Australian radio star Jackie “O” Henderson has two things many people aspire to — wealth and celebrity — but admits there are times she has felt “lonely” since splitting from her husband in 2018.
The Kyle & Jackie O Show co-host has been single since going separate ways from her ex, Lee Henderson, with whom she has a 12-year-old daughter, Kitty.
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Since her divorce, rumours have swirled about relationships with others — from 29-year-old tradie and model Jake Tyerman to Bondi Vet, Dr Chris Brown — but she is yet to find the right person.
Speaking at a book launch in Sydney on Thursday night, the 49-year-old admitted that in the past she had been “desperate” to find love.
“I just really want to find someone. I can’t find him, and I’m sort of a bit lost at the moment,” she said at the launch of former Bachelorette star Luke McLeod’s new book, Everyday Enlightenment.
“I have a lot of love to give (and) I want that affection, that company.
“It just feels like there’s something missing in my life.”
Henderson and McLeod are good friends, so much so that the latter gave Henderson some blunt advice last year during a lunch catch-up, telling her she was giving off “desperate” energy.
“I said (to him), ‘How am I meant to change what I want and need?’,” she recalled.
“I feel like I need (love) in my life and I really want that.
“I just can’t switch that off.”
But since that conversation with McLeod, Henderson said she has learned to enjoy her singledom, adding that she felt grateful for the “blessings” she already had.
“I’m at a place where I’ve almost gone the other way,” she said.
“I’m so happy being single and not looking for someone because I’m genuinely happy with my life.”
Henderson shot down the rumours about Tyerman, after the pair were pictured on the balcony of her home having a glass of wine together.
“No, Jack is not my boyfriend,” she told Kyle Sandilands during their radio show.
“We’re not in a relationship.
“He is not my boy toy.”
She has been candid about her dating in the past, talking about her experience with the dating app Hinge and her worries that men might be put off by her wealth.
“I can’t go out all the time. I don’t want to do that. This is just easier,” she said of using a dating app.
“I want to have some fun. I want to go out on a date here and there.”
As for her wealth — late last year, she and Sandilands signed a lucrative 10-year radio deal with Australian Radio Network — Henderson admitted some men still found it challenging that she earned more than they did.
“I should be proud of the money I earn,” she told Mia Freedman on the No Filter podcast last year.
“Maybe it’s just the way I was brought up. I don’t want to gloat.
“Money is so great on the one hand because it gives you this beautiful, comfortable life, and you don’t have those worries or pressures.
“And on the other hand, sometimes you just want to be rid of it as well, because it changes dynamics.
“I think some men can be comfortable with it, but I think that can be hard to find.”
Henderson said she had to be “wary” about dating because of her wealth, adding that many men still believed they needed to be the breadwinner in a relationship.
“I feel that men still have it ingrained in them,” she said.
“They could say, ‘Oh, I don’t care. I’m comfortable. I’m OK with the woman earning the money’.
“But there is something innately within them. That they have to be the provider and if they don’t, there’s some sort of inadequacy they have as a result of it internally.
“It’s tricky because you sometimes feel you don’t want to live the life that you’re used to living because you’re trying to downplay it, to equalise it.”
The radio star added that younger men were more likely to be OK with her earning more money.
“I do think younger men are definitely more comfortable with it,” she said.
“They’ve grown up around women and mothers who work for a living, and it’s very different now.
“And I think that they’re a lot more comfortable and confident with that.
“But I think that for the older generation — ones probably in my age group — it’s more difficult.”
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