Sharon Osbourne recently opened up about her own health turmoil, sharing how late husband Ozzy Osbourne feared he was going to lose her after she received a devastating diagnosis
Sharon Osbourne is grieving the loss of her husband Ozzy Osbourne after he passed away at the age of 76, mere weeks after his final gig in his home city of Birmingham.
His family paid tribute to a “beloved” husband and father, who passed away “surrounded by love”, and Sharon, 72, devoted herself to caring for her husband in his final years, with the Black Sabbath frontman having lived with Parkinson’s Disease alongside other issues.
Music manager Sharon has also spoken openly about her own health difficulties, and recently made a heartbreaking admission about her journey with colon cancer.
Back in the early ’00s, life was a whirlwind for Sharon, who had to juggle motherhood with the pressures of being one of the most recognisable TV personalities on the planet.
Long before The Kardashians entered the scene, reality TV lovers had The Osbournes, which featured the ups and downs of life in the Osbournes’ Beverley Hills Mansion.
The enormously popular show featured Ozzy, Sharon, and two of their children, Kelly, 40, and Jack, 39. Their daughter Aimee, 41, declined to participate.
London-born Sharon was an onscreen natural, with viewers on both sides of the pond warming to the no-nonsense matriarch. As her star continued to soar, however, Sharon found herself having to deal with a devastating colon cancer diagnosis in the full glare of the limelight.
The fiercely protective mum was first diagnosed in the summer of 2002, the same year that The Osbournes premiered on MTV. And she did everything in her power to protect her children from the heartbreaking realities of the disease, which had spread to her lymph nodes.
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Sharon was quizzed about why she continued working during her illness. She replied: “Because I didn’t want my kids and my husband to know how sick I was. When you say ‘cancer’, everybody always thinks ‘death’. And you’ve got to remember it was 23 years ago.”
The X Factor judge continued: “At that point, cancer wasn’t the same as it is now. So everybody always thought it was a death sentence and I didn’t want my kids to have fear constantly surrounding them. I didn’t want it.”
Sharon, then 49, didn’t shy away from discussing her cancer while filming, with the show documenting everything from her chemotherapy treatment to her decision to turn to Cher’s wig maker after her hair fell out.
Although the couple put on a brave public front, Ozzy later opened up about his fears for Sharon’s life in an interview with Classic Rock magazine.
He revealed: “I thought she was going to die. I never knew anybody that had survived cancer. As far as I was concerned, patient plus cancer equals death. But my wife is a very strong woman.”
Thankfully, Sharon went on to make a full recovery, and went on to found the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program at Cedars Sinai Hospital in August 2004.