“The Melbourne move was catastrophic.” Ben Fordham on the Kyle & Jackie O saga

Ben Fordham has blamed the demise of KIIS duo Kyle & Jackie O on the decision to network the show to Melbourne.

The top-rating 2GB Breakfast host has offered his take on the show’s collapse in the latest episode of the Behind The Mic with Mike E podcast.

Fordham says the Melbourne move was catastrophic.

“When you’re focusing on Melbourne, that means you’re taking the eye off the ball in Sydney, and that’s probably partly why we beat them seven out of eight surveys last year.”

Before it imploded, Fordham had felt the Kyle & Jackie O Show wasn’t much fun as it used to be.

“When you throw enough cash in front of people’s faces their vision can be blurred. They can’t see what the rest of us can see.”

Of the much-publicised on-air falling out between Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O’Henderson, Fordham says “It should not have happened on air. If Kyle had said to Jackie off air, ‘Babe, your interest in astrology is driving me nuts’, I reckon Jackie probably would have said ‘Oh, right’.”

“She’s not a difficult person to work with. But it’s the way he did it. Listening to that thirteen minutes of audio, she was begging him to stop – saying ‘This isn’t fair, I would never do this to you’ – and he was already so far into it that he just steamrolled over the top of her. That’s where the mistake was made.”

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As to where the Kyle & Jackie O saga could end up, Fordham says  “Oh, it’s going to court … I mean, this will be the biggest court case of 2026. If you have a look back over recent years we’ve had Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann, Ben Roberts-Smith, Antoinette Lattouf and the ABC. This is the biggest court case of 2026. Who the players are in court I don’t know. Will it be Kyle? Will it be Jackie? Will it be both? It’s going to be fascinating to watch.”

Could they go back together?

“I think that horse has bolted as I look into my crystal ball,” says Fordham. “I can’t see it happening.”

“But then again, you just never know with something like this. I think a lot of it is going to come down to not what’s in the heart – it’s going to come down to what’s in the contract.”