Sharon Osbourne Extreme: My Autobiography

by Sharon Osbourne; Penelope Dening

  I don't really know what the staff must have thought. But it's very difficult when you're in somebody's home. And it wasn't like he was beating me to a pulp, and it wasn't like he would attack me with a knife or a gun. You'd say something and he'd just slam you one, basically. So what's the housekeeper going to do? What's the nanny going to do? They're scared stiff too.

  Every night that week he'd ended up punching me, and I was covered with bruises. I bruise easily anyway, and when Ozzy punched me it would be navy blue-purple, and then it went green.

  It was a horrible week. I'd dread it when he came back from the pub in the afternoon, and then I'd just have to wait till he got Tony to drive him back to the pub for the evening session.

  One night he was really drunk and stoned from other things he'd been doing, and he passed out on the bed. I was downstairs reading. Tony and the nanny were at the top of the house, three floors up.

  It was an old house with thick walls and very well sound-proofed, so I didn't hear him come down until the sitting-room door opened. My husband came in and sat on the sofa opposite me. There were three identical sofas around a square coffee table. And then he started to talk.

  "We've made a decision."

  We? "And what have you decided?"

  "That you have to die."

  And I looked in his eyes. And when Ozzy was really stoned his eyes would be void of any emotion--I used to say, "Oh God, the shutters are down." They were still eyes that could see, but there was no one behind them. They were like a dead man's eyes. I could have been begging him on bended knee, I could have had a gun pointed at my head, when Ozzy was that stoned nothing penetrated, nothing at all.

  When I saw that look in his eyes, I thought, Jesus Christ.

  He moved to the middle sofa, to the one directly on my left.

  "We're very sorry to have to do this to you," he continued, "but you see, we don't have an option." He was speaking very quietly, very politely. Not ranting, no "you bastard" or "you cow." It was very, very calm. I had never seen him like this before. Never. And I was absolutely terrified. I was used to the other; with the other I knew what to expect. But here I was on the edge of an abyss.

  And then he just lunged. I was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, as I always do, and he literally lunged at me. My legs were tucked up and I had no time to disentangle them before he had all his weight on top of me, and he had his hands around my neck and we both rolled off the sofa and fell onto the floor. He bent his knees and straddled me. I couldn't scream because his hands were around my neck and I was choking. I could feel myself going, but at the same time I was reaching out my hand, my fingers desperately searching for the panic clicker on the coffee table. Because either me or the nanny were so often alone in this huge house, we had them in every room. It was a mobile thing that I knew was somewhere on the table. And there was a huge alarm on the roof that we used to laugh at because it was so loud. Somehow I got the clicker and squeezed it in my hand and the alarm went off, its clanging ringing around the house and in my ears. My last memory was of just squeezing this thing.

  When I came to, Ozzy had gone and I dragged myself into the kitchen. Then came the banging at the front door. We were wired up to the police station and they arrived within minutes of the alarm going off.

  "My husband," I managed when I let them in. "My husband tried to kill me."

  My heart was pounding, my neck was aching.

  "Do you know where he is now?"

  I shook my head. I had no idea and my throat was too sore to speak, and I realized I'd wet myself. A detective walked me back to the kitchen, and the uniformed men went upstairs. And then I heard yelling and crashes. They found him up in our bedroom, and they were trying to put him in handcuffs, and he started to fight them. All I heard was his voice echoing around the hall.

  "This is my fucking house! Get out! You can't do this in my fucking house." They handcuffed him in his underwear and took him away.

  The detective drove me to Amersham police station, where I was photographed. I was naked to the waist, because they needed to see how he had beaten me that week. The nanny had stayed behind to look after the children while Tony had put some clothes together for Ozzy and taken them to the police station. Both of them were utterly terrified. There was not a word said between us. By the time the detective took me back, the house was quiet again. I went upstairs to check on the babies, and they were still sound asleep. Thank God, they had slept through it all, and I sat outside their bedrooms on the floor and I felt free for the first time in my entire life.

  April 20, 2005, after dinner

  Doheny Road, Beverly Hills

  The end of a happy evening, a happy day. Billy Morrison is one of those guys who seem never to grow old, perhaps because he still has that post-punk Gothic look he had when he was bass player in the Cult. Billy and his wife Jen live just down the road, and Billy's band is even called Doheny. Billy is Ozzy's sobriety sponsor in the AA program. A sobriety sponsor is someone who is in recovery and takes their recovery seriously. And Billy has been sober now for fifteen years. It's because he has been so important to Ozzy staying sober that we invited him and his wife here for our celebration dinner. It was just the four of us, and David Withers, our chef, had pushed the boat out: we had salmon ballottine with fennel marmalade, trio of chicken, and four of Ozzy's favorite desserts for everyone: a little coconut cake, a mini mango trifle, raspberry souffle and berry jelly, and the dining room was overflowing with balloons. And Ozzy talked about how he never thought he would ever go a year. The longest he's stayed sober before is 120 days. "Each time I came out of rehab, I'd do one day more than the last time, and then get fucked."

  15

  Free

  All night long I just sat there, in the dark on the landing, outside the babies' rooms. Never moved. Never cried. I just felt calm. Something had been lifted from me. He's gone. He can't hurt me anymore. I don't have to be frightened that he's going to come in and punch me or abuse me or fuck me in the middle of the night.

  I honestly felt like a ton weight had been lifted from my body. It was as if this spiritual thing had entered into me and cleansed me, and I sat on the floor outside the babies' rooms for hours, with a blanket from the spare room wrapped around me.

  All I could feel was this lightness and spirituality. The house was calm. No noise, no disturbance, and the babies were sleeping peacefully, their sweet breath no louder than a murmur, a fluttering of warm air on my cheek.

  In the morning, I got them up and took them to school. The first moment I knew that this was not simply a terrible family tragedy was when the electric gates opened and the kids asked, "Who are those men, Mummy? Why are they taking pictures?"

  I said I didn't know. As news must already be on the wire services, I decided I had to tell the headmaster and his wife what had happened and ask them to please watch out for the children, to make sure that nobody got into the school.

  I returned to the house by a back route and a back gate. And even before I got in I could hear the phones were ringing, and it was on TV. And that's when I actually cried. I cried and cried and cried. And Ozzy was in court that morning, but was then taken back to Amersham police station and kept in the cells where he'd been since the night before.

  He had a lawyer, Colin said when he called to see how I was, but he refused to tell me what Ozzy was saying to the lawyer. "It will destroy you," he said. "Just take my advice and don't go to court. He's talking a load of gibberish. I'll get you a lawyer."

  I didn't need a lawyer. I'd done nothing wrong. And I had no intention of going to court. I wanted nothing to do with it.

  The next day the detective came back to ask if I would press charges. If I agreed, he said, my husband would be charged with attempted murder. I said I would think about it.

  He wasn't as reticent as Colin was about what Ozzy was saying in his defense: that I'd been having affairs, that I bullied him, that I had all these other men, and that basically I just used him as a work
horse. And I'm like, OK, fine, whatever. Whatever he says, it doesn't matter. Because I know in my heart, and the people who know me and who know my children know the true story, know how it really is.

  Looking back now, from the perspective of over fifteen years later, Ozzy was obviously very, very frightened and he had to have a "reason" for what he had done, so he'd conjured one up. He wasn't going to turn around and say, "I was so fucking stoned I didn't know what I was doing." But back then I just had to think about what I was going to do. Was I going to press charges?

  And then Colin called again. "Guess who's trying to contact Ozzy to offer help."

  Yes, the Arden & Son double act was in town. Every time Ozzy would appear before the judge, my father and brother put a heavy in court to try and talk to him. It hadn't worked. So they'd sent him a telegram, and Ozzy gave it to Colin, when he went to visit, and Colin gave it to me. And I took it upstairs and put it in Jack's potty, and got Jack to shit on it. Then I wrapped it up and had it delivered back to the office, to my brother.

  He'd given a line to one of the papers saying that he didn't blame Ozzy for what he had done. In actual fact, he said, he didn't know how he'd stood me for so long.

  I got up, took the kids to school, got the kids back from school. Dinner, homework, that was it. I never went anywhere. I just hibernated. I was under pressure to make up my mind. They couldn't hold Ozzy in the cells indefinitely, they said. I was just going back over my entire life.

  One night in 1978 I'd been out partying with Britt Eckland at a private drinking club called On the Rocks, above the Roxy on Sunset Strip, a club for the elite of the music industry. Apparently Britt and I left at about two thirty in the morning, and I was driving the Rolls-Royce. Britt told me that I was driving very erratically and, sure enough, we were pulled over by the police. In California, at that time, to see if you'd had too much to drink they would get you to stand on one leg or walk a straight line. I didn't even manage to get out of the car. I poured out of the car and my legs couldn't hold me up and I was just a big crumple on the road. They then arrested me, handcuffed me and took me to West Hollywood police station. I was screaming and swearing like a fishwife. Apparently they kept me there till seven in the morning, when Britt bailed me out, took me home and Rachel put me to bed.

  I say apparently because when I woke up later that day, I had no idea anything had happened. I had a couple of freeze-framed pictures in my mind: in one I was looking through a wire cage from the back of a police car--there to prevent you attacking the driver. In the second I was a prisoner with just my underwear on and screaming. Then a girlfriend called me and said, "I'm so glad it happened to you. Maybe now you'll behave yourself."

  And I was like, What? It was a complete and utter blackout. Apart from these two vague freeze-frames, I had no memory of it. None. Apparently I was screaming so much and so loud that the women police officers had taken my clothes off to humiliate me, to make me shut up.

  I could have killed somebody. I could easily have killed somebody. And I hadn't thought about it for years, but at the moment I needed it, the memory came back. Ozzy was me. I was Ozzy.

  I couldn't press charges. He was so stoned, so gone, that it just wasn't Ozzy anymore. If he had been sober or just ordinary drunk, then I would have said, "Absolutely. Off with his head." But in all good conscience I couldn't do it. He would have been put away for years, and I loved him, and our children needed him.

  I don't remember how it was arranged in the end, but he was charged with some lesser offense. Perhaps assaulting a police officer, I don't know. But there was a court order to prevent him coming to the house or seeing me or the children. But I never went to court. Never had to give evidence. They couldn't make me, because I was his wife.

  The rehab he was sent to was Huntercombe Manor, near Maidenhead. I told the kids that their daddy was on tour. They were used to him being away, though I kept checking in case they'd heard anything at school, but nothing. Until one day Jack said his friends had been talking about his daddy.

  "And what did they say, Jackie Boy?"

  "They say that Daddy eats people."

  "And what did you say to them?"

  "Well, I counted everyone I knew, and there's nobody missing, so I know he doesn't."

  The only person missing was my husband. And when I was out somewhere, I'd think, Oh God, if I'm late Ozzy will kill me. But then I would realize that he wasn't there, and that I could stay out if I wanted. That I could do whatever I wanted. And gradually I began to think about putting my life in order. Getting a divorce, losing weight.

  For the time being the money situation was OK. I would get cash from the accountant in the usual way; my husband hadn't put a stop on that, and I had my own money. But it felt so strange not talking to him. And he had begun to send me letters, letters that would melt your heart. Full of remorse and repentance and promises that this time he would change.

  "I know I have a problem, but I never want to hurt you"--that sort of thing. And so I decided to phone him. And we both cried, and I told him that I loved him, and he asked to see me and asked me to bring the children, and I said that I would have to think about it.

  As much as I loved my husband, I found I was beginning to enjoy being single again. My social life was blossoming and I would have dinner with girlfriends. The last few years had been like a desert. First I would want to spend as much time as I could with my babies, and then there was the embarrassment of Ozzy's drinking. When I first knew Ozzy, he was the quintessential life-and-soul-of-the-party drunk. Everyone had to invite Ozzy, because he was Mr. Funny, so entertaining, singing along to all the songs. But gradually he had turned into Mr. Nasty. Truculence turned to anger, to picking a fight. And I would always be the butt of his jokes. I didn't laugh anymore, and friends would get embarrassed. And then I was embarrassed because they were embarrassed, so basically we stopped going out. That was just how it was. Although I had an office in London, most of my work was done on the phone to America or Japan in the evenings and way into the night, and I had accepted that this was my life. Suddenly, here I was not having to make excuses. I was enjoying that the girls at the office were saying, "Come on, Sharon, we're taking you out for dinner."

  And at last I had a nanny I could trust. The nanny who had been with us the night Ozzy tried to kill me had fled a few days later. And I don't blame her; there was a lot to deal with. Then Tony suggested a friend of his from Newcastle. Clare was a lovely girl who wanted to be a flight attendant, but luckily she was persuaded to come down to Buckinghamshire and work for us. She was pretty and young and the kids adored her. And they adored Tony, who they had known all their lives, and so we were all fine. And when Clare needed a break, or I was going to the States and she needed another pair of hands, Lynn would move in. And I could go to see a movie that wasn't Disney. And I could go out with my friends. And I was OK.

  "Well, of course, you must divorce him," people said.

  "Well, of course I will divorce him," I repeated. But the truth was that I didn't want to, but it sounded so pathetic I couldn't say the words, not even to myself.

  Finally I went to see him, and I knew I had been right not to press charges. The person who did that to me wasn't this man, the man I'd married. And I understood why the situation had gotten to the point that it did. But although I missed him terribly, I knew he wasn't ready to come home. And he knew it, and anyway the court wouldn't have let him--he couldn't even leave the grounds. But he was doing all right and he needed time to think. He needed time with no work pressure, with nothing to do except think.

  Huntercombe Manor didn't use the twelve-step program, it had no connection with AA, but there were still parameters. Although phone calls were rationed, Ozzy had his own room, and Tony would go and take him things, and his sisters went to see him, and I think he had other visitors too. Eventually, after about three months, I took the kids to see him, and after that they would go twice a week. And then after five months away, he came home, and I s
aid that if he ever laid a finger on me again, that was it, I would have him arrested. And I meant it. I never wanted to be hit again. I never wanted to be frightened again. And so he came home.

  And I'm trying now to think how long it was before he started on the bottle again. Weeks. Just fucking weeks.

  It started off with a little tipple here and there, and that was it. Because people think that an alcoholic is just somebody who drinks too much, but it's gone way beyond that. When you drink or take drugs, chemical changes are wrought in the brain. Some are obvious and don't last long, like thinking you're witty or funny, but other changes are permanent. And the police had made it clear that they didn't like him, especially the detective who wanted me to press charges. Ozzy had always been used to wheedling his way into people's affections and making people like him. But it didn't work with them. They were having none of it. To them he was just a spoiled little rock star.

  For the second time in my life, unhappiness had resulted in weight loss, not the other way around. By the time Ozzy came home, I was down to 112 pounds, the same size I had been when we were at the studios in Monmouth nearly ten years before.

  My relationship with Lita Ford began to slide. I had taken her on when I was very big, and as I began to get slimmer our relationship got worse. Then one day she asked to have dinner with me. So we went to have dinner, and she fired me.