SHARON OSBOURNE
She’s spent her life kicking down doors to become one of rock music’s most powerful figureheads. Sharon explains why her success has always been about survival
One of the rock industry’s most divisive figures grants us an exclusive/explosive interview.
As rock’n’roll ascended the mainstream in the 60s and 70s, managers such as The Beatles’ Brian Epstein, Led Zeppelin’s Peter Grant and the Sex Pistols’ Malcolm McLaren enjoyed heightened levels of fame and notoriety that often rivalled that of their clients. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to call to mind the name, let alone colourful details of any big-time manager, with one notable exception: Sharon Osbourne. The daughter of the fearsome, gun-toting manager Don Arden (Black Sabbath, The Animals, the Small Faces), Sharon entered the music biz working for her father until 1982, when she took over managing his biggest client – and her husband – Ozzy Osbourne. In the ensuing years, Sharon has cemented a reputation as a shrewd and hard-as-nails businesswoman who has not only stewarded Ozzy’s career but amassed her own empire as a television host, promoter and author. We asked her about her career in rock music, her divisive public persona and what comes next.
YOU’VE HAD A FRONT ROW SEAT TO THE BIRTH OF ROCK’N’ROLL. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES OF THE
MUSIC INDUSTRY?
”Oh my lord, that’s a really hard question, because I was lucky enough to be born into the industry through my father.
I can remember being at Victoria Station when my father was putting Bill Haley And The Comets on a train to go to Europe. I would have been no more than five! So it’s stories like that, with artists like Sam Cooke, Brenda Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and the Everly Brothers. I’ve seen the most amazing artists perform and I’ve just been lucky enough to have relationships with some of them. In that way I’ve been very, very blessed.”
HOW WERE WOMEN REGARDED IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY WHEN YOU GOT YOUR START?
”Initially, because I was so young, I didn’t realise that there weren’t that many women in the music industry. I was too busy having a good time. As I matured in my mid-20s and 30s, I saw that it was very much a boys’ club. I could
never go to a game with my peers and then go to a strip club and then do some blow. I was a woman and those things didn’t interest me, and if you weren’t in that clique then you were somewhat of an outsider. So I was an outsider because I was a woman. It was very hard. People dealt with me because they had to. It wasn’t a choice.”
HOW DID YOU REALISE THAT WAS THE CASE?
“It really came from my father. My brother was in the business with my father and myself. I remember one time my father threw a music convention in London that was pitched as ‘Don and David Arden.’ I thought, ‘Hey, fuck this shit! What about me?’ Then the penny dropped and my eyes were opened. It was very hard. I’m not saying, ‘Oh poor me, I had a hard time,’ but I’m saying that’s why I got so fucking loud and bolshy – because I needed to be heard.”
YOUR DAD WAS A TERRIFYING ENEMY FOR ANYONE WHO DARED CROSS HIM, AND YET YOU DID JUST THAT WHEN YOU TOOK
OVER MANAGING OZZY ON YOUR OWN. HOW DID YOU COPE?
“It was a very bad time for me because I kind of lost my whole family. I realised then that my father’s whole thing was money; it’s not family, it’s money. If you’re with him, you’re great. If you want to go out on your own, you’re dead and that’s what I was
– I was dead to them. I took his cash cow away and he didn’t like it and he was coming after us. People were afraid to deal with us! I remember that Linda McCartney’s father and brother were lawyers in New York – the Eastmans – and we needed help against my father. We went to see them and they said no fucking way, like, ‘See ya. Get out!’ Because people didn’t want to go up against my father, we couldn’t get a high-powered lawyer to represent us. Nobody wanted to take him on. It was really, really hard, but you know what? It made us stronger and it definitely made me work harder.”
WHAT WERE SOME LESSONS YOU LEARNED IN THOSE EARLY YEARS ABOUT SUCCEEDING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?
“For me, you had to know what you were doing. You had to be on top