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Sharon: My Story
Exclusive by Julie Mccaffrey

Sharon Osbourne has lived one of the most sensational lives in showbiz - and has never been afraid to speak her mind. Now, in the first part of our exclusive serialisation of her brilliant new autobiography, Survivor, the X Factor and America's Got Talent judge relives her fears of being axed, reveals the truth about Louis Walsh's sacking from X Factor, and explains why her chatshow was a disaster...

It was the call I had been dreading. Simon Cowell's office had rung, and could I call him back?

It was just over a month since Louis Walsh and Kate Thornton had both been let go from The X Factor.

Word on the street was that Mrs O was heading for the chop too as I had a habit of getting up Simon's nose and generally behaving badly.


Now it was my turn. Call him back? No f***ing way!

He wants to fire me, he can pay for the call. It wouldn't be a long one.

I didn't have much of a wait. "Simon Cowell for you on line one."

"Hello, sweetheart." That same old voice with just a hint of a whine. "How are you?"

"Couldn't be better," I lied.

"Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush, babe. I've got a proposition for you. It's a yes or no."

What? Not the sack then? "Go on then. I'm listening."

"America's Got Talent. There's a vacancy on the panel. Look, I know it's short notice," said Simon. "Auditions start in a couple of weeks."

I said yes. The first series was NBC's top show. I saw no reason why the second series would be any different.

Love him or hate him, you have to admire Simon Cowell. He is one of the great TV innovators and has genius ideas. But when I heard on the news in March that Louis had been sacked from The X Factor I did not believe it. The press must have got it wrong, I decided.

When I found out it was true, that Louis really had been let go, I was devastated.

But it's Simon's show, he created it, it's his baby. I'm just employed to do a job, not to make decisions.

Now that Louis is well and truly back, the word is that the whole sacking business was a put-up job, a PR stunt to ratchet up publicity for the show. Not true. It was a moment of total aberration on the part of Simon and ITV.

What the f*** were they thinking of, changing anything at all?

The first day of auditions in London without Louis was unbelievably bad, and I was in a horrible mood. It just wasn't the same and I wasn't going to pretend it was.

There was nothing wrong with Brian Friedman, who I am sure is a perfectly nice man. As for Dannii Minogue, she is far from the flossy airhead I thought she would be.

She might look like the most beautiful porcelain doll, but she is sharp and feisty and nobody's fool. We're from a different generation, but I respect her and she brings a new dynamic to the show.

But that first day I made no effort to go out of my way for them. I was a hair's breadth short of hostile. I know I behaved badly, calling Brian the "rude American", which the contestants picked up on.

Dermot O'Leary, the new presenter, I took to straight away. I'd never met him before but my kids knew him. He's a great bloke, very grounded, with a big heart.

This is my fourth year doing The X Factor and you'd think I'd be used to it by now, but I never cease to be amazed at the people who genuinely think they can sing and haven't the slightest idea that they can't.

Naturally, I egged them on. I just couldn't help it. I was asking complete no-hopers if they thought they could win. Asking them who they think they can be as big as. Most of them stand there as if they'd been asked to multiply 347 by 93.

Rather than talent, they seem to think all they need is a good sob story to push them through - their grandmother's got a hip operation coming up.

In that first week in London we had one whose horse had just died. Puhlease. Then there are the time-wasters who are doing it just for a bet. Just a p***-take.

Viewers only see perhaps 50 per cent of what we sit through. They see the best and the worst.

What is it with kids? They come out with lines like, "I've worked all my life for this moment," and the majority of them are under 20! Give me an 80-year-old woman singing Edith Piaf out of her nose any day.

Simon and I have had our rows. He calls me a loose cannon, and I am. In November 2006, Chris Tarrant was in The X Factor audience, across the aisle from Ricky Gervais - who I'm sure thinks I'm a maniac.

During a commercial break Tarrant says he has a question for the panel and our warm-up guy, Royce, gives him the mic.

"Louis," he begins. So Louis stands up. "We all know you're the best judge, that you're the one with your finger on the pulse of the music industry. You are the guy, really."

Applause. Louis smiles, takes a bow and sits down.

"Sharon." I stand up. "You are beautiful, warm and caring - and you are married to the most articulate man in the world. And the best dressed."

The sarcastic words, the grin, the red face - everything collides and it's like a nuclear explosion inside me.

"Don't you DARE talk about my f****** family! You shut your mouth, you ****!"

I could feel myself shaking and blood was pounding in my ears. The grin on his face had disappeared and the whole place was silent.

"Listen, you," I say. "What about you, you lying piece of s***? At least my husband and I are a team. You piece of s***. Go f*** yourself."

So then he tries to redeem himself with the audience. Says he's known Ozzy for 25 years and they are really good friends.

"You liar," I fume. "You don't know my husband. You f***ing ignored my husband because you didn't think he was good enough to be sat at a table with you."

It was only at this point that I remembered where I was and who was there. I caught sight of the silent faces of children in the audience and I thought: 'Oh s***.' It was wrong of me. So wrong.

But what I said was true. At the Daily Mirror's Pride of Britain Awards we were sitting with the Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife. It was early in 2004, Ozzy was still recovering from the accident that nearly killed him and this was one of his first public outings.

Everyone else was so concerned about Ozzy, asking how he was, but Chris Tarrant never so much as acknowledged either of us.

All I know of Chris Tarrant is that he did Tiswas, now does Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and that for years he lived a lie with his family. During the next commercial break we all left the stage and Simon Cowell comes up to me looking like fury. "Apologise to him."

I'm like, "Apologise for what?"

"What you did was totally inappropriate. Apologise to the man."

"For what? For defending myself and my family? I will not apologise to him. I did nothing wrong. Who the f*** is he that I should apologise?"

Simon turns his back to me and walks away. Then our director appears: "Sharon, you have to go out there and apologise for your language."

I said: "You're right. I have to. To the audience." And I did.

"It's a family show," I said, "and I forgot that, so I'm sorry for using foul language and I apologise for that. But I'm not sorry for what I said to him."

That night on my way home I realised that, yet again, Simon was right. I had, yet again, gone too far.

We had another month on the show and Simon continued to be upset right until the end of that series. But I think I've earned the right to say how I feel.

I speak from the heart - I can't speak any other way. Sometimes I wish I could. Most of the time it just gets me into trouble.

But anyway, just for luck, one more time: Chris Tarrant is a ****.

Adapted by JULIE McCAFFREY from Survivor: My Story - The Next Chapter by Sharon Osbourne, which is published by Little Brown, on Thursday priced £18.99 @Sharon Osbourne. To order a copy for the special price of £17 inc FREE p&p, call Mirror Direct on 0870 07 03 200, send a cheque/postal order to Mirror Direct, PO Box 60, Helston, Cornwall TR13 0TP, or order online at http://www.mirrorshopping.co.uk.

Sharon: My story
I could see my stalker's crazed eyes and froth on her lips.. her nails digging ino my arm




Sharon Osbourne seems to have it all - fame, fortune and a loving family. But there's a price... and in the final day of the Mirror's exclusive serialisation of her biography, Survivor: My Story - The Next Chapter, she reveals the terrifying downsides of her glamorous life...

I looked across and there she was, with her eyes shining through the crowd, caught in the flash of the paparazzi's cameras.

Kelly and security were pulling me towards the car. But all I could see was my stalker Doreen's crazed eyes and the frothy saliva that was always at the corners of her mouth.

The first time I met Doreen she was among fans waiting at the stage door after the ****** Monologues in Southampton. She told me her name, explained that she had written several letters and was happy to meet me in person.


So I smiled and scrawled my signature on her programme:

"To Doreen, I love you, Sharon." I didn't think any more about it.

The next time I was aware of her was at my chat-show studios. After each recording I'd go into the audience to shake hands and have photos taken.

There was a group of regulars and until then the only one of this group I had met was Doreen. But others began identifying themselves.

Then one day one called my home. "How did you get my number?" I asked.

"Oh, I got it off the internet," came the reply. Immediately I had the number changed. A few weeks later it happened again. And I changed it again.

Then Kelly got a phone call so we changed her number.

On September 8, a week or so into the show's run, ITV in Birmingham received a bomb threat. It was a Friday and although the chat show was on air at the time, the caller didn't realise it had been recorded two days before and the studio was empty.

We still don't know who was behind the hoax - but I do know it freaked me out.

By mid-October the chat show was over and we were into live shows at The X Factor. This guy, the only man in the group, started turning up at the stage door regularly.

It was around this time that a family friend got a phone call from Kelly in tears.

"I've taken an overdose, I'm high, I need my mum, I can't remember my mum's phone number. Give me my mum's phone number."

The friend called me immediately. "Sharon. I've just had a call from Kelly," he said. "She sounds in a bad way." And then he began describing the hysterical phone call. Quickly, I told him to stop.

"She's not in a bad way. I know where she is and she's fine," I said.

There was a beat of silence, then a groan and "f***." Not knowing it was a hoax, he'd given the caller my phone number.

And sure enough the phone started to ring an hour later at 1am. For two hours I let it ring on and off until about 3am when I picked it up.

"Aren't you angry I've got your number?" the voice asked.

"No. Not remotely. What do you want? I'll talk to you."

I don't know if it was the guy from The X Factor but his voice seemed familiar. "Who are you lying in bed with?" he asked.

I made my voice light. "No one," I said.

"Where's your famous anger then? Where's the Sharon Osbourne rant?"

"I'm not angry all the time, you know. I'm awake. I'll talk. What do you want to talk to me about?"

After 45 minutes, he got bored. The instant he hung up I called the phone company and changed the number. A little after this a letter arrived at our Buckinghamshire house, Welders. It was hand-delivered from Doreen. She had booked into a hotel down the road. "I'm here and I'm waiting for you to call," she wrote.

By now I felt real concern for this woman. So I decided to call her and find out what she wanted.

She told me she knew I would call and she knew we were going to be best friends. She said if I needed an assistant she would love to help out.

I told her she had a job and I have an assistant and we were not going to be friends.

Then in November Andy Abraham, a finalist from the previous year's X Factor, had a concert at the Albert Hall which I wouldn't have missed for the world.

During the interval I went to the bathroom and was just coming out when somebody blocked my way. I looked up. It was Doreen. My heart dropped into my stomach. Frightened, I ran back to my box and shut the door behind me.

Then she turned up again, this time at The X Factor wrap party. "Run for the car. Doreen's here!" Kelly cried.

But as we fled my arm was grabbed and I heard my name screamed in my face. "Sharon! Sharon!"

Doreen was tugging at my arm. My heart was pounding - she was hurting me with the sheer strength of her hands.

Security tried to get her off but she wouldn't let go and her nails dug in my arm. It ruined the evening - and it wasn't the last time I saw her.

In January 2007 when I was back in LA, CCTV monitors caught a woman hanging around outside.

"It's her," I said, peering at the screens. Doreen was on the steps.

A security guard went out and gave it to her straight: "Excuse me, ma'am, you are loitering, it's against the law and you gotta move on."

Next day I was in my car with my personal assistant. Suddenly she clutched my hand and hissed: "Oh my God!" And there she was, Doreen.

Eventually a letter came. Doreen said she had gone to all the places I'd written about in my first book and even tried to find my father's rest home. And there was stuff about how much money she had laid out to buy the ticket. She ended: "So I know now that I could never be your friend because I can never live this lifestyle so we don't have anything in common."

Of course, I never encouraged her to think she could be my friend. The problem is, if they call out, "I love you," and you call out, "I love you, too," some people take it literally.

There are always people who cross the line - who think they own you. That you owe them. That's the price you pay for celebrity.

Adapted by Julie McCaffrey from Survivor: My Story - The Next Chapter by Sharon Osbourne, published by Sphere on October 4 at £18.99 Y Sharon Osbourne. To order a copy for the special price of £17 including FREE p&p call Mirror Direct on 0870 0703200 or post a cheque/postal order to Mirror Direct, PO Box 60, Helston, Cornwall TR13 0TP or order online at http://www.mirrorshopping.co.uk

Will Sharon Osbourne's crude, vicious book bring about her downfall?
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