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Anyone who watched The Osbournes knows that whenever the First Family of Reality Television gets bored, things get weird fast. So rather than let idle hands become the Devil’s hands, the family has decided to use a moment when Ozzy isn’t touring and Sharon is taking a break from TV to revive their podcast. But while the first season, which came out in 2018, featured their reminiscences on their fabled TV series and chats with guests from their inner circle, the long-awaited second season, which launches Sept. 12, will be more freewheeling. “It’s not like a TV show,” Kelly tells Rolling Stone. “We can say do whatever we want.”
The new format, which will run 20 episodes and be available in video and audio formats, includes wide-ranging chats with the whole family as Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly, and Jack pontificate on everything from romance to true crime. They record their episodes together at Ozzy and Sharon’s home. A clip, premiering on Rolling Stone, shows the family discussing plastic surgery. “Every 5,000 miles, Mom goes in for a tune-up,” Jack says. Sharon rejoins, “That’s right. Everybody needs it.” Kelly agrees with her, while Ozzy firmly does not — and you can tell the debate will take off from there.
“Nothing is off limits,” Sharon tells Rolling Stone on an August Zoom with Kelly from the Osbournes’ Los Angeles home. “I wish there were things that were off limits,” Kelly adds.
In addition to the family time, each Osbourne is getting his or her own individual episodes. Ozzy’s finds him talking with his longtime friend, musician Billy Morrison, about everything from food and his time in Black Sabbath to aliens. “Ozzy’s always coming back to talking about eating Snickers bars,” Sharon says. “And I don’t think people would expect to hear Ozzy talking about aliens.” He’s also been especially prodigious and has recorded around 20 episodes already that run some 26 minutes each.
Kelly calls her episodes “The Gay, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe,” in which she and her best friend talk about fashion. Jack discusses his longstanding love of the paranormal on his — and that’s in addition to launching his own podcast, Ghosts and Grit, on Oct. 13. And Sharon is recording hers week-by-week as she talks about pop culture; she’ll record her first episode on Sept. 14.
The family also has episodes with a wide array of guests, including Melissa Rivers, Adam Corolla, and Margaret Cho. The latter astounded the Osbournes with her knowledge of true crime. “We had this really interesting conversation about every famous murder; she knows every detail,” Kelly says. “She’s incredible.” Joan Rivers’ daughter, Melissa, reminisced about her mother with Kelly. “We talked a lot about Fashion Police, and it’s something I’ve never spoken about before,” Kelly says, referring to the fashion commentary show she was on with Joan but exited in 2015. “At the same time, it was really lovely just being with Missy.” At the time of the interview, they still had another 10 episodes to record.
“The podcast is a way of giving people what they want without giving people all of us,” Kelly says. “We’re still very open, but it’s not like having a camera in your face the whole time. So we really, really enjoy it.”
“It’s just so natural for us just to talk all the time,” Sharon says. “So why not do a podcast? I made a living out of talking and getting myself into trouble, so I might as well continue. It’s nice to do something where it’s your own, and you can say what you feel — and who’s going to tell you off? Am I going to tell myself off? If you don’t like it, turn it off.”
The family is also participating in a reboot of sorts of The Osbournes. But while the original series was reality TV, the new series is more like a documentary about Ozzy and Sharon returning to England. Ozzy told Rolling Stone last year that he wants to be closer to his family and that he hopes he could avoid some of the high taxes he foresees coming as America continues to rebuild the economy after the pandemic. The family has so far held off its move, though, as Ozzy gets back on his feet as he recovers from surgeries in the past few years. “I think it’ll be good for him for a while to go back,” Sharon says. “We can have privacy there. And he can do his own little thing and he his own garden. He can do a bit of fishing.”
Despite the standstill, the documentarians have continued interviewing Sharon and Ozzy about the planned move. “It’s, ‘Why are you going back?’” Sharon says. “They ask, ‘What’s the difference in the cultures?’ They keep digging. I don’t know what they expect us to say. It’s like, ‘There must be some dark secret why we want to move back. … ‘ No, we just want to go back for a while.”
So, could The Osbournes exist in today’s reality-TV environment, which is more obsessed with scandal like the Vanderpump Rules controversies than real moments? “It’s not reality TV anymore,” Kelly says. “It’s produced moments.” (That said, Kelly says she’s mad at Jack for befriending Vanderpump’s Tom Sandoval on Special Forces and not dishing to her about what happened on the show. “I was like, ‘You are a traitor,’” she says, laughing.)
“I’m sure that there are people that would like [The Osbournes] again,” Sharon says, “but then they’d say, ‘This is terrible. This is just awful. Listen to what they say.”
“We’d be canceled,” Kelly says.
Sharon adds that she doesn’t like the way that reality TV show producers try to pit people against each other. “When I did The Apprentice, they kept saying, ‘Oh, this cast member said this about you …what do you feel?’” she says. “I’m like, ‘Next!’”
Luckily for them, they’re in charge of their own podcast. “If you want to listen to something that’s funny, slightly shocking, and just a family having a good time, then, this is something that you shouldn’t miss.”
