It has been roughly five years since Jackie O Henderson got a divorce from UK photographer Lee Henderson and the young mum has been living her best single life ever since.
Despite confessing on radio that she “loved” the single life and the freedom that accompanied it, Jackie said there was a difficult period following the split.
“I can’t believe how good I feel this year. I’ve had some sort of crazy breakthrough in my life. But I feel like I’ve kind of hit rock bottom to get to this point,” she told Stellar Magazine.
Her divorce from her husband of 18 years was one of Jackie’s lowest periods, explaining: “A light bulb switched on in my brain.”
“It was like, ‘What happened to me? Was I in a coma for the past three years?’ I really looked into what I had become as a person and how I’d lost my spirit, my essence.
“Everything about who I usually am had been taken away.”
Jackie O and Lee were married for 15 years from 2003 to 2018. In this time, the couple welcomed their first and only child together, Catalina Mae Henderson otherwise known as Kitty, in December 2010.
It is no secret the mum has been undergoing some major transformations recently, physically and mentally.
In late 2022, Jackie O stepped back from her hosting position on Kyle and Jackie O to reprioritise her physical health.
“I really needed it. It was hard to do because I don’t usually take time off and always push through. But that’s what I’d been doing – I’d been pushing through too much and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just needed a little bit of time off to recuperate and it’s been great,” she previously told Woman’s Day.
Now, Jackie O reveals she is “back.”
“You ask anyone who’s going through that and, especially when you have children, it makes it even harder,” she explained to Stellar Magazine.
“The guilt you feel and everything associated with that is very difficult to get through.”
While speaking on her radio show, she confessed to co-host Kyle Sandilands that she signed up to the dating app, Hinge. However, she isn’t looking for a long-term relationship but rather to “have a little bit of fun and go on dates.”
“I just thought, hey, I’m going to do it because why not?” she said. “I can’t go out all the time, I don’t want to do that. This is just easier [to meet someone].”
“That doesn’t mean I want Tinder hook-ups either. I’ll just go out on a date and see what happens.”