Sharon Osbourne Extreme: My Autobiography

by Sharon Osbourne; Penelope Dening

  This second stage is used for what I call the baby bands, the new, untried bands. When we first started out, I was ten years younger than I am now and I was still on the street, still very much into new bands, but Jack has done these now for years. At the age when most boys were doing a paper route, he knew every band, every label, every producer. At thirteen he was an intern for Virgin. He has a very good ear, and some of the bands that Jack put in ten years ago are still out there. I don't get involved; the thing is, if I am into these bands, if a fifty-plus woman connects with their lyrics, then there's something terribly wrong. But you know what's good and you know what's crap instinctively. It's something that's born into you.

  Putting a festival together is a bit like putting an outfit together, or a fashion show. It has to be the same genre. Other festivals mix and match, especially in Europe. You get a lot of people now who will go out with hip-hop bands: they want to be cutting-edge, they want to be cool. But you wouldn't put Celine and Pink together, you wouldn't put Gwen Stefani and Barbra Streisand together; it wouldn't work. So many people try to fix it when it's not broken, and we don't. We just stay true to what we are. Hard core.

  Ozzfest is a huge undertaking, bigger than anything I had done before. I had my LA office to back me up--Michael Guarracino and Dana Kiper were already with me--but if I wasn't traveling, I was on the phone till four in the morning. I was already in my forties, and it just wasn't fun anymore. I remember being in a state of permanent exhaustion; I even looked forward to the flights, as that was the only time I would have people looking after me and not the other way around. But if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have had a marriage--it was that simple. Ozzfest was everything I had ever wanted: big money coming in and Ozzy topping the bill. And in the end it got too much for me to do from England. Not only the sheer scale of the organization, but with the newer bands, these were just kids, they had to be US-based, and I had to see them.

  We talked about it and said, "Oh fuck it, let's give it a couple of years, let's go over there again, let's do whatever Ozzy's career's going to do." There was never any question of selling Welders. We were coming back in two years. And the kids were fine about it. All they ever wanted was for us all to be together, they didn't care where.

  So there we were, back in Los Angeles, looking for somewhere to buy and living in a rental house off Coldwater Canyon owned by Don Johnson, who made it big in Miami Vice in the eighties. It was the early summer of 1997 when September Films, an independent English TV production company, asked if they could come and film Ozzy and his family at home--that was the kind of docu-entertainment program they did.

  Ozzy is one of the funniest men alive and I always knew he was a TV natural, it was just nobody ever got beyond the Prince of Darkness thing, and it would give us great family footage to look back on. And the kids were eleven, twelve and thirteen at this time, so they would enjoy it. We said yes. But in fact when I saw the finished thing I thought it was really corny. But what do I know? Ozzy Osbourne Uncut went on to win the Rose d'Or at the Montreux International Television Festival in Switzerland. It was repeated five times in one year on Channel 5 in the UK.

  About a year later, MTV called to ask if they could come and do a Cribs episode at our house. Cribs was a regular series of glimpses into celebrities' homes and private lives, and again we said yes. Just the kids and Ozzy, though; I didn't want to do it.

  By then we had bought a house. The good news was that nothing needed to be done to it. The bad news was that Beverly Drive turned out to be the LA equivalent of the Washington Beltway. It doesn't look like a major highway, but the traffic never stops.

  There's this saying that inside every fat person there's a thin person trying to get out, and it is so true, at least for me. I started dieting when I was fourteen; I went to my first fat farm when I was fifteen. Through my fat phases I knew I was bloody fat and when I was thin I knew I was thin. Sometimes I would feel that I had spent my entire life dieting.

  However, the only thing that really made me lose weight was serious trauma: my father's betrayal in 1979, Ozzy's murder attempt in 1989. I was in my midforties, and I had everything in my closet from a size 6 (American) to a size 22 and I would get more and more disheartened, and when I saw myself in the mirror I would just weep. Weep on the inside, never on the outside.

  Now it was coming up to 1999, but there were no traumas in sight. In fact, quite the opposite. Ozzfest was doing great, and we were more secure financially than we had ever been in our lives.

  Ozzy was in the hospital in LA trying out yet another detox procedure, this time one where they changed his blood. And I was visiting one day and talking to this doctor about how coping in the heat was so difficult when you are fat, and he said he had a friend, a Dr. Phoby, who did a medical weight-loss procedure. A diet trains your stomach to shrink; this procedure shrinks it surgically. They cut your stomach and make a new pouch in your intestinal tract, so you get rid of the food you eat very quickly. Also, you can't eat much anyway because your new stomach isn't big enough. Ozzy had no objections. "You know I love you as you are," he said, "but if that's what would make you happy, you go for it."

  People who have never been up to a dress size 22 have no idea just how miserable everything becomes when you're that big. I had gone up and down and I had seen the difference in the way people treat you when you're big and when you're skinny. When I was skinny, people would wonder if I was Ozzy's sister. When I was big it was, "Are you his mother?" So when I had the opportunity put in front of me, I took it and never looked back.

  How you look is the emotional burden you carry around, but there's a physical burden as well. When you're large, you have to wash a lot more because you smell. Your body is having to work harder, so you sweat more and it gets trapped in the layers of fat. Just getting around in the heat is like climbing a mountain. And for me, actively working, having to run around a facility in Texas or Nevada in the height of summer was a fucking nightmare. I couldn't wear heels any longer because my feet couldn't take the strain. My back was beginning to give me trouble: just the weight of your bra straps carrying around vast 40GGG breasts. And things like going on a plane and having to ask for an extra belt to attach onto the end of the normal-sized seat belt. It's a permanent scourge, self-humiliation the whole time. People who say that their weight doesn't bother them are in denial. I used to say to people, "Look, I'm married, I've got my children, what do I care?" But I cared that I couldn't go up stairs, that Jack had to push me from behind.

  When I was large, I avoided having my picture taken. I would die at functions--just finding an evening dress I could get into was difficult enough, but when you're well over 195 pounds in a long dress you look awful whoever it's made by, and I would always feel conspicuous, even though I would be underdressed. You can't go looking like a Christmas tree. And whenever the big awards ceremonies were coming up, it was torture, and I wished I could have gone as a head on a plate. As it was, I went big on handbags--I'd spend thousands on handbags--or a great piece of jewelry. I would shift the focus, hiding behind my jewelry and my handbags and my meticulous hair and makeup and nails. I would spend two hours doing my makeup every day. Not a lot, but it had to be perfect.

  So I was booked in to have this operation with Dr. Phoby when another doctor friend of mine said they were doing a brand-new procedure at Cedars-Sinai and were looking for guinea pigs. And then he paused, before he told me that you had to fit the criteria. What criteria? You had to be obese, he said. Obese is a hard word. But I went, and I fit the profile--age, weight, history of yo-yo dieting--and they took me, and it was free. I felt happier with this procedure than the other one because it was far less invasive. No cutting your intestinal tract--they just bind your stomach with a plastic band. I was in the hospital for four days.

  My surgeon was Dr. Phillips, and I call him my guardian angel. He is an amazing man and he gave me back my life twice, because he also removed my cancer. The procedure itself had been tried out in Europe
but hadn't been approved for use in America, which was why they wanted guinea pigs. It does now have the stamp of approval, but it's still only available to people classified as obese. Where women are concerned this means over 200 pounds in weight. Insurance companies have finally realized that to be obese is a danger to your health, and you're less at risk if you're not fat, and therefore you're less of a risk for them.

  When people say something changed their life, it's usually an exaggeration, but this did change my life. Utterly and completely and in every way imaginable and unimaginable.

  I could eat exactly what I wanted, all my usual crap food: chocolate, milk shakes and fries, but suddenly, I'd have a plate of fries, eat four, and be unable to face any more. I wasn't hungry. I didn't know how much I was going to lose. This procedure hadn't been done before, so there wasn't a brochure saying, "This is what you can expect," or any before and after pictures. It was slow at first, but I was losing weight steadily every week, and then the momentum picked up and the weight fell off and I loved it, loved it. I felt rejuvenated and had so much more energy, and my feet didn't hurt anymore and my back didn't hurt anymore. You don't realize till it's gone how hard it is just lugging all that weight around all the time, especially when we were on the road, when it could be over 100 degrees and I'd have to work.

  In a year I lost 125 pounds. I started out at 225 and went down to 100. But I wasn't the sylph I had been in 1979: the fat might have gone, but the skin lingered on. So the next thing was plastic surgery to have the excess skin removed, and the fat that hadn't shifted. I hadn't realized this would be necessary, and nobody had warned me because nobody knew what would happen, how much weight I would lose; I was a guinea pig.

  I had my breasts lifted, I had my legs lifted, my arse lifted, I had a tummy tuck, the top of the thighs done. Liposuction everywhere. And it wasn't only my body. My face was hanging from the sheer loss of weight. I didn't have my nose done, or my eyes, or my lips, because they weren't where the extra weight had been. But I had a full face-lift, including my neck. Each operation had to be done individually. If you had that much work done together, you'd die.

  It took me a year to throw out all my big clothes, as if I didn't really believe those days were gone for good, but I did keep a couple of outfits as a reminder of why I never want to go back there again. Trousers with legs so wide I could now get my whole body into them, and a bra like two fucking bowler hats. Now, when I look back at the pictures, I don't recognize myself. Like the pictures of Ozzy's fiftieth birthday party, in January 1998. Just because I'm fat in them, though, I'll never try to hide the picture away in some drawer--it's part of my life.

  It was about three months before I bought anything new. And then it was like being given the key to Aladdin's cave. There were all these clothes I could never have dreamed of wearing before, things with color and texture, things with sparkles and beads, pleated fabric, embroidered fabric, quilted fabric--it was a complete luxury. And so I began to buy, not fashion pieces, but glorious, timeless pieces that you can hand on to your kids, vintage pieces that will go on and on. I could finally wear clothes by Vivienne Westwood. I first knew her years and years ago when she was with Malcolm McLaren. She designs for women who have women's bodies, not for stick insects--but when you're really big you can't wear clothes like that.

  Children never like change, even though it might be for the better, and particularly if it concerns their mother. They all took it differently. Kelly used to complain that she didn't like to cuddle me anymore because I didn't feel the same. Aimee didn't like my new way of dressing; she missed the flowing, flowery summer tents I used to wear. And Jack didn't have to push me up the stairs anymore. But for me, being able to go upstairs without even thinking about it, to run to separate two dogs that were fighting--it was unimaginable.

  There is a downside. I still eat the wrong foods and, as a result, I get terrible acid reflux. And when I eat too fast, too late at night, if the food won't go down, the only way is up, and I'm sick. It's not like I'm throwing up from my stomach; it hasn't had time to get that far. So I just have to eat terribly slowly and in tiny bits. I was told that a glass of wine would help to relax the muscles, so for the first time in nearly twenty years I began to drink again. Not much, a glass or two with dinner, and that's it. But never, ever in front of Ozzy.

  The children want me to have the band taken off; they think that my stomach is trained now, and that I won't put the weight back on. But for me that isn't an option. I know myself too well. I would just eat it all back again. But it's a problem. Ozzy may want to eat late, but I just can't. I keep hoping that one day, when I'm calmer, I will stop eating shit. But that's a long-term hope.

  The moment I realzed that everything really had changed was in May 2002 when People magazine included me in their list of fifty most beautiful women, and they gave me a double-page spread. I had never ever considered myself beautiful. That word was never used for me. Ozzy called me beautiful, but then he loved me, so I could never accept it as fact. And for the shoot I wore this fabulous red evening gown. Red! For years I had the choice of only one color, black. Black made shape invisible.

  With all this excess energy at my fingertips, I decided to go back into management. I mean, I was only forty-five, what was I supposed to do with my life from now on? My first signing was a young band that had debuted on Ozzfest, called Coal Chamber. Their manager was a nice guy but young and inexperienced. So they had a big hit album with me, and then they were making their second record and they fired me. The same old story. History repeating itself, but by now I honestly didn't care. I didn't give a shit, and I promised Ozzy I would never do management again.

  But then I heard that Smashing Pumpkins was looking for a manager, and I decided this was different. I really loved their music. I was a big fan. And it was like a game to me, because every big manager was after them. Bill Elson bet me about Lita Ford; this time I was betting myself. The lead singer, a guy named Billy Corgan, had a bad reputation in the business for being difficult. But I always judge people on my own radar, so I flew in to Chicago, and it was loved me, loved them. We got along great. And when he told me he wanted me to manage them, I cried, because he had so much talent and he'd seen everybody.

  He was a dream. He was a complete doll. Then slowly, like an illusionist's trick, he turned into a fucking alien in front of my very eyes. He wasn't even ordinary horrible, he was one of the meanest, most twisted people I've ever had the misfortune of working with. He would be openly nasty to people. Journalists, record company people, you name it. And he basically did not need a manager, because whatever you suggested he did the opposite. All he needed was a glorified secretary, which he already had, a nice girl who used to work for a Chicago promoter, and she would do all the bring-me-fetch-me, book-me-a-fucking-massage shit. And nobody could get to him without going through her, his human buffer. What she ever saw in him I shall never know. If it had been the Brad Pitt vibe I'd have got it. But this man was a lightbulb in trousers, Yul Brynner's mutant brother. The band was named after a Halloween vegetable and it suited them.

  We were doing the first video for the album and Billy had these outrageous clothes made. He put himself in a long black dress and he looked like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family, and his whole band was in dresses.

  "You can't do this," I said. "You're spending fortunes on these clothes and they're crap and you look fucking ridiculous." He wanted to do all his interviews for this project in the character of another person and, on his rider, he wanted that the promoter should find the ten ugliest people in each city to be in the audience.

  "If that gets out in the press you're in big trouble. What is it for?"

  "It's art."

  So we were touring Europe, and the tour opened in Germany and the head of the German record company was going to be there. So I asked Billy if he wanted to meet this guy before or after the show.

  "They're cunts," he goes. "I don't want to meet them."

  "You kno
w what, Billy," I said. "It goes a long way when somebody is personally involved with you. People have to do their work, but if they like you, if they're personally involved, they put that little bit extra into it. Be nice, they're doing their job."

  He agreed, and the next day we all went to dinner with the record company executives. And it was very strained and I was overcompensating with my silly chat. And Aimee was there with me, and Billy Corgan had a Russian girlfriend. And this young girl and Aimee would talk together. So Aimee got up to go to the bathroom and she came back and said "Excuse me" to Billy to get back to her place at the table. And he said, "Go fuck yourself, I'm not moving."

  So I'm like: OK. All right-ee. OK. And he continued to be belligerent throughout dinner. It was the same thing at the show: he wouldn't have anybody come backstage, wouldn't meet and greet, and I'm like, This is just fucking ridiculous. So finally I asked for a meeting, and the answer came back through his assistant.

  "Billy doesn't do meetings after shows." So I'm sitting in the hotel and it's snowing. And I'm there with Aimee, and I think: What the fuck am I doing? I said I would never do this again. So I got on the phone to Michael in LA, where it was mid-morning.

  "Michael, I want you to put out on the wire service a press release saying: 'Due to medical reasons I have to resign as Billy Corgan's manager. Because he makes me sick.'"

  Then I went downstairs and got the barman to get every single person in that bar a drink, and charged them to Billy's room. Then I got three first-class tickets to LA for Aimee and myself and the tour manager, a lovely man named Nick Cua, somebody with whom I'd worked on and off for twenty-five years. When I'd told him Aimee and I were off, he'd said, "Don't think I'm staying. I'm only here because of you." All three tickets I charged to Billy Corgan's room.