From posting her child’s poo wrapped in Tiffany boxes to people who have told lies about her family to defending Piers Morgan, her highs and lows as both manager and wife to Ozzy Osbourne and cutting friends of 50 years for criticising her children, Sharon Osbourne has never had any trouble telling it like it is. Now she is the subject of a three-night show, Sharon Osbourne: Cut the Crap, interviewed by friend of 15 years, journalist and presenter Jane Moore, who, for 90 minutes, takes Sharon through the key themes of her life. And while many of the topics are deeply serious, the interview itself doesn’t press much beyond the already highly publicised life of the family.
Sharon Osbourne is clearly someone who knows her worth and won’t take anything less, yet in person she is still a self-deprecating presence, preferring to praise someone else’s talent than accept her own vital role in nurturing and guiding others to success. “You never get tired of working with people who are creative” she explains “because I’m not that way,” refusing to take any credit for her husband’s success because he’s the one who plays the music that others love.
But anyone expecting the ferocious TV personality famed for her family reality show or her time as an X-Factor judge might be surprised by the more reflective Sharon Osbourne who appears on stage, particularly as Moore opens the interview by probing some of the darker periods of her life and famously devoted, but complicated, marriage. There is a long discussion about domestic violence and an incident in 1989 when Ozzy threatened to kill her, physically attacking Sharon in their home before being arrested. There are two versions of him, she says keen for the audience to understand, the man she married and the drug addict who behaves quite differently. But while the seriousness of this moment is acknowledged, the show doesn’t consider what it means to talk about this in the vastly different context of 2024.
Moore does push further into their marriage, asking about affairs with groupies and others which Sharon talks openly about, calmly describing her suicide attempt after one incident where she was admitted to a psychiatric ward and watched for 72 hours. “Are you co-dependent?” Moore queries but yet again Sharon refuses to be drawn on whether she trusts Ozzy around women even now, although she is convinced he no longer takes drugs.
So much of Sharon Osbourne: Cut the Crap leads back to her husband and the ways in which her career success affects him, particularly travelling with the X-Factor and America’s Got Talent. So it is a relief later in the discussion when Moore moves on to Sharon’s separate career as a panellist and the very factual acknowledgement of her cancers as well as her cosmetic surgeries. Sharon says very little about the former but describes a tricky facelift and discusses her significant weight loss.
The show covers a lot of ground in 90 minutes but it doesn’t always put the pieces together, noting her parents’ entertainment background as well as the different religious influences growing up but Moore rarely presses beneath the surface responses, although it is clear what a vast and determined life Sharon Osbourne has had, not necessarily acting like a man “but I spoke like one.”
And just as quickly the interview is over with less insider gossip or fewer emphatic statements than you might expect but a couple of exclusives including two goodbye shows for Ozzy at Aston Villa this year and a BBC documentary filming the family’s relocation back to the UK. With two further shows planned in Birmingham and London in January, it is clear that Sharon Osbourne has had a very full, very eventful life for which 90 minutes doesn’t seem nearly enough; there is still plenty more to say.
Runs until 28 January 2024
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Skims the surface
