He was also working out every single day, to be ready. For him, this show was the light at the end of his tunnel; something to focus on other than the disease. And he could prove to the world that he wasn’t going to let MS beat him.
But as the weeks went on, doubt started to creep into the voices of those I was dealing with when it came to finalising the details. The first hint that all was not well was when Meredith called me. ‘We’re having a bit of trouble with insuring him,’ she said. I’d already considered that possibility, and told her that he’d be covered by his own insurance. That we’d gone into it and they’d be covered. ‘So there’s no problem,’ I said.
Sensing the way it was going, I even suggested that, if they were still concerned, they might think about using him as a presenter instead. After all, he was already highly experienced. And on the back of Adrenaline Junkie, he was perfectly placed to comment on the kind of activities involved. But they said they had given the job to Samantha Harris, who had been co-hosting Dancing with the Stars. She happens to be a very nice person. I had nothing against her and she was a perfectly good presenter, but why would you give the job of presenting a show about military activities with Special Forces men to someone who had previously presented a ballroom-dancing show? OK, I know – I am complaining again.
Some days later I had an email from Meredith. She said that she was still trying to find a way for Jack to stay on the show, and was keen to talk to his doctors about ‘what parameters, if any, they have to make sure we don’t hurt him’. She signed off, ‘love and hugs’ – still friendly, still apparently doing everything she could to make sure Jack could stay on the show.
By now, Jack had been fitted for his uniform and was due to start sessions on safety and weapons training on 3 and 4 June. Actual taping of the shows would be between 10 and 28 June.
Then, on 2 June, the day before Jack’s first training session, I got an email from Chuck Labella, head of talent booking for NBC. He was writing to tell me that ‘regretfully’ they were unable to move forward with Jack as a part of Stars Earn Stripes, because there was ‘too much of a health risk’. He went on to tell me how much they all ‘love Jack’, and hoped to be able to work with him in the future – perhaps on a future season of the show. He closed, ‘We are as disappointed as Jack about this news.’
I stared blankly at the screen, unable, or more likely unwilling, to believe what was there. My stomach plummeted. Why were they sending this to me, his mother, while the network had been dealing with his agent and Jack personally? Had they emailed Jack? Why did they leave it until the day before he was due to turn up for work? And fourth, why didn’t they keep their word?
Personally I couldn’t have cared less about a stupid TV show. But Jack had set so much store by this. It meant too much. It was a chance for him to show the world that a diagnosis of MS didn’t mean that his life was over. As for what the doctor had said, they would say of any contestant that dangling someone out of a helicopter into a raging river was dangerous. Working with machine guns was dangerous. Obviously. The reality was that he was as fit now as he’d ever been, apart from the vision in one eye, which was gradually improving.
The first thing I had to do was call Jack. He hadn’t received the email. Nor had his agent. Needless to say, Jack was completely devastated.
By now I was seething with the visceral anger of a mother when she feels that one of her children needs protecting. It wasn’t the booker’s fault. I knew he was just the hapless messenger for the other bastards, those spineless types that occupied the carpeted corridors with fancy nameplates on the doors.
First thing the next morning I called Meredith Ahr, asking what the fuck was going on. She’d given me her word that his diagnosis wouldn’t affect anything. As for leaving it till the last minute, that was disgusting. I told her I felt betrayed and disrespected.
Then she said to me, ‘Is it about the money? We’ll pay him. We’ll send him his cheque.’
‘Money? He doesn’t want your money, he wants a job. He’s got something to prove here – that you can still have MS and have a normal life – and the show gave him something to work towards.’
Clearly she had no understanding of the situation Jack was in. As for the money, that was a complete and utter insult.
Something just snapped. ‘You’re a bunch of fucking arseholes, spineless sons of bitches. And I don’t want to be associated with people like you. As for Jack being a liability, how dare you? Jack is not a liability to anyone. But you know what? As much as I love America’s Got Talent, if it means I have to associate with people like you, I’m leaving.’
‘Sharon, I understand why you’re upset – you’re a mother. But I’m sure you’ll feel differently about it once things have calmed down.’
How little they know me, I thought, and put the phone down.
Bear in mind that this is the same network that was more than happy for Bret Michaels to fly in from Phoenix to New York for the Celebrity Apprentice finale, despite having just had a brain haemorrhage and – again before the final – being diagnosed with a hole in the heart. On top of that, they had always known that he was severely diabetic. Double standards, or what?
I waited a couple of hours and then I called Paul Telegdy, Meredith’s boss at NBC and President of NBC Entertainment, and it went from bad to ugly fast.
‘You know what?’ I told him. ‘You’re a bunch of unimaginative arseholes. You could turn this show into something else, something worthwhile that proves that people who have disabilities can still win. You could make it a different type of programme. And another thing,’ I continued, ‘anybody who will listen to my story, I am telling. I am going to sing like a fucking canary to the world – whoever will listen. If you think I’m going to be quiet, you are fucking nuts.’
‘We won’t be threatened, Sharon.’
‘Telling the truth is not making a threat. Ozzy and I are going to hold a press conference and tell everyone what you’ve done to our son.’ My comment was total bullshit. I just said it for the drama. I was in full drama queen mode. In fact I remember mumbling something about how Ozzy was on his way to New York to appear live on Letterman. Again that was all bullshit.
The call ended with him saying something like, ‘Do what you want to do,’ and the phone clicked off. He followed up this conversation with an email, in which he said he was ‘strongly suggesting’ that I limit my communication with them, and instead deal with them via my and Jack’s agents. Apparently it was ‘extremely vexing’ for them to hear ‘ill-informed, erroneous’ accusations, when they were ‘trying to help’. He went on to say that what I was saying bordered on defamation, and was a ‘complete waste’ of their time.
How can the truth be perceived as ‘defamation’?
My America’s Got Talent contract meant that I was locked in to do the live shows in New York because I had already spent two months filming the audition stages. If I had pulled at that point, they would undoubtedly have sued me. But staying on didn’t mean I was going to be submissive. It didn’t mean I had to play that bullshit lovey-dovey TV game. It didn’t mean I had to blow smoke up anyone’s arse.
The following week I had to fly to New York with these people to start filming the live shows. As usual it was a private plane, an eight-seater, with just the executives and me and my assistant on board. As the car pulled up on the tarmac at Van Nuys airport, in the valley, there they were, with shit-eating grins on their faces: Meredith Ahr and Bob Greenblatt, the new head of NBC, who I had never met in my life.
So Meredith goes, ‘Sharon! Sharon, how lovely to see you!’ As for Greenblatt, I gave him my best Bette Davis face and ignored his extended hand, which was preparing to shake mine. I looked at them both, turned my head then got into the plane. I never said a word.
Meredith turned to my assistant, Julie, who was following behind and said, ‘So this is how it’s going to be, is it?’ Yes, missus, you got it. We sat on that plane for five hours. You could have cut the at
mosphere with a butter knife. Not a word was spoken.
It was the journey from hell.
The following day was the first America’s Got Talent show live from New York. I was in the elevator going down to the stage from my dressing room, and when the doors opened there stood none other than Paul Telegdy, who’d instructed me to communicate solely through my agent. He had his arms outstretched as if he was about to clasp me to his bosom: ‘Shazza!’ he said, acting as if nothing had ever happened. And I was like, ‘Fuck off,’ and I shooed him away with my hands as if he was a fly landing on a turd. I never looked at him or spoke to him throughout the entire series, and we were there for ten weeks.
I totally understood the awkward situation they were in as a network. But they were wrong in constantly reassuring us that everything would be fine. They were wrong in leaving it till the day before to pull the rug from under Jack’s feet. And then they were very, very wrong when we went public, when they denied he was ever going to be a participant, which they did. It was never a deal. There was never a contract, so what was all the fuss about? They may have had a problem but, as executives representing a public corporation, a network that had had a six-year relationship with me, they handled it horribly.
I don’t hold NBC responsible as a corporation. It’s the executives who made the decision I have no respect for.
In fact, the stance they took made them look ridiculous. Why would Jack and I make up the story that he’d been cast if he hadn’t? There was a contract – unsigned, admittedly – but why would we make up that story? What would have been the advantage to us? It made no sense.
All of it could have been avoided, all the ugliness and the public battles, if NBC had been gracious enough to be truthful and say, ‘We’re not happy with these circumstances; unfortunately we’re going to have to let Jack go, and here’s a small donation to MS research.’ We would have been upset, but we would have understood.
America’s Got Talent didn’t finish until the middle of September. When there was one week of the series left, I asked my agent to contact NBC to see if they could give me a proper send-off. If you’ve been on a show for the time I had, they’ll give you a goodbye. They’ll put together a reel of your best moments and wish you well.
They refused. Fine. On the final day, I’d gone through different scenarios in my head as to what I should do, as we were going live. Should I go gracefully? Or should I make a scene? And if so, how? Was it going to be dramatic – a great Hollywood ending? Or just dignified. Even sitting there as the minutes ticked down, I didn’t know how to handle it. It ended up that one of the finalists who didn’t win was a little girls’ dancing group, and one of the little girls said to Nick Cannon as they were leaving the stage, ‘We don’t want to leave,’ and she was crying. That was my cue. I interrupted the interview which, remember, was going out live, and said, ‘I don’t want to leave either, but I have to, just like you. This is my last show. So hold my hand and we’ll go together.’ When the winner was announced, a dog act I’d been campaigning for since they first appeared, I got up from my seat, took my shoes off and ran up on stage, which I was not meant to do. I then proceeded to prance about, doing the most ridiculous skipping movements. Basically, it was my fuck you to NBC. I saw the little girl, and we hugged. She had no idea of the role she’d played in my departure.
Anyway, there’s a great saying, ‘Stand by the bank of the river long enough and you will see the bodies of your enemies float by.’
When the Stars Earn Stripes show began to air, Desmond Tutu and various other Nobel Peace Prize winners tried to get it banned on the grounds that it glorified war, and they encouraged people to campaign to get it off the air. They didn’t succeed, but it tanked in the ratings anyway, as it was considered to be in bad taste. Karma is a bitch.
11
Body and Soul
Maybe it’s time to start growing old gracefully?
I was rapidly approaching my sixtieth birthday, but it’s fair to say that not every part of my body was of quite the same vintage. Over the years, there’s not much I haven’t had tweaked, stretched, peeled, lasered, veneered, enhanced or removed altogether. But as I write this, I can tell you that, hand on original, sixty-year-old heart, I won’t be having any more cosmetic procedures. The neck lift during my mastectomy was my last, and my days of growing old disgracefully are well and truly over. There are two main reasons for this.
First, my family, and Ozzy especially, are terrified about me going under a general anaesthetic unless I absolutely have to. That old heart I mentioned? It’s endured enough surgical procedures already, not to mention the strain of several courses of chemotherapy. There’s only so much the human body can take, and I feel that mine has already been pushed to its limits. It doesn’t need any more stress placed on it in my endless pursuit of youth.
But second, my cancer, the mastectomy and, more importantly, Jack’s illness, put everything into perspective for me. When you witness your own or your child’s body having to fight a genuine threat, choosing to put it through the mill for the purposes of vanity seems beyond idiotic. Looking back now, I am genuinely disturbed by how many times I have been under the surgeon’s knife in pursuit of a physical ‘perfection’ that doesn’t exist.
People often talk about having ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’ when they look in the mirror, ‘Oh, I’m having a “fat” day,’ or, ‘Wow, I look really great this morning.’ Well, I had never looked in the mirror and liked what I saw. Never. In my mind, I had always been fat, hairy, with little legs and disproportionately large tits, and nothing I could ever do to my body would change that. But boy, did I try.
My obsession with having cosmetic surgery is well documented, particularly since I started doing television and became better known. I have always felt that if you’re in the public eye, you should be honest about what you’ve had done so that other women don’t have unrealistic expectations. They should know that there’s nothing natural about it, that it costs shitloads of money to look that way and that you are putting your body through brutal surgical procedures.
I was having things done long before I became famous. I started altering myself even before I was married. I had what I called National Geographic tits – very pendulous – so I first had them reduced and lifted in 1978. I was a bit of a pioneer. Then there was my first facelift in 1987, when I was just thirty-five years old! Trouble is, because of my yo-yoing weight (I would get big then I would lose the weight really quickly), I would be left with excess saggy skin. So it was this eternal merry-go-round of hate myself, eat; hate myself, diet; hate myself, have surgery; hate myself, eat… you get the picture. I was every cosmetic surgeon’s perfect customer. I should have been given a fucking loyalty card.
Then there was another facelift, around 2002, I think, and over the years I have had my legs lifted, my arms lifted, my breasts done again and my tummy tucked after I had the gastric band. Much of the surgery was because my fluctuating weight left me with hideously droopy skin. And I thought if I just had perfect breasts, then my life would be perfect, too. Dumb, huh?
The trouble is, you start doing it, then you come round from the operation and think, OK, that was pretty easy. Then you look in the mirror and, although you’re not completely perfect, you quite like what you see and that gives you a bit of confidence. Then that confidence eventually starts to ebb and you miss it, and the next thing you know, you’re back having another op to boost yourself up again. It’s a vicious and gory cycle.
I used to have Botox and fillers, too, but not any more. It’s terrible stuff. I had fillers just before Lisa’s baby shower and a couple of days later, when I looked at the photographs of me, I was shocked. From certain angles, I looked really odd. Very plastic. My eyes were like slits, my cheeks puffy. I looked like a completely different person, as if I was wearing a mask. There I was, supposedly celebrating the imminent arrival of my granddaughter, and my face was virtually incapable of expression.
I don’t think
I’m as bad as some women, like Jocelyn ‘Bride of’ Wildenstein. But I had definitely fallen into the trap of thinking I looked OK without frown or laughter lines, not realising that the minute you start talking or trying to smile, you look like an alien that’s lost contact with the mother ship.
For me, the baby-shower pictures were a defining moment. I thought, Holy crap, it was only a few injections and look at the state of me. It was at that point that I decided no more Botox and fillers, thank you very much. I’m so over it. It felt like liquid concrete that had completely changed the angle of my features, and not in a good way. Unless, of course, you want to look like a fucking hamster.
I’m pleased to report that my face has settled down since then and I can actually move the bloody thing.
There’s nothing worse than someone having everything they want done, then turning around to everyone else and preaching that they shouldn’t do the same, I realise that. But after advocating cosmetic surgery and non-surgical procedures for so long, I feel it is only right to pass on that my opinion has changed. It’s a fine line, really. If you hate your nose or ears and they make you feel self-conscious, then having them tweaked or pinned back will probably change your life. I get that, and if either of my daughters felt that way, I would say, ‘Go right ahead.’ Similarly, I know what it’s like to hate your tits, so if you’re a young woman and you genuinely feel embarrassed taking your top off in front of someone, then who am I to say that you shouldn’t do something about it with a one-off procedure?
What I’m talking about is women like me who hate what they see in the mirror and will keep on having surgery because we don’t know how to stop.
Unbreakable: My New Autobiography Page 12
