Sharon Osbourne Extreme: My Autobiography

by Sharon Osbourne; Penelope Dening

  The next morning I woke to a terrible noise in the bed beside me. The sound of choking. Ozzy was totally rigid and his eyes were rolled back and he was choking on his tongue. So I put my hand in his mouth--my half brother Richard's wife had been an epileptic so I knew what to do when someone has a seizure--and I pulled his tongue back, and I had to hold my fist in his mouth to stop him from biting, but people's jaws are really strong. He was under for about a minute and a half, then he regained consciousness for two or three minutes. He didn't talk, but his eyes came to a normal position. But then nearly right away he went and had another one. So Tony and I got him into the car and drove him to our doctor in Harley Street. He wouldn't talk. At this stage he was very lethargic and floppy. Across the road in the London Clinic they put him on monitors and did various tests. He'd had an alcoholic seizure, they said. If you go cold turkey without a gradual withdrawal, your body goes into shock.

  One day I was talking to Ozzy's agent, Bill Elson, the guy who'd lent us money and helped us when we were on the run from my father, and he said I should think about taking on other artists to manage. "Because otherwise people will think of you as just a wife."

  The person he had in mind was Lita Ford, known by her fans as the Queen of Noise. She was originally a Londoner and joined the first all-girl rock band called the Runaways in the mid-seventies. They had split up long before, but the singer, Joan Jett, had gone on to do well with her solo career. Lita Ford was a guitar heavyweight who also sang and had done a few solo albums, but nothing had ever happened. Now she was looking for a new manager, Bill said. "And I bet you one thousand dollars that you'll get a hit with her."

  The fact that she had once been managed by my father and had done nothing with him may have encouraged me to see if I could do better. I accepted Bill's challenge.

  My main focus was her image. She had never moved away from the girl-rocker mold, so I took her out of her hokey jeans and ill-fitting T-shirts and put her in designer clothes and made her look sexy, and it worked. Her fourth solo album, Lita, was a huge hit, and she did her only successful US tour. She had her first Top Twenty single, "Kiss Me Deadly," and then came "Close My Eyes Forever," a duet she did with Ozzy. He had written the song as a duet some time before and suggested I gave it to Lita. Then I said, "Why don't you sing it with her?" It was a huge, huge hit.

  Although Lita and I had our moments, it gave me much-needed confidence, and I decided I might as well continue. The Quireboys had played a lot of gigs around London. They'd had a record on an indie label and everybody was after them for management. So I thought, OK, I'll go talk with them. It took a month of schmoozing and then I closed the deal as their manager. I signed them with EMI to a huge recording contract, and their album, A Bit of What You Fancy, was a huge hit in every country but the US. It was even huge in Japan.

  Ozzy was not happy that I was managing another band. I was giving them too much of my time. He wasn't jealous on an artistic level; he was doing just fine, all his albums were still going platinum, his tours were doing great. But the energy I was expending on them was ridiculous, he said. And it was probably true, though I had no real alternative as their second album was now due. I'd gotten them the best guy there was at the time, a fabulous producer named Bob Rock, but the lead singer wasn't coming up with the lyrics, and it was dragging, and the album was way, way late.

  Then there was Bonham, started by John Bonham's son, Jason, a drummer just like his father and just as good, and the living image of him. The guys in Bonham were no trouble at all--great people, and a pleasure to deal with. The Quireboys, however, were a pain in the arse because they were all drinkers. But all of it, positive and negative, took me away from home--not only the day-to-day management, but the constant traveling. And Ozzy was not happy about it at all. I did my best to balance everything. But I was like one of those vaudeville entertainers who spin plates on top of sticks, constantly rushing from one side of the stage to another, with just enough time to give one of the plates another spin before it topples over. My stage was the world. There were tours to set up, record deals to negotiate, promo to steer. I would try never to stay away from the children longer than five working days and always be back on the weekend. If Ozzy was on the road then I would never stay longer than ten days away, just enough to get the tour going, to make sure everything was working smoothly, then leave.

  There were three benefits from working with other artists. First was the boost to my self-confidence, which one way and another had had a real battering. Second, I was making money. I always felt uncomfortable spending Ozzy's money. He was the one going out and earning it; all I was doing was giving him advice and telling him what he should and shouldn't do.

  If Ozzy hadn't been there, I would have stayed with my father and I would have ended up in prison like my brother. I know that. So I was very lucky to be in the position I was in, and my husband gave me virtually anything I wanted.

  The third plus was that, for the first time in my life, I could be legitimate. When I started earning money with other bands, I could pay my way in taxes and pay whatever else I was due to pay. There were plenty of people around me saying, Oh, there's this tax scheme here, and that tax scheme there, and if you have a Panamanian company you can have a tax shelter and all that shit. I just didn't want to go there. And I knew it wasn't necessary. Ozzy's finances had always been very straight. I wanted everything in his life to be correct, because I'd seen what happened to my father. So we'd pay the taxes and we'd sleep at night. I never wanted Ozzy to have what I had when I went to sleep: that sometime I'm going to get that knock, going to get that phone call.

  One of the first things I did with my money was throw a Christmas party. Ozzy was away in America on tour, so this would be the perfect opportunity, I decided.

  Historically Ozzy does not like Christmas, never has, never will. Every Christmas we have ever had together--bar the first, which was amazing--has been hell. Where it stems from, I don't know. Perhaps because he was always drunk and messed up so that people would be angry with him.

  I have always loved throwing parties; the Ardens' parties had always been famous. So I told the kids that this year we were going to have a Christmas party and it was going to be the best Christmas party ever, and Ozzy won't know, and nobody's hurt.

  So I had carol singers, I had caterers, I had Christmas trees, I had entertainers and I had 500 invitations printed. It was all very elaborate. We had an avenue of Christmas trees leading up to the house, and there was a huge tent complete with chandeliers, and Christmas decorations everywhere. Everyone was welcomed with mulled wine, carol singers and a gift bag, probably fucking pearls and rubies, knowing me. To eat, there was Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, then a flambe stand where you could get pancakes with brandy and lemon.

  It wasn't sex and drugs and rock and roll, it was just fun, with people dancing to a big band orchestra, and we had a blast. And the kids were there, and Bon Jovi was there, and the Quireboys were there. Everybody was there. Except the husbands.

  Because Gloria and I had hatched up this little scheme together. She and Terry have always had houses both in the US and England, and on this occasion our husbands were on a solo tour in the States, and because we talk to them after every show--to see how it's gone, and generally let some of the adrenaline run off--Gloria had to give Terry a reason why she wouldn't be at home that night. So she told him that she and I were going out for Chinese.

  Unfortunately the wardrobe girl on Ozzy and Terry's tour had a boyfriend who was on Jon Bon Jovi's tour. So this guy calls his girlfriend in New York--which is where they were that night--and tells her all about it. Then she goes and tells Ozzy how the party sounded amazing, and how sorry he must be to have missed it . . .

  He went fucking ballistic. It was as if I had fucked the Royal Household Cavalry three times each. It was as if I had fucked every person at that party.

  But the truth is that Ozzy would have hated it. Not only that, if he'd been there he w
ould have been staggering drunk and he'd have caused a fight. There is no point in celebrating Christmas with Ozzy because he just hates everything about it, so it would have been miserable, as per usual.

  I think in my gut I always knew that, one way or the other, he would find out. But I didn't care. I wanted the children to have a good time. I wanted the children to have a blast at Christmas. And they were so excited. They all had little outfits: Aimee and Kelly in matching velvet with white lace tops, and Jack had a little black velvet suit. As usual I was wearing some kind of black tent, but with beautiful jewels, probably bought new for the occasion. It just felt so exciting that we were doing something fun at Christmas. And it was even more exciting that it was a secret.

  If I'd used Ozzy's money that would have been different. It would have been like a slap in the face. But this was money I had earned. In fact, I had been with Ozzy two days before in New York, and when I'd left him I'd cried, because I really didn't want to leave him. And it was Christmastime, and New York does Christmas better than anywhere else in the world, and I was going home alone and I was so sad. It wasn't like I had cried with my husband, then was going home to another man. It's not like there was anything indecent about it, or morally wrong.

  However, Ozzy didn't see things quite that way. It took him probably five years to get over it. Every time he heard the word "Christmas" he would hit me. Through every month through every year he would bring it up: "That party, that fucking party."

  What made it even worse was that everybody we met said it was the best party they had ever been to: the food, the flowers, the bands, the this, the that. And I've got my head in my hands going, Oh God no, please.

  It was terrible. The next time I saw him, he beat me. We were in bed and it was the middle of the night in Chicago, and the rat was out of the bag. Forget the cat. He went fucking insane. And it went from thinking I must be having an affair to obviously I was living with somebody. It was total paranoia, day in, day out.

  And Terry was the same with Gloria, and she didn't even throw the party, but she was there, that was enough. Like little boys, Terry and Ozzy wound each other up. It was as if I had fucked every Coldstream Guard and they'd fucked me up the arse. That's how bad it was. For years and years.

  A few months later, we were back in LA staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was beautiful spring weather so, just for fun, we hired an open-top Rolls-Royce Corniche for a couple of days. With the children going in and out of the pool, it was as remote from an English Christmas as anything could be. But the second afternoon we were there, Ozzy started ranting. Party this, party that. What triggered it, I have no idea. I had just walked in from having lunch with a girlfriend, but it was like a burst of machine-gun fire. That was it, I'd had enough. I grabbed the kids, piled them into the back of the Rolls and left for the airport and England.

  A few minutes after the Corniche had swung out of the hotel, Ozzy had a call from the lobby.

  "Is Sharon there?" It was my father, who we hadn't seen or heard from in years and years.

  "No, she's gone to the airport."

  "Would you mind if I came over and talked to you?"

  Under normal circumstances Ozzy would have told him to fuck off, but he was angry with me and so he said OK.

  What followed was a rerun of the pub-lunch scenario in Wimbledon several years before, but with a twist: then my father had accused me of robbery and insanity, now he was accusing me of every sexual deviancy he could think of.

  Ozzy told me later that all his anger against me melted away as soon as this diatribe got going, so whatever aberration my father accused me of, Ozzy just agreed, determined not to give Don the pleasure of any reaction. If my father had told Ozzy I'd screwed a fucking donkey he'd still have shrugged and said, Yeah, yeah, he knew.

  And the more Ozzy didn't react, the more frustrated my father became, until he had run out of disgusting things to say and was about to leave. Ozzy still didn't really know why, after all this time, he had come. When Don got to the door he stopped and turned back to Ozzy, his face full of fury.

  "And anyway, who the fuck do you think you are, driving a Rolls-Royce?" he said. It turned out he had seen me driving around Beverly Hills and had followed me like a stalker. And he thought this Corniche was ours, and it was killing him, it was fucking killing him. He was so eaten up with jealousy that he'd decided, yet again, to try and destroy our relationship.

  I was a whore, a nigger-fucker, I took his money and his artists. Now, my father had exceeded anything he had done before. His own daughter even wanted to have sex with him, he said. Where do you go from there?

  The problem with working, whether I was managing Ozzy or somebody else, was always the child care. The very first nanny we had came from Birmingham and had just graduated from her two-year nanny course. This girl was nineteen but very naive. The idea of all that traveling didn't put her off, she said. Aimee was just a baby and we were on the road in America and I needed a nanny so that I could do my business at the theaters and when Ozzy was onstage, and at that time we were seeing a lot of Ozzy's children by his first marriage too. Jessica must have been about fourteen and Louis ten, so we needed someone who could handle all ages.

  So we were on the road, going all across America and Hawaii and Japan. Then out of the blue she handed in her notice. She'd had enough of traveling, she said, and she'd found this nice family in Birmingham, where she came from. Naturally, I understood. Being on the road the whole time isn't easy, though it made things difficult for me: she had been very good with Aimee and I was now pregnant with Kelly. And who was this nice family in Birmingham? None other than Jessica and Louis. This girl left us to go and work for Thelma. Oh, and it also turned out she had been fucking a member of the crew.

  Then there was the one shortly after the business of the nanny who liked fucking the band member (and Ozzy). I wanted to see what kind of a girl she was before I employed her. Her hobbies, she said, were sewing and reading. Dating anybody? No. Married? No. The only question she asked me was where the nearest public library was. And, of course, she showed me her diplomas and all that bullshit.

  So we were just getting ready for Christmas and she asked for a couple of days off, and I said fine, although at that stage I only had one nanny. Then came the phone call. She was calling from the local hospital.

  "What's happened? Are you all right?"

  "I've had an abortion."

  "But you don't have a boyfriend."

  But she did.

  The next thing is a man is screaming down the phone, demanding to know where his fucking wife is. His wife! She wasn't pregnant by the husband, but by the boyfriend.

  Then the "nanny" phones me again.

  "Are you coming to get me?"

  "Absolutely not. I never want to see you again."

  "Can I come and collect my things?"

  "Of course."

  It was Christmas Eve, so by five it was dark. She arrived with the boyfriend, but I had no intention of letting her in the house. I'd gotten everything out of her room and had it waiting by the front door, then, when she arrived, I threw it onto the drive in armfuls: clothes on the car, on the gravel, in the flower beds, in the bushes. As for her stereo I threw that on top of her car. Then I turned out the lights and locked the front door. This person I brought into my house to take care of my children was a liar and a cheat and a fraud. I never heard from her again.

  Then there was the nice young English girl with ruddy cheeks and bright blond hair, a hearty girl, with dungarees, who had previously cared for sick children. When I got back from Japan one time, I arrived at the house to no sign of her or the children, though the car was out front, which was odd. I called up the school, and the children were there. But she had just packed and left. What would have happened if the plane had been delayed? Later it all came out, how she was throwing dinner parties in the house, and when the children came downstairs she would scream at them to go back to bed.

  In America we had o
ne who wanted to go to Disneyland for the day with Aimee and Kelly and another nanny. I had arranged the limousine to take them, and the tickets. But in Disneyland babies are only allowed to ride on the baby rides. So these girls left my babies with total strangers when they went on the big rides. Aimee told me everything when they got back.

  It's incredible how stupid they were, thinking they could do all this stuff without anyone finding out. Aimee might only have been five, but very little got past her. It was Aimee who found one nanny in the downstairs toilet straddling a chef we'd brought in for a party. A female chef. This girl was horribly drunk, so I decided I had to do horrible things to her. That night, after I'd put her to bed, a friend and I got dog food, coffee, sugar, butter, peanut butter and ketchup, mixed it all in a blender and poured it over her when she slept. In the morning when she woke up, she thought she'd been sick. And then she left.

  The hardest thing in the world is to find a decent nanny. They come into your house, and you ask them to look after this gift from God, these unique things, your children. Then they lie, they cheat, they steal, and above all they want to fuck your husband. My advice to any mother is never ever have a young girl look after your children, however normal she may look. The list of stories of nannies who run off with the fathers of the children is endless. I have had dozens of nannies--when you need two at a time, then the numbers add up--and I can honestly say there have only been a very few I had good relationships with: Clare, a friend of Tony's, who was wonderful, and Kim, who came from Cumbria and the girls were her bridesmaids when she got married. She was a genuinely good person who now works at a school for special needs kids. And, of course, Melinda.

  One week in 1989 the tension in the house was really bad. It was September, just after Aimee's sixth birthday, and Ozzy was clearly on edge, wandering back and forth from his studio in the coach house, taking beer from the fridge and then going back. And he was very argumentative. It didn't help that I was biting each time. Instead of just ignoring him and getting on with my life, I was on his case. We were snapping at each other. He was in a very punchy mood, and so he would punch. He had probably punched me about five times that week. I only had to say something he didn't like and he'd lash out, punching my head, my chest--anywhere that was close.