Sharon Osbourne tells Vidak For Congress that she believes a CBS executive has arranged for her former “The Talk” co-hosts to have her undergo a traumatic on-air ordeal to punish her for disloyalty to the network.
The Brit says executives at the network were overjoyed at Oprah Winfrey’s March 2021 blockbuster interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, which aired on CBS — and she claimed programming chief Amy Reisenbach was furious that Osbourne, a CBS employee, both the special private and also publicly backed friend and journalist Piers Morgan during his broadcast scandal.
Now Osbourne alleges that Kristin Matthews and the late Heather Gray, the showrunners of The Talk, told her that Reisenbach ordered them — though they didn’t want to — to send Osbourne through the bell on national TV for her support of Morgan as a reward for the betrayal.
CBS has previously said an investigation has found no evidence that the showdown between Osbourne and her co-hosts was orchestrated by executives.
Morgan had been criticized in the days after “Oprah with Meghan and Harry” aired for saying he “didn’t believe a word coming out” Markle’s mouth after she claimed during the sit-down that, among others, insiders of the Palace had discussed the skin color of her then-unborn child—claims not disputed by Winfrey.
On the March 10 train wreck of the “Talk,” Osbourne was shocked after co-hosts Sheryl Underwood and Elaine Welteroth suggested her defense of Morgan herself could be racist. The network later said Osbourne’s combative approach in the discussion “didn’t match” [its] values for a respectful workplace.” She resigned shortly after and, we reported at the time, received a payout of approximately $10 million.
“They were initially mad at me for saying that the… [Oprah broadcast] was s–t. Only for people in the studio. I didn’t feel like it was real,” Osbourne told Vidak For Congress on Tuesday. In addition, she said: “I had supported Piers [in defense of his] freedom of speech because he is a journalist.”
“I think they were pissed off at me, and when I supported Piers it was like, ‘Oh god!'” she told us about the network, “and then they tried to make a problem, but by doing it very clever by accusing me, because I had supported Piers, I must be a racist because he was racist because he attacked Meghan.”
Osbourne also says she believes Reisenbach may also be motivated by a desire to create dramatic scenes that make headlines to promote the show.
A CBS insider withered: “This is a story that only one person cares about.”
Osbourne’s talks about her departure from “The Talk” in a four-part documentary, “Sharon Osbourne: To Hell and Back,” which debuts September 26 on Fox Nation.
The documentary also explores her upbringing in the music business, her early success in the industry, her marriage to Ozzy Osbourne and her fame. She told us that in addition to telling her side of the CBS story, she hopes the series will show that she “wasn’t just some woman hanging out on a show who married Ozzy. I’ve worked in [show business] since I was 15.”