The Sunday Times Magazine • 23Osbourne’s black co-host on CBS’s The Talk,
challenged her on whether she was racist
herself on live TV. Osbourne fought back.
Cue a media frenzy and CBS launching an
internal investigation. The Talk went into an
extended hiatus. Osbourne apologised. “To
anyone of colour that I offended and/or to
anyone that feels confused or let down by
what I said, I am truly sorry,” she wrote in a
statement. “I panicked, felt blindsided, got
defensive and allowed my fear and horror of
being accused of being racist take over.”
During the hiatus colleagues stepped
forward with claims that Osbourne had
made racist and homophobic remarks
off camera — some of which she admitted,
others that she denied. She is unrepentant
about greeting one lesbian colleague with
coarse sexual language. (She says the
woman was a friend and found it funny.)
She is remorseful, however, for using a
racial slur in reference to her former
colleague Julie Chen, who is Asian-
American. Although she adds: “I never
said anything about her eyes [as has been
alleged]. Ever, ever, ever.”
Her time was up at CBS. “They said to
me, ‘You are on permanent suspension. We
don’t think that you’re repentant enough.
And we will decide whether you ever come
back.’ And I said, ‘Well, who’s going to make
that decision?’ And they said, ‘We can’t tell
you.’” She told them to go sing.
Half of America, or what felt like it,
suddenly believed Osbourne was racist and,
inevitably, the death threats poured in.
“They were saying they were going to
come in the night, cut my throat, cut Ozzy’s
throat, cut my dogs’ throats,” she says.
Round-the-clock security was hired.It seemed like a brutal end to a dazzling
transatlantic career — first as a music
manager to Ozzy, later as a judge on The X
Factor and America’s Got Talent, and more
than ten years co-hosting The Talk. “My
phone as far as my TV career here [was
concerned] was nonexistent, not one call.
Noth-Ing,” she says, pushing around her
salad (“no bacon, balsamic dressing on the
side”). “In England and Australia it never
changed. Here it was like I was dead.”
In February Whoopi Goldberg was only
briefly suspended as the host of The View,
a rival US talk show, after saying that the
Holocaust was “not about race”. Why the
seeming double standard? “I’ll tell you why,
because it’s the Jews, and nobody gives a
f***,” Osbourne says, after stressing that
she has always liked Goldberg.
In a country bitterly riven by the culture
wars, Osbourne paints a grim picture of
what happens “when people turn on you
en masse”. She bunkered down indoors:“I said, ‘I ain’t going out, I ain’t doing
anything.’ I just couldn’t stop crying because
all I was thinking about was all the things
that I’ve gone through in my life, and now
they’re calling me a racist, this is insanity.”
Months of ketamine therapy — where
nurses carefully administered the Class B
drug — brought salvation. “If you’re a
person that stuffs things [down, ie,
suppresses things], ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ this
drug relaxes you. You’re not out completely.
You can hear, you can talk, but you’re so
relaxed, and you can’t bullshit on it,” she
says. “It’s a truth drug.”
Osbourne’s life has always tended
towards the extreme. She grew up in
London with her Jewish father, a
notoriously ruthless music manager who
changed his name from Harry Levy to
Don Arden, and her mother, Hope Shaw,
a one-time vaudeville dancer who wrestled
with depression. She recalls how her late
father, who managed the Small Faces
and Black Sabbath, was arrested and tried
in the 1980s for allegedly having one of
his associates kidnapped and beaten up
after suspecting him of embezzling cash.
Arden was acquitted. It was Osbourne’s
brother, David, who ended up in prison
for several months for his role in the affair.
The siblings have never been close: “Our
parents always pitted us against each other.
One week they loved me and then they
loved my brother. It was always, ‘He’s a
schmuck, she’s a bitch.’ ”
Osbourne joined the family business
aged 15. When Ozzy was chucked out of
Black Sabbath by his bandmates for his
wild antics, Osbourne became his manager
ALAMY, EYEVINE: SAM EMERSON, GETTY IMAGES, @SHARONOSBOURNE / INSTAGRAM and married him. Her family threatened
From left: Ozzy and Sharon at their Beverly Hills home in 2000; and in a 2020 shoot. Below: Sharon’s father, the music manager Don Arden