SURVIVING TOUGH TIMES
Osbourne clan stays strong
A few years ago, while in treatment for the depression she has suffered from on and off for decades, Sharon Osbourne had an encounter that changed her view of the talent shows she’s been judging since 2004.
“I met this 28-year-old girl in the treatment centre who had auditioned for the first season of American Idol,” says Osbourne, an X Factor judge who — although never “nasty” like Simon Cowell — became known for her snark.
“She was overweight and a really bad singer and they used her little audition to promote the show.” She shifts uneasily on her velvet sofa.
“People were laughing. And then they used the clip over and over and it affected this girl so deeply that it basically changed the course of her life. She was used,” she shrugs, “and it sent her over the edge.”
The Brixton-born 64-year-old has never mentioned the encounter to Cowell “and actually I never mentioned her to anyone, but it really made me think about the effect these shows can have on people. I honestly don’t want to be mean to anyone who isn’t strong enough to take it.”
We’re in the lavish living room of Osbourne’s new Los Angeles home — a $12-million 1930s mansion. Ozzy, her husband of 35 years, has just popped his head around the door to say hello, their son Jack is puttering around in the kitchen and his children, Pearl, 5, and Andy Rose, 2, are splashing about in the pool outside.
The past few years have been some of the family’s most testing to date.
This is quite a claim, given the 68-year-old Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy’s long-running drug and alcohol addictions, Osbourne’s own struggles with colon cancer, depression and bulimia, and Jack’s diagnosis with MS back in 2012.
But it was a year ago that Osbourne threw Ozzy out of their home after discovering he had been having a four-year affair with his hair stylist, Michelle Pugh. Although the pair have since reconciled, and renewed their vows back in May, Osbourne had been dealing privately with her husband’s transgressions for six years.
“Because there wasn’t just the one woman. There were six of them: some f---ing Russian teenager,” she spits out, “then a masseuse in England, our masseuse out here, and then our cook.” She bats away a query about the identity of the sixth, saying: “He had women in different countries. Basically if you’re a woman giving Ozzy either a back rub or a trolley of food, God help you.”
Osbourne has a black sense of humour and a proven willingness to lay open her dysfunctional family to the world — The Osbournes, a reality TV show also featuring their children Jack, now 31 and Kelly, 32, but not Aimee, 33 — ran for three years starting in 2002, becoming MTV’s most-viewed series to date and earning its stars millions.
That makes it easy to see her as a Kris Jenner-style matriarch secretly relishing any new drama. But today she seems fragile.
“People think of me as this strong woman, but I don’t know if that’s true,” she says in a small voice, “because I suffer so badly from depression and have been in and out of treatment for years.”
Although she does believe in therapy (Ozzy has been in treatment for sex addiction for the past year and is “doing so well”), Osbourne says “it’s anti-depressants that have saved my life. Because they got me on an even keel mentally, and only then could I work on myself.”
She says she would like to see more people owning up to taking anti-depressants, because there is still a stigma attached to them.
As a true feminist she’s appalled by Kim Kardashian and others bandying around the term to justify their posting of semi-naked selfies on social media. To the suggestion that perhaps some women see “the right to bare” as being a feminist one, it’s like chucking a match on a pile of explosives and watching it go up.
“Kim says she’s doing everything in the name of feminism, but that’s not feminism!” Osbourne says.
“Those girls live off their bodies, half of L.A. has been through them and everything they do from the sex tape to the plastic see-through dresses and the gym wear is about sex, not female progress. And listen: God bless them. If Kim wants to show off her body, fine. But that’s not feminism, that’s being a ho. And there’s nothing wrong with being a ho, but always remember what you are.”
Does she believe she and Ozzy have entered a new chapter? “I do,” she says. “It’s a deeper love now because I respect him so much. He’s really worked at being a better person for his family.” And she’s worked so hard to keep their family together. “Oh I’m never divorcing him,” she flings back. “What on earth for? He’s nearly f---ing 70!”