They’re both currently reported to earn a staggering $7 million per year, but Jackie O has opened up about how she once very nearly came close to severing ties with her radio co-host Kyle Sandilands over a money dispute.
WATCH: KIISFM’s most watched video of Kyle Sandiland’s EPIC fall
Speaking on the Women of Influence podcast, Jackie – who co-hosts KIIS FM’s Kyle and Jackie O Show with the shock jock – revealed she was on the verge of quitting the duo’s show (they were working on 2Day FM’s Hot30 Countdown at the time) in the early 2000.s after bosses refused to give her a pay rise.
“There was a time early on when I didn’t know Kyle that well and we probably weren’t as much of a team as we are now in terms of negotiations,” she explained, hinting that Kyle was initially on a much bigger salary than her.
“I remember going into the bosses’ office to negotiate and they were just basically saying, ‘We could take you or leave you. You’re not getting anything else, so be happy with what you’ve got.'”
Jackie went on to explain that the decision prompted her to secretly meet with rival radio station, Nova.
“I had a meeting with them and was really close to going.”
After discovering she was meeting with other stations, 2Day FM offered her a better deal to stay with Kyle on the Hot30 Countdown.
“Wouldn’t you know it, they offered me a lot more money!” laughed Jackie.
“I look back at that moment and think, ‘Thank God I didn’t [quit].’ I didn’t know that Kyle and I were going to be working together for all this time.
“We’d only just really started working together, so we didn’t have the friendship that we developed a year or two after that.”
After five years hosting the Hot30 Countdown on 2Day FM, Kyle and Jackie moved to the breakfast slot and launched The Kyle and Jackie O Show in 2005.
In August 2013, the radio duo announced they would be moving to KIIS 106.5.
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