Shock jock Kyle Sandilands says he will fight his employer in court after it tore up his multimillion-dollar contract following an on-air bust-up with his co-host.
Sandilands confirmed KIIS FM parent company ARN had terminated his contract on Wednesday morning.
“I don’t accept it. My lawyers told them last week this would be invalid. And guess what? It is," he said in a statement.
“Let me tell you what actually happened here. Jackie and I had a blue on air. That’s it. The kind of thing we’ve done a hundred times in 25 years. And ARN took the situation and decided to try and burn the place down.
"They sacked Jackie. They suspended me. They wouldn't even let me pick up the phone to call her or anyone else on the show. Then — and this is the bit that gets me — once they'd made it impossible for the show to go on, they turn around and say, “You didn't fix it. You're fired!”
ARN suspended the controversial host on March 3 and said he had 14 days to remedy the breach, meaning a decision on whether he will return to the airwaves was expected on Tuesday.
Sandilands has repeatedly denied he breached his $100 million contract for inappropriate conduct by criticising co-host Jackie "Jackie O" Henderson on-air on February 20.
The friction between the hosts stemmed from Sandilands berating Henderson during a live broadcast for looking into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's horoscope.
"You’re off with the fairies ... every segment, every time you’ve spoken, you don’t even know what’s going on," Sandilands had said.
“You’re not doing the rest of the job and everyone in this building has mentioned it to me."
ARN said in a statement to the ASX on March 3 that Henderson gave notice she could no longer work with her co-host and it considered Sandilands' comments a breach of his agreement with the company.
The Sydney ratings darlings are in the second year of a decade-long, $200 million contract which coincided with a poorly received entry into the Melbourne radio market.
