Melbourne radio host Christian O’Connell has hit back a claims he and his wife Sarah are heading for a divorce.

The GOLD104.3 star addressed shocking rumours that appeared on a Facebook fan page, claiming his marriage was on the rocks and he was taking an extended break from his hosting gig.

He said he was made aware of the speculation by his daughter Lois during a shock Friday night phone call.

‘This is a hot potato,’ Christian began.

‘Friday night, I get a phone call from my 18-year-old daughter Lois and it’s like 11:15. When your kids call and it’s that time of the evening, your first thing is something’s happened.’

Christian explained his daughter had been made aware of the rumour via a friend living in Holland.

Melbourne radio host Christian O’Connell has hit back a claims he and his wife Sarah are heading for a divorce

He said he was made aware of the speculation by his daughter Lois during a shock Friday night phone call

‘So, I’m like, “are you okay? Is everything all right?” She was like, “is there something going on with you and mum?”

‘I am utterly confused. I’m like, “what do you mean?” She goes, “well, a friend of mine who now lives in Holland has just texted me. Her mum has seen a message on Facebook. There’s a statement saying that you and mum are breaking up. Is this true?” I start to laugh.’

He added that Lois then sent a screenshot of the rumour that read: ‘Christian and Sarah have separated. He’s expected to be taking an extended break.’

‘My wife, when she saw this, genuinely, she was almost in tears, really upset,’ he added.

‘With this job, sometimes you get people say stuff about you. It comes with the territory. It shouldn’t, but it does.’

‘I laughed it off right and said, “you don’t need to worry – This is some loon on Facebook.” I turned the light off five minutes later and my wife goes to me, “you’re just going to go to sleep?”‘

Rubbishing the suggestion, Christian added he was more perplexed by one fan who reacted to the rumour with a ‘thumb’s up emoji’.

‘My wife, when she saw this, genuinely, she was almost in tears, really upset,’ he added

Newsreader Patrina Jones also jumped in, rubbishing the claims as ‘ridiculous’.

‘Seriously, if that were true, all relationships are doomed. They are soul mates. Like to say this is so ridiculous. We’re all doomed if you two are doomed because you are made for each other,’ she said.

Going further, Patrina admitted that the rumour had annoyed her.

‘That really annoyed me, as you can tell. I feel really sorry that she [Laura] feels sad, and I understand why,’ she said.

‘Our partners put up with a lot with us on air because we talk a lot about them. And you know what? They don’t deserve this. Because if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be as good as we are as a show because of the partners we have.’

 Christian relocated from the UK to Melbourne with his family back in 2018.

The radio star recently revealed he had been hiding a crippling secret for years – he suffered from anxiety, panic attacks and breakdowns.

Dealing with it made him realise just how long his mental health had been a part of his life, he told Andy Coulson’s Crisis, What Crisis? podcast.

Christian relocated from the UK to Melbourne with his family back in 2018

‘I can probably see that anxiety was around in my life in my nervous system as a teenager, but in the ’80s that word hadn’t been invented. You were told just to stop being so sensitive and man up,’ he said.

Like many young men in that era, he found a temporary solution in alcohol. He admitted there was ‘an unease in my system and fearing fear, and not knowing what to do’.

‘And so when I got to like 17, 18, that would mean drinking two litres of cider on a park bench with my friends,’ he said.

‘That’s what we did. You looked for those things, you didn’t realise at the time what you were trying to do with that, to try and relax yourself, to try and basically not feel what was trying to come through you.’

For almost 12 years O’Connell was the breakfast host on Absolute Radio in the UK, winning awards and entertaining millions of listeners.

He stunned those listeners when, at the peak of his presenting powers, he upped sticks with his wife Sarah and their children and moved to Australia.

His audience had no inkling that he had suffered a breakdown, a series of panic attacks so bad they sometimes left him unable to go on air.

‘I’d never been nervous before a radio show ever, suddenly I’d walk into my radio station and I’d start to have panic attacks,’ he went on to explain.

‘I didn’t even know what they were at the time. I’d walk back out blaming that I wasn’t feeling very well and going home, and I was breaking apart.’

For a year or two before that, O’Connell had started to feel very unhappy and wasn’t enjoying radio for the first time in his life.

He describes what happened to him as ‘a life quake’.

‘It stripped away everything and it forced me to listen to it. And I am eternally grateful that I did turn around and stop and get help. It changed my life and changed me as well,’ he said.