Radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands has shut down rumours the explosive on-air clash between he and co-host Jackie “O” Henderson was a planned publicity stunt.

The KIIS FM breakfast host went into detail on Wednesday morning about last Friday’s fiery argument, which left Henderson in tears and prompted her to take a week off to “gather her thoughts”.

“We don’t put that much effort into anything,” he said with a laugh in response to speculation the pair had planned the clash.

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“We would never plan something like that.”

Sandilands also admitted he can be an “a**hole”, conceding he regrets how he handled the situation.

“I obviously upset her and maybe in hindsight I shouldn’t have said it on the air, but we say a lot of things on the air here,” Sandilands said.

“It’s never meant to hurt her feelings and obviously it did and I regret hurting her feelings.

“No one wants to hurt someone, especially someone you care for.”

Henderson is expected to return next Monday but Sandilands did not sound entirely certain.

“All any of us know is that she’s asked for the week off and that’s within her right to do,” he said.

“I’m just leaving this up to management. I don’t know what the plan is here or when it will be rectified or if it will be rectified. I hope it is.

“They (management) asked me yesterday, ‘What do you wanna do about it?’ And I said, ‘Well, the end result for me would be we’re back on air, and everything’s happy, but I want her to be happy and enjoy it, and I also want the same thing’.”

The pair, who have worked together for more than 25 years and host Sydney’s number one FM breakfast show, became embroiled in a tense exchange last week after Sandilands criticised Henderson’s interest in astrology during a segment about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest.

Sandilands initially took issue with Henderson’s “fixation” on astrology.

“I don’t mean to be rude, as I said fascinating, but I don’t think it should be at the detriment of everything else on the show,” Sandilands said.

“It’s affecting other things. Your fixation on this has made you almost unworkable.”

He later accused Henderson of being “off with the fairies”.

“I’m totally offended by you saying something like that,” Henderson responded.

“Too bad if you are — that’s the reality of what we’re dealing with here,” Sandilands shot back.

As the exchange escalated, Henderson became emotional.

“I would never say things like that about you,” she said.

“You make out like you’re perfect but there are so many things that you don’t do, and I would never bring them up, and I would never say what people say.

“I don’t want to get into a tit for tat, I think it’s mean and nasty. I don’t have a problem, but if I brought up the things people say.”

It ended with Henderson telling her co-host to “get somebody else” after what she described as a “total attack”.

On Monday morning, Sandilands confirmed Henderson would be stepping away from the show temporarily.

“She wants a couple days off to gather her thoughts,” Sandilands said on-air.

“So, it’s just me and the lunatics here today.”

Sandilands revealed his wife, Tegan, had “blasted” him over his behaviour.

“She’s … very honest with me and she goes, ‘From time to time you do say things at home that don’t land well either,’ and she’s right,” Sandilands said.

“My wife has sort of chastised me and said, ‘You can come across like a bit of an a**hole sometimes,’ which I admit I can.

“I think I said to my wife, the friendship between Jackie and I has been over 27 years, very honest with each other, and when I think about it in hindsight, I probably should have said my words to her off the air.”