A Year Sleeping Rough Before Ruling Australian Radio

Kyle Sandilands is an Australian radio host who today fronts one of the country's top-rated breakfast programmes. In a speech at Sleep Under The Stars, a charity event for disadvantaged and homeless young people, he spoke about a part of his youth that many listeners had not heard about.

As a young man in Brisbane he experienced family violence from his stepfather and was put out of the family home. He then spent about a year without a place to live. The report does not give his exact age or the dates, but he was clear on the duration, saying he was homeless for a year.

Finding somewhere safe to sleep was the daily problem. He rode a bike around at night looking for a spot, such as behind a shopping centre or in a drain. He said he was terrified and often quite scared. He also could not get the allowance available to young people living away from home, because it required a letter from his parents.

He credits the period with leading to his first radio job in Townsville, where he drove around giving away prizes, even though he did not have a driver's licence. He said he fell in love with the work, and it became the start of a long career in broadcasting.

He told the audience this to speak directly to the young people the event supports, drawing on what he went through himself.