Karl Stefanovic hits back at claims Kyle Sandilands health battle interview on 60 Minutes was ‘fake’

Karl Stefanovic has denied 60 Minutes misled viewers by claiming Kyle Sandilands would reveal a secret health problem in a heavily-promoted exclusive interview.

A teary Sandilands said during the interview with Stefanovic aired on Sunday night he had a major health condition to disclose, before then claiming it was all a joke.

The segment led to accusations Channel Nine allowed viewers to falsely believe Sandilands was suffering from a previously unknown complaint.

But Stefanovic told Daily Mail Australia the 48-year-old KIIS FM star did disclose a serious heart problem which could kill him at any time.

‘I don’t think that there was any fabrication of the story,’ he said. ‘I don’t think there was any fake promo. I don’t think 60 Minutes did anything wrong at all.’ 

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Sandilands claimed on Monday morning his real health problem was not physical and that he suffered constant feelings of sadness and loneliness.

He said 60 Minutes had not been the right forum to address his mental health issues  but insisted he had not faked his tears during the television interview. 

‘The honest truth as to why I was so able to cry… was because inside I’m very sad,’ he said. ‘I’m not joking. Inside my person, I’m very sad.

‘Yeah, so I had to make up something was wrong, as a joke. It was real emotion… there is a great sadness in me that I just carry around, every day.’

Stefanovic denied a claim by Sandilands he had missed a ‘scoop’ about the radio presenter’s mental health. 

’60 Minutes did not miss anything,’ Stefanovic responded. ‘We had said all the way along through that story that he had huge problems with his health.’ 

Stefanovic spent about three days with Sandilands in Los Angeles and two days in Sydney for the story, which took six months to produce due to COVID-19. 

He believed Sandilands, who is overweight and smokes, had simply baulked during the interview when confronted again about his physical health. 

‘He was obviously becoming emotional about his health and then pulled the pin on it because he didn’t want to go anywhere with it,’ Stefanovic said.

‘People are saying the big announcement about his health was a fail, when all through the story he said his blood pressure could lead to his death at any time.

‘His own doctor said that he could die at any time, so I don’t know how people get the idea that we didn’t have the story. The story was there.’

Stefanovic said it was Sandilands’s choice to talk about his mental health issues rather than his heart condition on Monday morning. 

‘He opted out of telling it last night,’ Stefanovic said. ‘He didn’t want to do it on TV, he wanted to do it with his audience, and that’s his prerogative. 

‘We knew there was something bigger there but he wasn’t going to tell it. That’s fine. That’s up to him.’ 

Sandilands ribbed Stefanovic on radio when he spoke to him on Monday saying ‘this is the scoop you missed out on, it’ll probably cost you some sort of journalistic award.’

Stefanovic then accused Sandilands of ‘tomfoolery’ to cover up the real reason he had cried. 

In a preview for the interview, Sandilands’ co-host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson had tears in her eyes as Sandilands told her he had been keeping secret a ‘diagnosis’ for some time.  

But when the full interview aired on Sunday night Sandilands confirmed his big news was a wind-up – prompting a furious response from viewers who accused Channel Nine of ‘false advertising’.

‘I love you and it’s been wonderful,’ Sandilands said to Henderson in advertising promotions aired all last week.

‘[But] there’s a condition I’ve been diagnosed with I haven’t spoken to anyone about.’ 

In the full version of the segment Henderson asked Sandilands if he was joking and he answered wryly, ‘Yeah’.

‘You had me – you so had me,’ Henderson replied. ‘That was really cruel – a***hole.’

Stefanovic told Daily Mail Australia there was nothing misleading about the promotion when Sandilands had in fact revealed the extent of his heart problems.  

‘It was just that we didn’t see the whole story unfold and that’s what made it interesting,’ he said. 

‘I think that he was going to reveal that he had heart problems but then he checked himself because it’s part of his make-up that he’s not going to reveal himself emotionally. 

‘And so when he did he got s***-scared and went, “You know what, I can’t do that”, so he shut down again. 

‘But he can do it on radio because that’s his home and that’s his audience. And that’s fine. It doesn’t worry me.’

Stefanovic described Sandilands seemingly turning his health issues into a joke as ‘legitimate moment’.

‘That was a piece of him that we saw,’ he said. ‘That was the the real Kyle and what’s come of it is up to Kyle. 

‘There’s been lots of people saying stuff online but you have to look at the story. People need to look at it and see his blood pressure was through the roof. 

‘He’s almost dead and people noticed also how red he was in the face when he was doing the interview. He’s got some significant health problems.’

Stefanovic said he was more concerned with Sandilands getting help than online criticism of the interview or its promotion.  

‘Hopefully as a result of this yarn he’ll get something done,’ he said. ‘My takeout of it is that as long as he gets some help I don’t care what people say. 

‘People got a glimpse of Kyle Sandilands like they’ve never had before. So good luck to him.’

The way 60 Minutes promoted the Sandilands story drew the ire of former senator and commentator Derryn Hinch, who said serious illnesses were no laughing matter.

‘Anybody who has ever been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and had to tell loved ones, would not appreciate Kyle Sandilands’ “joke” tonight,’ he wrote on Twitter.

Entertainment reporter Peter Ford said 60 Minutes had gone ‘off brand’ by promoting Sanidlands’ prank as an emotionally charged tell-all interview with the radio shock jock.  

‘One thing for to pull a prank about a life threatening illness. That’s on brand. Different thing for to use it in a promo knowing they wouldn’t be delivering. That’s off brand,’ he wrote.

‘You advertise all week about a poignant moment and a deadly diagnosis all week only for it to be a joke. False advertising Channel Nine,’ another viewer said.

A similar tweet read: ‘That pathetic, insensitive piece Karl did for 60 Minutes on Kyle Sandilands stunk of a desperate bid to regain relevance. 

‘It failed miserably and will only serve to see Today fall even further behind Sunrise. It’s time for Stefanovic to ride off into the sunset.’

Sandilands was open in the program about his blood pressure being so high his death could come ‘at any moment’.

‘I could die – that means at any stage at any time day or night,’ he told Stefanovic.

The radio host showed the presenter how his home blood pressure machine could not even give a reading because his pressure was so high.  

He said there had been signs of improvement – with one recent promising reading almost reducing him to tears.

‘Two weeks ago I had the machine on and the blood pressure was good for the first time in 15 years,’ Sandilands said.    

‘That’s when I got all emotional I started to well up, and nearly cried because I thought “Oh, maybe my pressure is under control. Maybe I won’t just die one day.”‘  

In a demonstration of his blood pressure device, Sandilands showed how his blood pressure was 292 over 94 – when a healthy reading should be 120 over 80. 

Sandilands and Henderson also addressed the more hair-raising moments of their KIIS FM partnership.

The radio duo discussed a 2009 lie detector controversy when they were pulled from the airwaves after a 14-year-old girl revealed on-air she had been raped at the age of 12.

‘There’s no way I would do that now. If someone suggested that as a segment, I would know, no, we’re not putting a young girl on a lie-detector test,’ Henderson said.

‘I’m always worried you’re going to say something that will one day just ruin you,’ she told her long-term co-host.

‘I feel like I always have to talk over him to try and stop him from going a place where sometimes he doesn’t get that if you go there, this is going to become a thing.’ 

The duo have been working together for almost 20 years, and dominate the airways as Australia’s number one FM breakfast show. 

Other parts of the interview reflected on the time they’ve spent getting to the top – and just how hard it is to maintain their status.

‘I’m always worried you’re going to say something and it’ll just ruin you,’ Henderson told Sandilands. ‘Staying at number one is harder than getting to number one.’

In response, Sandilands said he ‘doesn’t give a f**k’ – an ethos his management and network bosses have capitalised on throughout his career.

‘Millions of dollars of marketing has been spent on me being a bastard,’ he laughed, while describing Henderson as the ‘yin to my yang’.

After living rough on the streets as a child and decades of mistreating his body, Sandilands revealed last year he had started taking better care of himself on doctors’ orders.  

In October 2019, he told The Daily Telegraph he was eating healthier, and had stopped drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and taking drugs. 

‘Now, if I did one line, I’d be dead in five seconds,’ he said at the time.

He added: ‘I was like a teenage boy my entire life, and that caught up with me… so that had to get sorted out.’

He had taken cocaine and marijuana ‘on and off’ over the years, before deciding to completely cut them out of his life – as well as alcohol and sugary junk food. 

‘I’ve still got high blood pressure and I’m still on medication like a mess,’ he added. 

On May 1, Sandilands weighed himself on air and revealed he tipped the scales at 146kg – sixteen kilograms heavier than the last time he’d weighed himself.

‘Yep, I’ve gone up a bit!’ he said. ‘I’ve gone from 130kg to 146kg… I haven’t done a s**t yet, mind you.’ 

He went on to say that he couldn’t ‘care less’ about the massive weight gain.

It comes after the 48-year-old was forced to deny reports in August 2018 he had ‘gone missing’ after failing to show up for work for several days in a row. 

‘Stop looking, I’m not missing,’ Kyle said on air. ‘Apparently I was missing for days. We all know I was just sick.’ 

He did not specify what his health problem was. 

His regular fill-in host, Beau Ryan, had said earlier that week he didn’t know anything about Kyle’s illness. 

Back in 2017 meanwhile, Sandilands was warned by a psychic he was ‘going to die of a heart attack’ the following year. 

While the psychic didn’t specify his death would be weight related, she did warn him to get a calcium score test done on his heart.

A calcium score test measures the calcium in your arteries to determine the risk of a heart attack or stroke. 

In 2014, obesity specialist Dr Edward Jackowski warned that Sandilands would die young because of his weight and lifestyle.

Before his recent weight gain, Sandilands had been trying to shed the kilos.

Last June, he told Daily Mail Australia that he had dropped ‘three belt sizes’ in the span of 12 months.

‘I’m eating healthy and dropping off weight, but it’s a slow process,’ he said.

‘I’ve lost three belt sizes and people I haven’t seen for ages are surprised when they see me, they all tell me I’ve lost weight.’

Sandilands said he had started exercising and was enjoying the benefits of a healthy meal delivery plan.

He also stopped some of his worst habits, such as drinking ‘two litres of Coca-Cola and two litres of milk every day’.

‘I was eating s**t before and I’m so stubborn that I never wanted to listen when people told me to get in shape,’ he explained.

‘I was grossly overweight and it was making me sick. My health is so much better now.’