The Osbournes are back home – and it’s weird

Ozzy and Sharon make themselves comfy on the sofa for a TV show about son Jack’s TV show, says David Stephenson

THE OSBOURNE family are no strangers to television. During the Noughties, we looked on with jaws dropped at the mad domestic life of heavy metal hero Ozzy Osbourne, his wife Sharon and children Jack and Kellie. Older sister Aimee chose to be elsewhere.

Now, Sharon, Jack and Kellie have gone on to bigger TV careers, with Jack pursuing several successful formats, including his latest, Portals To Hell, which sounds like a 1970s track from Osbourne Snr’s devilishly loud band Black Sabbath but which is actually a reality show where he investigates spooky phenomena.

Now Jack is reuniting with mum and dad for what could only be termed “What happened when the paranormal met the paranormal”.the answer: some pretty weird things, beginning with Jack walking around his own house in Los Angeles in a hazmat suit. He has inherited a dark sense of humour. Ozzy, as we know, once bit the head off a bat on stage.

Forthe Portals Of Hell special,watchingwith The Osbournes, Sharon and Ozzy sit in their home while Jack sits in his, in California, talking them through an episode that sees him visiting allegedly haunted tunnels in Portland, Oregon. It’s very funny, especially with Ozzy’s commentary along the way.the format could run and run.

“It was a real fun adventure to have them there,” Jack tells me from his LA home via Zoom. “It’s actually the first time they’ve ever seen my show, period, which was kind of a shock to me. I was like, ‘Really?’.

“It was actually an idea from commissioning editors here.with everything going on there’s such a content drought at the moment. Everyone’s just trying to get creative, and it was something that we could do really easily.”

Some footage did stay on the cutting room floor, admits Jack. “There was a lot of them just talking to each other.they were having conversations and we were like, ‘Watch the show!’”

Then there were the canine interruptions. “It’s just like a constant cycle of dogs in that house. It’s insane. There’s so many of them! And listen, I’m no golden example of a dog owner – I have three – but they’ve got 10 or 11.That’s too many!”

Jack, 34, has always been a fan of the paranormal. He grew up watching X-files before getting an opportunity to work on the Syfy channel’s Haunted Highway. “Ever since then I’ve just had my foot in the door. In the current show I have co-host Katrina Weidman, the expert, and I’m like the hobbyist.”

While both Sharon and Ozzy tell us they’re “open” to the paranormal, Jack and his father tell of an experience at their Malibu beach house which might turn anyone agnostic.

“Me and my dad were sitting in his bedroom watching TV,” he says. “And we saw a woman run down the stairs.”

An apparition, or an actual woman? “It looked clear as day. I thought it was my older sister. I sat up and said, ‘Dad, is that Aimee?’ And he said, ‘She’s not here’. So I went downstairs where we’d seen someone run, but no one had been downstairs at all.

“The funny thing is the people who now own that house reached out to me a couple of months ago asking if anything weird had happened while we were there. I said, tons! Then they started listing all this weird stuff that had been going on.”

Jack thinks they might film an episode there one day but adds “Folks who spend millions on a Malibu house tend not to be the ones who want a reality film in it!”

Ozzy genuinely praises Jack for the quality of the show. “Yeah, it was nice,” says Jack. “It’s when he turns around and says, ‘That was **** !’ That’s when you should be concerned!”

COULD HE see them doing some more episodes like this? “Yeah, I think we’re going to be doing four more; hopefully we can get that done sooner rather than later.” Expect to see more “spirit boards” then, which in this episode gives us one of the more dramatic scenes. He says: “To be honest that wasn’t even the most active spirit board we’ve ever done. We’ve done ones with letters flying around the board and you can’t explain it. It’s the weirdest thing, and I’m doing it with people who aren’t screwing around, very serious paranormal investigators.

“We did one very recently and I’ve never seen anything like it.when that stuff happens, you’re