When I went back after the break, I was apprehensive. I wasn’t sure if there was still going to be bad feeling, and, if there was, I didn’t know if I could take it. Everyone wants to spend their day in a job that’s enjoyable, where you all get on. Was that too much to ask?
I needn’t have worried. Two new women had been brought in as replacements for Holly and Leah, comedienne Sheryl Underwood and actress and stand-up comic Aisha Tyler, and right from day one they were amazing. We all clicked in an instant and, from then on, it has become the best TV job I have ever had.
But, of course, as has happened so many times in my life, just as things were looking up, something jumped up and bit me.
When one of her Twitter followers asked Leah why she was no longer on the show, she tweeted back, ‘Sharon. She had us fired.’ She followed it up with, ‘Sharon thought me and Holly were “Ghetto” [her words], we were not funny, awkward and didn’t know ourselves.’ She was referring to an interview I had given to the famously outrageous radio host Howard Stern, where I had said that to be successful on the show you had to know who you were, and that Holly and Leah clearly didn’t.
I tweeted back: ‘Leah knows that I have never been in a position to hire or fire anyone on the show. That being said, my only wish is that Leah would just stop all this negative, unprofessional and childish behaviour.’
Much as I would like to say that I am that powerful, I’m clearly not. I have trouble getting myself hired most of the time, so how the fuck could I get someone fired? I learned the lesson the hard way while working on The X Factor that in a ‘she goes or I go’ situation, the answer was… I was not on the next series of X Factor. Lesson learned.
Regardless, I was the bad guy, apparently. But really it was just an excuse. No one in TV wants to say their options weren’t picked up because they didn’t come out well in audience research, do they? They wanted a scapegoat. But, seriously? If I had that much fucking clout at CBS, I’d have my own bloody talk show!
In public, Holly maintained a dignified silence about Leah’s claims, but she sent me a couple of unpleasant emails, making her feelings very clear indeed. Also, her mother wrote to my make-up artist, Jude Alcala, who has been with me for thirteen years, saying that he should know that he worked for an ‘evil’ person. Obviously he showed me what she wrote, and while it’s not pleasant being referred to in those terms, it didn’t upset me one jot because I didn’t even know the woman. What I felt was anger that she had involved poor Jude. What the hell did she think he was going to do about it?
So I called her straight away.
‘Hey, missus, call or write to me, you know where I am. You live down the road from the studio, you could have come in to see me.’
I said that Jude had been with me for a long time and that she shouldn’t place him in that awkward position; that she had made herself look like a fool.
‘Right, so now we’re on the phone to each other, tell me what your problem is.’
She started off with the whole ‘you got my daughter fired’ nonsense, and said that when she went into her local grocery store, everyone was telling her how much they missed having Holly on the show. That’s just great, I said, but seriously, it has nothing to do with me.
In many ways, my heart went out to this woman. I understood why she had done it. She was a mother defending her daughter, just as I would do with mine. But it was based on a lie, and I wasn’t going to take it lying down just to make her feel better.
So I told her that she only had her daughter’s side of the story, that TV was a tough game and that Holly probably hadn’t researched well, which is why she wasn’t picked up. I pointed out that all these shows do market research and that you can be the bitch from hell but if you come across well on screen, it will keep you in a job. That’s all it comes down to, I said. Nothing more sinister than that. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s scapegoat.
It was Sara’s show; she was the producer. Julie is married to the boss of the network. And Holly and Leah thought it was little old me that got them fired? I was just a hired hand with a big mouth. Don’t pick on me, ladies.
For season two, the premise of the show changed. We were still five mothers, but we could talk about whatever we wanted. That was manna from heaven for me, with one small problem. It’s live, and I sometimes forget myself. As we all get on so well, it’s easy to think I’m sitting round a dinner table and chatting to my mates. And in situations like that, we sometimes say things we think are funny, but which we don’t really mean.
Luckily, given my propensity to swear, we are on a seven-second delay and have the lovely Kingsley, whose job it is to hit the big red cut-out button every time one of us – admittedly, mostly me – lets a rude word slip out. Kingsley is English and has a great sense of humour, so I walk past him each morning and say, ‘Fuck, shit, fart,’ to get it out of the way, and he raises his eyes heavenward at my naughtiness.
But Kingsley’s job is only to hit that button for swear words. After that, we’re on our own, and one or two of my off-the-cuff quips that I thought were funny at the time have got me into trouble afterwards. It’s usually something glib that just pops into my head, and when I analyse it the next day, I think, Why did I say that? It’s about finding that balance between speaking your mind, even if your view is controversial, and saying it in a way that isn’t offensive to viewers.
In July 2011, a Californian woman called Catherine Kieu cut off her estranged husband’s penis and threw it in the waste-disposal unit because he had reportedly started seeing an ex-girlfriend.
Before I knew it, I had opened my mouth and uttered the words, ‘I don’t know the circumstances… However, I do think it’s quite fabulous.’
Obviously, I don’t think it’s fabulous at all and, to this day, I don’t know what possessed me to say it. It just popped out. Luckily, Sara counteracted it slightly by saying that it was sexist to joke about it because if it was a woman’s breast that had been cut off, we wouldn’t be making light of it. Quite right – I was completely in the wrong.
But the damage was already done. By the time we came off air, the ‘indignant viewer’ emails had started pouring in. Some of them were absolutely furious. It had been such a knee-jerk comment, I didn’t really think anyone would take it that seriously. Little did I know quite how serious it was yet to get.
A couple of days later, a message came in from some men’s group saying that I needed a bullet to the back of my head, and suddenly the production team were having crisis meetings. CBS were fantastically supportive and put on extra-tight security for the following two weeks. The threats didn’t keep me awake at night, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t unnerve me a little, because there’s always one nutter, isn’t there? It only takes one.
I had been planning to address the issue again on air, but after all the backlash, and receiving a death threat, I said diddly-squat about it. It was like, what penis remark?
That’s what I find so hard about all this new technology now. There is always someone, somewhere who takes offence, and all they have to do is write a quick email and push the ‘send’ button. In the old days, when you had to write out a letter of complaint by hand, stick it in an envelope and wander off to the postbox, you really had to care about the point you wanted to make.
After the Catherine Kieu incident, I half expected to be given a talking-to by someone from the network or production team, but it didn’t come. They were really good about it. They’re the number-one network in America and have been for sixteen years. It’s a huge corporation, yet it’s like a family. They care about people.
But I’m a realist. I’m employed to do a job, so if it’s not right for their network and I am going to get them in trouble by expressing a certain viewpoint, then of course they’ll say something. They tell me all the time, ‘OK, you’ve taken it too far, don’t do that, it’s not right for our viewers.’ They know better than me, and I damn well listen. I’d be stupid not to. Again, it’s that fine
line between not being too outrageous, but not ending up with five co-hosts all sitting there too terrified to open their mouths in case it upsets one woman in Baltimore.
Last summer, we had a woman called Rielle Hunter on as a guest. She had written a ‘spiritual’ book about her affair with married Republican senator John Edwards, whose wife Elizabeth had had breast cancer and has since died. She had been unkind about Elizabeth in the book, which I thought was beyond inappropriate. It was disgusting. To my mind, she pursued him and was no better than a political groupie. She waited for him outside a hotel then gave her phone number to his assistant, for God’s sake. Very unlikeable behaviour. So there she was, telling her story, and I just thought she wasn’t being honest, and said so.
‘Do you talk with forked tongue? That’s what I want to know, Rielle.’
She started to cry, but honestly – what did she expect? If you’re going to come on a show with five other women and tell us about your affair with the husband of a woman with four kids who is dying of cancer, well, sorry, missy, you’re going to get some stick. There was no way I was going to sit there and be false. If you’re going to write a book about having an affair, own it. Say that you know it’s not right and that he probably fed you a load of old lies about his wife, as they always do. But don’t sit there and try to justify it.
After the show, the feedback revealed that most of the viewers agreed with me, and the show’s bosses were obviously OK with it too, because I didn’t get told off!
But it’s a paradox; what I love about the show – that we are all mates and comfortable with each other – can also be my undoing, because I sometimes forget that there are people at home listening to our every word.
For me, The Talk has been like finding a home. I feel I belong. And I feel accepted. It’s grounded me. Of course I still get great satisfaction out of working in the music industry, but only so far as the projects involve my husband. For everything else, I’ve seen it all before a million times. I’ve worked with some of the most legendary artists in the business. But if it wasn’t for Ozzy, I could quite happily close the door and wave it all goodbye.
After all my TV endeavours, I have finally found somewhere I feel truly comfortable. Julie Chen is a self-made woman who has learnt her craft of journalism the hard way. I’ve watched her blossom into the hilariously funny, sexy presenter that she is today. She’s the glue that holds the show together, the quintessential professional. Off camera she’s as funny as fuck, and I trust her implicitly.
As for Sara Gilbert, my darling little lesbian who first had the courage to hire me, she reminds me of a baby bird in a nest and I always want to protect her. She’s wickedly funny and has a very naughty, dirty sense of humour and amazing comic timing. She became a star at a very early age, but through it all she has managed to stay grounded and is probably one of the wisest women I have ever known. I admire her immensely, as she came out openly on the show, which can’t have been easy. She has two beautiful young children and she talks honestly about her sexual orientation, and in doing so I know that she’s helped thousands of young people feel comfortable with who they are. Also, for a working actress to come out in such a public way is taking a huge risk because it could easily affect a career. There are some pretty small-minded people out there, even in showbiz.
The first time I was introduced to Sheryl Underwood, Julie Chen called and asked me to join her and Sheryl for a breakfast meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge. This was after Holly and Leah’s options hadn’t been renewed and she had told me that CBS were thinking of adding Sheryl to the show. Sheryl is a stand-up comic, but back then I had no idea who she was, any more than she knew who I was.
The morning of the meeting, I woke up not feeling my usual self. I had a headache and felt extremely hot. As usual, I arrived at the meeting ten minutes late. We were seated in a booth and I was in the middle, with Sheryl on my left and Julie on my right. We ordered breakfast and proceeded to discuss the show. Julie knew Sheryl of old and was well versed in her history, so she introduced us, ate and ran. We must have been at least forty-five minutes into our meeting when I felt something was wrong. I had a sweaty top lip, my armpits were tingling and my stomach was definitely not right. I realised that I was missing half of what Sheryl was saying.
Sitting at the table opposite were Nicole Ritchie, her husband and her two lovely children. I’ve known Nicole for the last twelve years, so we’d already acknowledged each other and thrown air kisses in the way you do. I had just made eye contact with Nicole’s husband when my mouth opened and I projectile-vomited. Fortunately the cascade of sick didn’t reach him, but it did reach Sheryl, exploding over the both of us and our breakfasts. As introductions go, it could have been better.
Hastily excusing myself, I ran to my Range Rover and headed straight to my apartment, which was five minutes’ drive from the hotel. But before I got there I shat myself all over the ivory-coloured leather seats. There are never fewer than three doormen to greet you at my apartment block and there’s also a concierge behind the reception desk. My dilemma was this: how the fuck do I get into the building? I was covered in puke and shit, and the smell in the car was making me want to throw up again. So I called up to my housekeeper, Saba, who brought down bin bags, wet towels and a dressing gown. In the meantime, I parked in a side street until she arrived to clean me up.
So it wasn’t the greatest introduction of all time… But Sheryl happens to be one of the funniest women I have ever met in my life and she took it all in her stride. I absolutely adore her, and subsequently I considered her my new bestie. She’s always got my back.
The other new lady on The Talk was Aisha Tyler. She is a multitalented actress/stand-up comedienne/writer, and I’ve known her for eleven years. I interviewed her at least three times on my chat show in 2003. She’s got that lethal combination of beauty and wit and is a complete workaholic – her résumé is endless. I’m in awe of her.
When Kelly came on The Talk as a guest, she made a point of thanking my four co-hosts on air for being so supportive. ‘My mum doesn’t have many female friends,’ she said. ‘So it’s nice that she now has you guys in her life. She loves you all very much.’
She’s right on both counts. It’s true that I don’t have a massive group of friends of either sex. But those I do have are very close indeed. And as I have always told my kids, it’s not the number of friends you have, it’s the quality. At the darkest times of my life, they have always been there for me. I can count them on both hands and, without exception, we have all grown up together.
My best friend is Gloria Butler, who is married to Geezer, Black Sabbath’s bassist. She’s about the only person in the world who still calls him Terry, apart from me when I’m talking to her. We first met when they were just dating and we’ve been friends ever since, even through the various ups and downs of Sabbath. She’s four years younger than me and lives around the corner from us in Beverly Hills. We speak every single day without fail, and if she’s walking her dogs past the house, she’ll always pop in. She’s very funny, and so like me in that she manages her husband and is very protective of him. She’s American, from St Louis, Missouri and Geezer is from Birmingham, so there’s quite a cultural difference, but it works.
I ring her on my way to work at about 7.15 a.m. and we talk for the duration of the drive to the studio, which is about fifteen minutes. She has two boys: the eldest is married with kids, just like Jack, and the other is Kelly’s age. Incredibly, we had them three weeks apart, so the kids pretty much grew up together. We have so much shared history it makes friendship a lot easier because we don’t have to go over old ground every time we speak. You can just have one of those quick, ‘Hi, how are you’ chats rather than spending the first ten minutes bringing someone up to date on your entire life.
Another really close friend is Belle Zwerdling, who I met in 1976 when I moved to Los Angeles at the tender age of twenty-four. She was my first American friend and we’ve stayed clos
e ever since. Belle is now a very well respected Hollywood agent and a big part of who I am.
Before Ozzy and I started our romance, and it was just a working relationship, I even hooked him up with Belle. He was very lonely and needed female company, if you know what I mean, and Belle was well up for it. Both of them claim they never ‘did the deed’ as they were too busy telling jokes and laughing. According to Ozzy, Belle ‘would sit on top of my bed with her legs crossed and she spent the entire time eating pickles’. After their first date – if that’s what you could call it – Belle left Ozzy’s hotel room wearing his jacket – a nice green and white check – and in the inner pocket was Ozzy’s return ticket to London together with his passport. It was only a couple of months later when he needed it that Ozzy told me where it was. So I called her.
‘Listen, Belle. Ozzy needs his ticket and passport and they’re in that jacket you took. I need them back.’ Her response was short and to the point: ‘Ticket and passport yes, jacket no.’
Then there’s Michele Anthony, who I’ve known for thirty years. Our lives run strangely parallel in that her father, Dee Anthony, was the US equivalent of my father. The difference is that she chose education and I didn’t. She’s a lawyer and was at Sony Music for eighteen and a half years and ended up running the company. After leaving Sony – which was Ozzy’s label – she set up her own marketing consultancy and now has the luxury of working only with artists who are friends of hers. When I was working on the recent Black Sabbath album, Michele was the first person I turned to. We would never have got a number-one album without her. One of the gifts of getting to our age is that I trust her, and she trusts me, with everything. And we’re talking here about multimillion-dollar deals, other people’s careers. She’s so wise that she’s the person I go to for advice every time I need it. She lives in New York, so whenever I’m there we do our best to meet up. We can go for weeks without talking to each other, but we never have to explain why we haven’t been in touch. We simply pick up where we left off. That’s true friendship.
Unbreakable: My New Autobiography Page 8
