Sharon Osbourne - Sharon Osbourne Extreme: My Autobiography

Copyright 2005 by Sharon Osbourne

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Springboard Press

Hachette Book Group USA

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com

First eBook Edition: October 2006

ISBN: 978-0-7595-6894-5

I dedicate this book to my darling husband, Ozzy.

Thank you for being my partner and my best friend and for changing my life for the better. Thank you most especially for our babies. My love for you is endless.

All the people at Time Warner who made this such a happy experience for me, especially Antonia Hodgson and Viv Redman.

Pepsy: without you I would never have been able to put my words onto paper. Thank you for making my book a reality. Ive found a new friend.

Ian Willis: we have never met, but your wonderful book American Rock n Roll: The UK Tours 1956-72 unlocked the door to so many great memories.

My coworkers: I thank you for your loyalty. Lee Ali, Silvana Arena, Hardy Chandhok, Tony Dennis, John Fenton, Dave and Sharon Godman, Michael Guarracino, Kymberly Johnson, Dave Moscato, Marysia Murray, Dari Petrashvilli, Lynn Seager, Howard Smit, Claire Smith, Saba Teklehaymandt, Melinda Varga and David Withers.

My loyal friends: there are not a lot of you, but you all know who you are. Thanks for always being there for me, and even though I never call or write when I say I will, you accept me the way I am and I love you all for that.

Elton John and David Furnish: thank you for always being there with your friendship, guidance, love and, most of all, laughter. Puss loves you both.

Simon Cowell: for seeing something in me that no one else did.

Posy, my best friend since age ten.

Gloria and Terry Butler, lifelong friends.

Michele Anthony: the smartest and most loyal woman in the music industry.

Belle Zwerdling: you were my first friend when I moved to LA and I am proud that you are now a friend of my husband and children.

Shelli and Irving Azoff, who have always been there for me.

Colin, Mette, Michelle, Caspar, Jonathan, Fleur and Jake Newman: over the last thirty years weve all become one huge dysfunctional family together. What about the Newbournes? I thank you for always being there for us. Love you loads.

Gina, my dear niece: I love you and your gorgeous husband, Dean, and your divine babies, Amelia and Ollie. Your love and support have been unconditional and I thank you.

My brother David: weve come a long way, havent we? Thank you for your support throughout these last difficult years both through my cancer and with our father.

Jessica and Louis Osbourne: much love and respect. Your father and I are proud of you both.

And finally my children: Aimee, Kelly and Jack. Each of you has been a gift from God for me. How proud I am of your individuality, your wisdom and your passion.

I am at the house, standing by the gate. Kelly is running across the courtyard, blond hair bouncing around her little cherub face. Shes like the golden angel on the Mormon Temple on Santa Monica Boulevard, and shes holding Jackie Boy by the hand, and I want to call out to them, and tell her to mind the fountain, that its deeper than it looks, and that they shouldnt go sitting on the edge. And then Aimee is smiling up at me, pulling at my sleeve, wanting me to go with her, to show me something. And I feel so happy, and safe and calm. To know that the house is mine again; the same tall, tall palm trees, their trunks the color of charcoal, and the creeper hung with the purple flowers, and everything like it used to be. I want to tell Dadda but I dont know where he is. So I watch my babies kneeling by the fountain, one at each corner of the cloverleaf, peering over the edge and listening to the water tumbling from one shell down to the next, and then to the next... but where is Dadda? He wont believe it when I tell him. I try calling out his name, but the tinkling of the fountain gets louder and louder, drowning everything else out...

... and then, like a cold liquid, like that cocktail of chemo trickling through my veins, I realize its not the fountain I can hear, its the fucking telephone. And Im not even in California, but in Buckinghamshire in the kitchen at Welders, sharing the sofa with Minnie in front of a cold fireplace.

I love you, Minnie, I tell her, in my just-for-Minnie voice. And she opens her eyes and smiles. Nobody else believes me when I say she smiles, not even Ozzy, who loves her nearly as much as I do. But she does: although shes a Pomeranian, Minnie has a mouth like a cat.

And now its Beaus turn to give me a sloppy morning kiss. Hes such a beautiful, beautiful dog. And so you should be, I tell him, when I think of how much you cost. Shitloads. Kelly, carried away in some charity auction. But, excuse me, Kel, a Labrador?

Kellys problem is that she adores puppies and feels compelled to buy them. But as soon as they begin to shit and piss and smell, shes gone. Full-size dogs just dont do it for her, and Beau is about as full-size as they come. So naturally, just like her other rejects, he came to live at Doheny in Beverly Hills. Unfortunately, sharing a shit-patch with a pack of midgets turned out to be not his idea of fun, nor theirs either, and when he went for Minnie one morning, I knew That Was It. It wasnt his fault, it was the situation. Hes been in England ever since, where our 120-acre corner of English countryside seems to suit him very well. And now Minnie and he get on great. But he still needs somebody to love, so until we find him a new mummy or daddy, it has to be me. And I feel my eyes begin to prick.

What do other people do when their children leave home? Curled up on the sofa, the fire just a heap of ash with a few ends of half-charred wood sticking out, and no noise, no slamming doors, no arguments, no bickering, I feel cut off from everything I ever felt or ever thought I knew. Ozzy calls it our own Chinese Water Torture. A slow and painful and inevitable death of something that was once so vibrant and alive. And I think of my father sitting out the end of his life in his room above Hollywood Boulevard, listening to his Frank Sinatra records and wearing diapers. Hes even got a picture of Sinatra on his bedside cabinet, a black-and-white ten-by-eight in a silver frame, with the famous signature slashed across the bottom. And at the top, To Don. It sat on his office desk for years, there to impress, one of the props, like the cigars and the Rolls and the Rolex and the diamond cuff links and the Mayfair address and the Savile Row suits. Dons friend, Ol Blue Eyes...

He never even met him, let alone got him to sign a fucking photograph. He just forged it, framed it and there you are. Easy. No one hurt, eh, Sha? No one hurt. In the end I think he even believed it himself. And now those nurses that feed him and wipe his arse probably believe it too. He loved all that connection with the mob, Joe Pagano, Charlie Kray and the rest of the two-bit hoods. He even liked to call himself the Godfather of Rock.

I thought I needed him. But I didnt.

And now its my children who dont need me. They say they do, but its all bullshit. I know it, they know it.

But I need them.

For months now Ive been trying to get my office to print up a weekly schedule, with our names down the side, showing where each one of us is and what were doing. Just to keep track. But Jack says its me being controlling. And it scares the shit out of me, because thats what my father was all about. Control. But do they really want me phoning in the middle of the night because I dont know what fucking time it is wherever they happen to be? Right now Jack is in some jungle boot camp learning how to kickbox for a TV show; Kelly is somewhere in the dance-music triangle of Miami-LA-New York, while Aimee is here with Ozzy and me in England. Can it be normal to have your children on three different continents? Is there anybody out there who can tell me what to do?