Sharon Osbourne

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Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne

Sharon Rachel Osbourne (born 9 October 1952) is an English music promoter and TV personality. She is the daughter of the infamous rock and roll entrepreneur Don Arden (born Harry Levy) and his late wife Hope; the sister of David Levy; the wife and manager of Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, and the mother of Aimee, Kelly and Jack Osbourne.

Contents

1 Sharon and Ozzy
2 The X Factor
3 Mrs Osbourne Presents
4 Marriage
5 Other management roles
6 TV career
7 Health
8 Extreme: The Autobiography
9 Sharon Osbourne and the Insane Clown Posse
10 The Conflict with Iron Maiden at Ozzfest 2005
11 External links

Sharon and Ozzy

She was born Sharon Rachel Levy in London to an Ashkenazi Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother. She met Ozzy Osbourne at age 17 while working as a receptionist for her father, who had been looking to manage Ozzy's band Black Sabbath. When Ozzy was fired from Black Sabbath in 1979, Sharon took over his management from the Arden organization. Proving to be as hardworking and ruthless as her father, Sharon coordinated the recruitment of both a technically gifted backing band The Blizzard of Ozz and by utilising proven songwriters helped Ozzy kick off what became a highly successful solo career. A series of high selling albums and world tours followed through the 1980s, eventually making Ozzy one of the most popular metal acts in the world. In 1996 she created the Ozzfest summer touring festival.

The X Factor

Sharon is a judge on the X Factor in the UK, alongside Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh. In the first series she mentored the 16-24's, and she chose Roberta, Cassie and Tabby to represent her. In the second series she mentored the 25 and overs, and chose Brenda, Maria, Andy and Chico. In Celebrity X Factor, she did not choose her singers and was selected to manage the 16-24's Nikki Sanderson, Matt Stevens and Michelle Marsh. Sharon has never won the show, with her best finish being Andy's second place to Louis' act Shayne Ward. In series one Sharon did not have an act in the final following Tabby's third place finish. The Final was contested between Simon's act Steve Brookstein and Louis' act G4, with Steve winning. Sharon's out-burst at Steve on the night of the Final is widely credited with helping him to win. Recently he was dropped from his record label and has never been mentioned on the show since, unlike G4, who had finished as runners-up.

Mrs Osbourne Presents

Sharon has had a chat show commissioned on ITV1 in the 5 o'clock slot, It will initially run for 6 weeks in the autumn, going up against her pal Paul O'Grady (aka Lily Savage) on Channel 4

Marriage

Sharon and Ozzy were married in Maui, Hawaii on July 4, 1982. They bought out Ozzy's contract from her father in that year for GBP 1,500,000, a move that destroyed her relationship with her father for nearly 20 years. Sharon was so estranged from her parents that when her mother, Hope, died in 1998, she had not met her grandchildren, and Sharon did not attend the funeral. However, Sharon and her father were reconciled in 2001 when Ozzy convinced her to call him.

Other management roles

Sharon has also managed The Smashing Pumpkins and Coal Chamber. Never one to banter words, in 2000 she made news by severing her relationship with The Smashing Pumpkins and then announcing in a statement: "...I must resign due to medical reasons... Billy Corgan was making me sick!"

TV career

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Sharon gained celebrity as one of the stars of MTV's reality show, The Osbournes, about her family's daily life. As the person who negotiated with MTV to tape the show, she is often credited with her husband's emergence from heavy metal icon to mainstream celebrity. The show began airing in early 2002, and when, in July 2002, Osbourne was diagnosed with cancer, she insisted filming continue. The final episode of the show aired in the US on March 21, 2005. MTV's British affiliate, has been airing the show since 2003.

In 2003 Sharon became the host of her own television talk show, The Sharon Osbourne Show. The show was meant to be a reflection of her personality and her home life – similar to her reality show but with the inclusion of guest interviews and performances. However, it was never very successful in the ratings and critics panned her inability to perform the basic tasks required of a talk show host such as reading cue cards and conducting interviews. Eventually the show's format became extremely standardised – not at all what Osbourne had wanted. A sequence on her reality show found her struggling to book any noteworthy celebrity guests because their agents did not feel an appearance would be beneficial. The show was cancelled in early 2004.

At a charity auction, Sharon bid for and won the opportunity to guest star in an episode of the NBC comedy Will & Grace. She played a bartender in a spring 2004 episode.

In October 2004, Sharon announced that she and husband Ozzy would be teaming up for yet another MTV show entitled "Battle for Ozzfest", in which a group of unsigned bands battle it out for a spot on the 2005 Ozzfest tour.

In January 2005 she was selected to feature in advertising for the United Kingdom supermarket chain ASDA.

She is also one of the judges on the award-winning British TV talent show The X Factor in 2004, 2005, and now 2006.

Health

In 1999 Sharon lost 100 pounds (45 kg) after gastric bypass surgery.

In July 2002 Osbourne was diagnosed with colon cancer. Later, she announced her cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and was more serious than originally thought. With characteristic determination she overcame her battle with the disease against a 33% survival prognosis, and in August 2004 founded the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program at Cedars Sinai Hospital. In addition, she was the honored guest at the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation's 2003 Fall Gala [link], where she spoke of her struggle against cancer.

In December 2004, Osbourne made the public announcement that she is still battling bulimia.

Sharon Osbourne has lent her support to design limited edition T-shirts or vests for the 'Little Tee Campaign' for Breast Cancer Care which donates money for breast cancer research. [link]

Extreme: The Autobiography

Sharon Osbourne's autobiography, Extreme, (co-authored by Penelope Dening) was published in October 2005 and tells of her difficult childhood growing up with her father, Don Arden, and also documents the highs and lows of her marriage to husband Ozzy Osbourne, shedding light on areas of her life previously not commented on. Published by Time WarnerBooks, it went straight to No. 1 on the Sunday Times Bestseller List (UK) where it remained for 15 weeks, selling over 600,000 copies in hardback, becoming the biggest selling autobiography since records began. "Both the heroic vulgarity and the love are vividly captured in this pungent and distinctive autobiography," said Sunday Times; "Truly unputdownable" said Irish Times. In March 2006 it won Biography of the Year at the British Book Awards.

Sharon Osbourne and the Insane Clown Posse

Quotes taken from a recording of the original "Howard Stern Show" in 1999, which can be found [Here]

In 1999 the band Coal Chamber, managed by Sharon at the time, were touring with the Insane Clown Posse on their "Amazing Jeckel Brothers Tour". As the tour progressed ICP decided to drop Coal Chamber because they were not pulling in enough money and Coal Chamber's sound was not Juggalo material. On August 19, 1999, the clowns appeared on The Howard Stern Show to confront Coal Chamber and accourding to Violent J a total of 15 tickets were refunded after Coal Chamber was dropped from the tour. In his own words he claims "If they (Coal Chamber) toured alone or were with another band they'd have a million people there, but people hate ICP so much that I think Coal Chamber's fans were like, I ain't even going". As the show continued the clowns said "that bitch (Sharon) means nothin' to me". Upset, she asked to come on the show the next day and ICP returned aswell to confront her. After several minutes of arguing, she bet the clowns $50,000 that their next album would not sell more than 200,000 units and that they would be dropped from their label. ICP upped the ante to 500,000 records (or, according to [Faygoluvers.net], 400,000 records). A year later they released 2 albums on the same day, Bizzar and Bizaar, and sold over 200,000 copies each (250,000 each, according to [Faygoluvers]). Sharon has so far failed to pay them the money allegedly owed, which the clown's had planned to donate to charity.

The Conflict with Iron Maiden at Ozzfest 2005

On August 20 2005, the band Iron Maiden played their last Ozzfest show of 2005 in San Bernardino, California. A series of premeditated negative events occurred during that performance, beginning with attendees in the V.I.P. area being handed eggs by festival security, in which they then pelted the band with eggs, garbage, and other debris. Festival Crew and people who attended the event also described that someone sabotaged the sound system and played a tape of somebody chanting 'Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!' as people at the event chanted 'Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!' to counter the attack. It was also reported that the sound system was intentionally turned off about 5 times in the middle of the band's performance. Sharon Osbourne admits to planning these attacks on Iron Maiden in retaliation against Bruce Dickinson's statements about the Osbourne family's reality show on MTV.

As Iron Maiden began to play the song "The Trooper" a man believed to be Big Dave, a famous Black Label Society road crew assistant and guest on Sharon's reality T.V. show "Battle for Ozzfest" came upon the stage and waved a disproportionate American flag, mocking Bruce Dickinson's usual activity of waving the Union Jack during this song. Despite all of the happenings, Iron Maiden played out the entire show with an additional encore. Despite Bruce's leading the band to finish the performance with the band, Sharon did command the stage to make a few statements. She complimented the band, however she reportedly[link] dubbed Dickinson as a prick and claimed that he ruined the entire Ozzfest tour.

External links

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