In a rare candid moment, Kyle Sandilands told his listeners that his father had died over the weekend as a result of liver and bowel cancer.
The radio presenter had just landed in Australia following a work trip to Paris, when his step mother broke the news to him over phone.
“I said to him don’t you die while I’m away, that would be terrible. It would ruin the trip,” Sandilands joked. “He was suffering greatly.”
Tearing up, he told his co-host Jackie O that he was glad he had patched things up with his father before his death after a decade of estrangement.
“We had a great relationship at the end there,” he said. “But it’s the regret of like 10 years in the middle somewhere, where it was a bit forced. He was trying to get us back and I was pretending everything was alright but it was a messy 10 years.
“I think everyone has a regret of some kind when they lose a parent,” Jackie counselled, before introducing a short clip of the times Sandilands’ dad had called into their program.
“You can’t wrap up your father’s life in a radio segment,” he concluded. “I love you dad wherever you are.”
You can listen to the segment in full here:
Top Comments
I'm very sorry for your loss Kyle. I do hope you reflect on how many others experience similar grief. I hope you choose to make the most of your profile to try to help others to try to lesson the suffering of others. It doesn't need to be large sums of money, there are so many opportunities for people to help others, some don't cost anything but can mean so much. I was on the same flight as you into Sydney and witnessed the attention seeking of your partner pretending to not want paparazzi attention...but clearly one of your people had told the media your flight details to attract the attention....you were probably disappointed by only 1 photographer. I really can't understand your choices when you have an amazing opportunity to take advantage of your profile to help so many people. I guess the small, humble opportunities to help don't attract the media attention. The people the photographer should have been wanting to celebrate are the doctors who are doing everything they can to help people with awful diseases such as cancer. They are the people who make significant differences to people's lives...but I guess they are not the people who attract ratings and advertising money