kept them all in a white plastic bag, and after two weeks I threw my shame in a random bin on the way to work,” she adds.
The media star went on to talk about her rapid weight gain during the peak of her addiction, which she said was caused by drinking “a bottle of wine” or a gin and tonic while taking Stilnox and then ordering UberEats “every day.” day’ during Covid.
By the end of 2022, Jackie was taking a pack of Panadeine Forte every day – ‘six pills at a time, four times a day’ – and a whole pack of Stilnox, which contained ten tablets per pack.
One Sunday morning, when Jackie woke up with the remains of her UberEats order from the night before on the floor next to her bed, along with a half-empty glass of gin and tonic and cigarettes in an ashtray, her supplier called to tell her that she was ‘arrested’ and could no longer provide her with painkillers.
She confided in her best friend, Gemma O’Neill, who quickly checked Jackie into the Betty Ford Clinic, a two-hour drive from Los Angeles.
Jackie announced her break from the Kyle & Jackie show before she and Gemma flew to California together, with the radio host wearing a cap, glasses and face mask to conceal her identity for the long-haul flight.
Jackie describes her detox experience in the clinic and the withdrawal symptoms she felt during the first week of rehabilitation.
‘I wasn’t vomiting or shaking, but for over ten days I experienced some noticeable aftershocks. A skin-crawling fear. A shaking discomfort. A restless confusion,” she writes.
When Jackie took a break from the show in 2022, her co-host Kyle Sandilands told listeners she was taking a step back to “focus on her health” after contracting COVID-19.
The Whole Truth by Jackie ‘O’ Henderson is available now in stores and online
Jackie admitted that she was ashamed of her secret, fearing public judgement, and decided to seek help after hitting rock bottom.
She also revealed that she had asked her daughter Kitty for permission to share her story publicly and praised her for treating her with “compassion.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of my daughter, the way she has thought about it is without judgement, just compassionate and supportive,” Jackie said.
Jackie said she wanted to speak publicly about her addiction struggles to reduce and “normalize” the “stigma” surrounding drug addiction.
The presenter apologized to listeners for not disclosing her health problems sooner and revealed she will be celebrating two years of sobriety in just a few weeks.
“I want to apologize to our listeners and everyone in my life […] I had to focus on that part first, that recovery,” she said.
The Whole Truth by Jackie ‘O’ Henderson is available now in stores and online.