Sharon Osbourne says show ‘just wanted me gone’

Sharon Osbourne co-hosts an October 2020 episode of The Talk. (Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty Images)

Sharon Osbourne continues to have a lot to say about her abrupt departure from The Talk.

The former reality star left the CBS daytime talk show following an ugly, on-air argument with co-host Sheryl Underwood on the March 10 episode. It began with Osbourne defending her friend Piers Morgan, who’d been accused of racism on his own show, Good Morning Britain, after verbal attacks against Meghan Markle. In the fallout, The Talk was put on hiatus as the network launched an internal investigation, Osbourne issued an apology and, on March 26, left the show altogether.

On Tuesday’s episode of SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show, Osbourne said that she had actually been the one who demanded that investigation in the first place. However, she said that it hadn’t been carried out properly.

“When all of this happened, I went to HR and said, ‘I want an investigation. I want to know who decided to do this. Why I was left out to dry [on the show] for 20 minutes. I want to know why,'” Osbourne said. “And so they did do the investigation, but it was, as usual with corporations like this, did they speak to my producer that was prepping me that morning? No, she was never interviewed. Did they speak to people who were in the booth directing the show? No. So they spoke to a few people. Did they speak to the cameramen? Did they speak to people on the floor? What was going on during the break? No. So they selectively chose certain people to talk to. It came back that I was very offensive the way I treated Sheryl, the way my behavior….”

She said that she was told that she was on “permanent suspension with no pay” and that she might not return at all.

From left, Elaine Welteroth, Carrie Ann Inaba, Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood and Amanda Kloots hosted The Talk before Osbourne’s departure. (Photo: Randee St. Nicholas/CBS via Getty Images)

Osbourne said she wanted to know who would make that decision.

“And they wouldn’t tell me. And then HR said to me, ‘We feel that you’re not repenting enough. Where are you repenting? What are you doing? You have no … your behavior around this is not appropriate for this situation.’ So I told them all what I felt about them all. I told them about some dirt that had gone on at the company that I knew about. And they were very afraid of me because I’m not afraid to say what I feel. And they just wanted me gone. Because when I started talking about things that had gone on on the show before, they got very, very nervous and just wanted me gone, which I can understand.”

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CBS did not immediately respond to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.

When Kelly asked her to explain further, Osbourne, who had been on the show since it debuted in 2010, declined to offer details about what exactly had happened. So she kept her answer general.

“The way people were treated when Leslie was at the show, Leslie Moonves,” Osbourne said of the former head of the network, who left in 2018 amid sexual misconduct allegations. “Things that had gone down that I knew personally had gone on….”

Osbourne alleged that producers had lodged three complaints against Underwood about “the way she treated them.” She alleged that she was the one who convinced the show not to dismiss her.

“And so they called me and I said, ‘You cannot get rid of Sheryl. There is no way. She can’t take that. You just can’t do it.’ So they sent her to anger management. So, it’s alright to treat producers that way, but I can’t say anything to a co-host.”

Yahoo Entertainment has reached out to Underwood for comment.

Osbourne accused certain executives of playing a part in the debacle, too, but she was most hurt by Underwood.

“And at the time, I did have on my socials, people complaining that I shouldn’t have supported Piers and that made me look like a racist, but I don’t think that anybody complained to the FCC,” Osbourne said. “I don’t think that I was out of order by dealing with it the way that I did, because I was talking to a friend of 11 years. I was talking to a woman that I’ve traveled with, that I’ve worked with, that I sat beside for 11, well, it’s actually, she was there for 10 seasons. So for 10 seasons, I had sat next to this woman. She was a family friend. And then boom, she puts me on the hot seat talking about racism, and she knows my history. She knows me. She knows I’m not a racist.”

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