Jackie ‘O’ Henderson has opened up about her negative relationship with food and her battle with binge eating, revealing the insane amount she consumes every day.
In her memoir, The Whole Truth, the 49-year-old radio star revealed that she has always had trouble eating and has tried every diet, including the lemon detox and keto.
But during the times when she wasn’t dieting, Jackie said she found herself ‘bingeing all weekend’, insisting her healthy habits would ‘start on Monday’.
“I have never had a clinical eating disorder, but I have always had a very unhealthy relationship with the way I view food,” she writes.
Jackie says that growing up, she would set her alarm at 5 a.m. every morning and make toast with white bread lathered with “peanut butter and butter (double the butter!), or butter and cinnamon sugar.”
During her marriage to now ex-husband Lee Henderson, Jackie’s diet once consisted of “burgers, hot chips and pizza,” and one night she drank an entire jar of Nutella and a glass of champagne for dinner.
She highlights the “vulnerable” moment when Lee would point out her weight gain and how it has stuck with her to this day.
‘I remember I was changing in the walk-in wardrobe, where I stood naked and vulnerable, and Lee walked past and I saw him looking at me in the mirror with an expression of contempt or disgust. I’ll never forget that look. Sometimes he put his arm around me and grabbed a spare tire. “Look!” he said jokingly, but I wondered if that was really the case.
Jackie ‘O’ Henderson has opened up about her negative relationship with food and her battle with binge eating, revealing the insane amount she consumes every day. Pictured: Jackie at the ACRAs in 2022 (left) and the following year (right)
It got to the point where Lee suggested I have a full body scan ‘because he thought I was obese’.
“I went to get one… and I wasn’t obese,” she continues. ‘But I was overweight. I was probably just eating my feelings, and my palette was indiscriminate.”
Later in her memoir, Jackie explained that her recent weight loss came down to strict diet and exercise after overcoming her addiction struggles with drugs and alcohol.
“Of course, after three years of sitting in a lounge and eating copious amounts of fast food, alcohol and tranquilizers that slow the metabolism, the body will go into shock and shed the pounds when that stops,” she writes.
‘There were rumors going around that I was taking Ozempic because I must definitely be on the miracle weight loss drug to have had such a dramatic transformation.’
Jackie’s weight gain reached the point where her now ex-husband Lee Henderson (left) suggested she undergo a full body scan ‘because he thought I was obese’. Pictured in 2004
It comes as Jackie revealed the shocking extent of her drug and alcohol addiction in footage taken just before her rehabilitation stint.
Photos of the star, who checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in 2022 for drug and alcohol addiction, show her smoking her last cigarette while awaiting the results of a Covid test.
In the photo, Jackie’s Chanel handbag lies face down next to her as she lights the cigarette while sitting in the gutter of a parking lot outside the admissions office.
Another image shows Jackie flying business class as she travels “incognito en route to California and rehabilitation.”
The never-before-seen photos have been revealed in her new memoir, which details the radio star’s extensive drug use.
In the memoir, Jackie explains that she began taking “codeine pills with a glass of wine” in an attempt to escape reality.
“It was informal at first, until it wasn’t anymore. “Honestly, while over the years when times got tough I would go to the pharmacy and grab some Nurofen Plus to take the edge off, now things were different,” she writes.
‘To experience any kind of high, I had to take about ten Nurofen Plus tablets at a time for years. Now that I was deeper in my addiction, I was taking that much three or four times a day.’
Jackie admitted that her addiction began to take a turn after her divorce from Lee Henderson, whom she married from 2003 to 2018.
Jackie’s diet once consisted of “burgers, hot fries and pizza,” and one night she consumed an entire jar of Nutella and a glass of champagne for dinner
Never-before-seen photos have been revealed in her new memoir, which details the radio star’s extensive drug use
The divorce meant she spent less time with daughter Kitty, now 13, causing her to suffer excruciating periods of grief and loss.
‘In an attempt to cope with the loneliness and guilt I felt, I made another bad decision. I started taking sleeping pills – Stilnox – on the days I was alone, as a way to numb the loneliness,” she continues.
“It was a cowardly way to deal with my pain and find comfort in what was slowly becoming an addiction.”
Describing the lengths she would go to hide her addiction from friends, Jackie explained how she would hide and throw away the empty pill packets she kept in her home.
“I didn’t want to put them in a bin… I kept them all in a white plastic bag, and after two weeks I threw my shame in a random bin on the way to work,” she adds.
Photos from the book show Jackie smoking her last cigarette as she awaits the results of a Covid test before heading to rehab
The media star went on to talk about her rapid weight gain during the peak of her addiction, which she said was caused by drinking “a bottle of wine” or a gin and tonic while taking Stilnox and then ordering UberEats “every day.” day’ during Covid.
When Jackie took a break from the show in 2022, her co-host Kyle Sandilands told listeners she was taking a step back to “focus on her health” after contracting COVID-19.
But instead, she went to the Betty Ford Clinic to battle her addiction.
Jackie admitted that she was ashamed of her secret, fearing public judgement, and decided to seek help after hitting rock bottom.
She also revealed that she had asked her daughter Kitty for permission to share her story publicly and praised her for treating her with “compassion.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of my daughter, the way she has thought about it is without judgement, just compassionate and supportive,” Jackie said.
Jackie said she wanted to speak publicly about her addiction struggles to reduce and “normalize” the “stigma” surrounding drug addiction.
The presenter apologized to listeners for not disclosing her health problems sooner and revealed she will be celebrating two years of sobriety in just a few weeks.
“I want to apologize to our listeners and everyone in my life […] I had to focus on that part first, that recovery,” she said.
The Whole Truth by Jackie ‘O’ Henderson is available now in stores and online.
