Last month it was revealed that Sharon Osbourne would be returning to television, partnered with Piers Morgan on a new U.K. series named The Talk. This comes nearly a year after Osbourne was suspended and eventually exited the U.S. talk show The Talk after expressing her support for Morgan in an intense discussion over race with co-host Sheryl Underwood. Now, in a new interview with the U.K.'s Sunday Times, Osbourne reveals how cancel culture impacted her as she eventually parted ways with her longtime daytime talk series amidst public backlash.
The debate started during a March 2021 episode shortly after Oprah Winfrey's broadcast interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Morgan had been on air with Good Morning Britain the following day and walked out of an interview when questioned about previous statements about the actress that were deemed to have racial tones. During The Talk segment about Morgan and Markle, Osbourne revealed that while she did not agree with Morgan's opinions, she asked her co-host to explain the racial undertones of Morgan's comments.
After the heated exchange took place on set, the show went on hiatus while deciding how to proceed moving forward. After the show aired, previous The Talk hosts and staffers alleged Osbourne had made racial comments on set that led to additional backlash.
Last fall, Osbourne revealed in an interview that she felt she had been set up and completely betrayed by her colleagues on the show. "So you say something wrong — you're not threatening somebody — but you say something wrong, you're out. You are out," she said. The CBS internal investigation claimed there was no set-up that occurred.
"They said to me, ‘You are on permanent suspension. We don’t think that you’re repentant enough. And we will decide whether you ever come back,’" Osbourne recalled of her dismissal. "And I said, ‘Well, who’s going to make that decision?’ And they said, ‘We can’t tell you.’"
After Osbourne left the show, she claims she was blacklisted and received death threats for her public backing of Morgan's right to free speech. "They were saying they were going to come in the night, cut my throat, cut Ozzy [Osbourne’s] throat, cut my dogs’ throats," Osbourne explained. "I said, ‘I ain’t going out, I ain’t doing anything.’ I just couldn’t stop crying because all I was thinking about was all the things that I’ve gone through in my life, and now they’re calling me a racist. This is insanity."
The music manager and TV personality says that in the U.S., her career essentially stalled after the incident and she resorted to ketamine therapy to treat the anxiety and depression felt after the public backlash. But while she didn't receive calls to work in the U.S., in England and Australia it was as if nothing had changed.
Reflecting on cancel culture, Osbourne called out some of the hypocrisy that often exists with those shouting the loudest. She singled out the recent Will Smith-Chris Rock slap incident at the Oscars, stating, "When [Smith] wins [the Best Actor award], everybody stands up," she said. "It’s, like, you’re such hypocrites. You’re going to go home and say how disgraceful his behavior was, but you stand up and give him a standing ovation. You know, it’s like I’ve always said, in this industry, if people could make a buck off you… If Hitler were alive today, they would give him a TV show."
Osbourne's new show with Morgan, The Talk, is set to air on the U.K.'s new network Talk TV.
