“BIRTHS, booze, drugs, bike accidents, cancer, burglary, you name it and we’ve got through it,” Sharon Osbourne told me candidly at her glamorous Hollywood home with Ozzy.
But amongst such turmoil, she could still pick out one memory that haunted her more than any other and led to a deep, traumatic schism for over two decades.
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Consumed by grief, a pale and weeping Sharon yesterday laid a single pink rose on Birmingham’s Black Sabbath Bridge as the funeral cortege waited.
It was emotionally fraught to watch this determined and resolute woman engulfed by such all-encompassing sorrow.
As she was helped back towards her black limo at Wednesday’s funeral procession, she flashed the peace sign – husband Ozzy’s trademark gesture.
Having interviewed Sharon at the family’s Beverly Hills mansion, I had witnessed first hand their enduring love.
Back in 2005, Sharon invited me into their sumptuous Los Angeles home – where MTV reality show The Osbournes was filmed – to talk about her autobiography called Extreme.
Ozzy – knowing it was his wife’s gig – ambled around making fruit drinks for us then watched on from a polite distance. But he couldn’t help interjecting with one-liners.
Make no mistake, this was a double act. One Sharon – with a supreme, sharp-elbowed talent for showbiz management – had forged.
When she first started working with Ozzy in 1979 he was a washed up, drug-addled, alcoholic headbanger who’d been sacked as lead singer of heavy metal giants Black Sabbath.
When I interviewed Ozzy three years earlier at their Buckinghamshire home, he’d admitted: “I’d have beer for breakfast and work me way up.
“I would down four bottles of brandy a day, plus beer, wine, cocaine, pills and pot.”
Tearful Sharon Osbourne reads fans’ touching tributes to beloved husband Ozzy as she joins family at funeral procession
Yet Sharon, 72, saw something in the wildman when most others thought he was an unsalvageable wreck.
“When I first met my husband, I knew instantly that for the first time in my life, I was in love,” she would later say on her chat show The Talk.
“He was so funny and quick-witted and yet very vulnerable. And I just thought he was the funniest, sweetest guy I’d ever met.”
Marriage sacrifice
It would lead to marriage, three kids – and an almighty fall out with her father – self-anointed Godfather of Rock Don Arden, who was Sabbath’s manager.
When Sharon married Ozzy, bruiser Don – real name Harry Levy – gave her his contract as a wedding present.
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Repacking the frontman from dated ‘70s rock dinosaur to 80’s Prince of Darkness, Sharon switched Ozzy from her dad’s Jet Records and signed him up to a much bigger US company.
It caused a rift with her father that would last more than 20 years before they patched it up.
Back in 2005, Sharon told me with sadness in her voice: “Don has never said he’s proud of me. That hurts.”
Dark presence
Don – who died aged 81 in 2007 – had been a dark presence in her childhood that left deep psychological scars.
“There was nothing unusual in seeing my dad threatening someone or brandishing a firearm,” she said in a TV interview.
“My father really had a temper. He had a voice which could echo through the entire house.
“A couple of times, he would whack me and he used to yank my hair. But I wouldn’t say I was abused and beaten. In those days it was the normal thing.”
In adulthood Sharon had struggled with bulimia, telling me: “Some people do drink and drugs but for me it’s food, food, food. It’s about having low self-esteem.
When I first met my husband, I knew instantly that for the first time in my life, I was in love
Sharon Osbourne
“I went through a stage where I loved my husband. I loved my kids, I had a great career and thought, ‘What the f*** does it matter what I look like? Have another pint of ice cream, you deserve it’.
“But I was kidding myself. I wasn’t well. I was so fat I couldn’t get up the stairs. My son Jack used to have to push me up with one hand on each arse cheek while I yanked myself up with the rail.
“I literally had to lift the rolls of fat off my belly to wash under it, that’s how fat I was. How bad is that? Ozzy loved me as I was but I didn’t.”
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At 5ft 2ins, Sharon would weigh 16st at her heaviest before having her stomach stapled and losing half her body weight.
Then The Osbournes reality show – peppered with four-letter outbursts and family rows – turned her into a superstar in her own right.
Her own US chat show and a stint as an X Factor judge followed.
Toughest challenges
In the meantime this indomitable woman survived colon cancer, having surgery the day before her 2002 20th wedding anniversary, followed by chemotherapy.
That year Ozzy admitted to me that Sharon had been his saviour: “I have a great wife and five of the most beautiful kids in the world. Without my wife I would be long dead.”
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During my interview with Sharon three years later she was amazingly candid and witty.
As photographer Dave Hogan packed away his camera gear and I put away my notepad, Ozzy piped up: “Fancy a beer?”
Most celebrities can’t get rid of journalists quick enough but Ozzy and Sharon were eager to chew the fat.
Alcoholic Ozzy produced a four-pack from the fridge, and handed me one while sticking to soft drinks himself.
I eagerly asked him about heavy rock yet he explained his real love was The Beatles.
As welcoming and down-to-earth a couple as you could wish to meet, Ozzy and Sharon were eager to hear about gossip from Britain.
They were a hilarious double act and the fierce love between them was evident.
That Ozzy became a national treasure was largely Sharon’s doing.
Now he’s gone the Osbourne matriarch will do everything in her power to maintain her husband’s legacy and be strong for their three children.
