24 • The Sunday Times Magazine
violence and tried to persuade Ozzy into
divorce. “It was living hell,” she recalls.
“I gave a letter to the police which said, ‘If
anything ever happens to me, my children,
this is who is responsible.’”
In those early days — around the time
that Ozzy bit off that bat’s head on stage
— the marriage was violent, with fights
about “women, drugs and booze”. Later
on, during one notorious occasion after
returning home from playing at a peace
festival in Moscow, the Prince of Darkness,
four bottles of vodka down, started
strangling his wife. He went to rehab; she
didn’t press charges. “I thought [the
violence] was normal and Ozzy came from
a family that, on a Saturday night, the
husband would go to the pub, get loaded,
come home, beat the wife,” she says. Did
she ever consider herself a victim of
domestic violence? “Never, because I gave
as good as I got. I can’t say that I never hurt
Ozzy. Of course I did.”
The pair were often on the road touring
but had three children together — Aimee,
Kelly and Jack — to look after too. “Was I a
perfect mother? No way. Do I wish I’d been
there more? Absolutely,” Osbourne says.
“It’s hard and when people say, ‘I want it
all,’ you can’t have it all. Nobody has it all
because something’s got to suffer.”
She has previously described her
relationship with Ozzy as “a Shakespearean
play”. It has certainly not lacked drama: his
infidelities, drug addictions and a near-
fatal quad-bike accident in 2003, her colon
cancer the previous year, stratospheric telly
career and mental breakdowns. She is
adamant that he has saved her as much as
she has saved him, and muses that without
him she would have probably ended up
behind bars with her dad. “He’s the only
man other than my father that I’ve ever
truly loved,” she says. “The only one.”
Their 40th wedding anniversary is this
summer; will they have a big party? “It
depends on how Ozzy is. Probably not.”
Now 73, he’s struggling with Parkinson’s
disease and the after-effects of surgery
following a fall in his bathroom in 2019.
He’s still making music, but Osbourne
cares for him “a lot”. “It’s very difficult,
because the combination of the Parkinson’s
and his accident, you go, well, which one is
this? Why’s this happening? Why’s that
happening?” she says, choking up.
Determined not to cry, Osbourne insists
on changing gears. “Let’s throw something,
have a go at somebody,” she says,
mischievously. “The Kardashian sisters?” It’s
arguable that without the Osbournes no one
would have even heard of the Kardashians,
the billionaire reality TV titans, and bottom
implant surgery wouldn’t be booming. In
2002 Sharon, Ozzy, Kelly and Jack (Aimee
opted out) became global celebrities after
inviting cameras into their Beverly Hills
home to film The Osbournes, a novel concept
in that pre-social media time.
“I get why [the Kardashians] are as big as
they are,” Osbourne says. “But I’m old-school
and think, ‘Well, what’s your talent?’ This
world of selfies in your underwear, selfies
topless, selfies showing your food, selfies
in bed — I just think, ‘Oh, for f***’s sake.’ ”
The Osbournes was a huge hit, but the
family walked away from the show after
three years. “It was affecting my kids. It
was that time where you’re experimenting
with drink and drugs. They used to go to
clubs and people would give them whateverthey wanted. They were 15 and 16. It’s, like,
‘Are you nuts?’ ”
Today, Jack, 36, is training to be a search
and rescue paramedic, has three children
with his ex-wife, the actress Lisa Stelly, and
a fourth on the way with his fiancée, the
interior designer Aree Gearhart. Kelly, 37,
a recovering alcoholic, is weighing up
whether to return to TV presenting after
falling off the wagon during the pandemic.
“She went into treatment and stayed a long
time to get herself sorted,” Osbourne says.Right: the Osbournes, minus
Aimee, in their reality TV
show. Below, from left:
Sharon with Simon Cowell
on The X Factor, and with
Piers Morgan, left, and David
Hasselhoff on America’s Got
Talent. Bottom: with The Talk
co-host Sheryl Underwood
as the racism row erupted.
Opposite: at her LA home
earlier this month with some
of her dogs