- Sharon Osbourne called "The Talk" showrunners "weak women" after her exit earlier this year.
- Osbourne quit the show after a heated debate when she was asked to explain her defence of Piers Morgan.
- Osbourne claimed that the showrunners "destroyed" her by implying that she was racist.
Sharon Osbourne called the showrunners of "The Talk" "weak women" in an interview with "The Megyn Kelly Show" following her unceremonious exit from the talk show earlier this year.
Osbourne quit the show in March after CBS launched an internal investigation when Elaine Welteroth (another co-host on "The Talk") and her hairstylist filed complaints that alleged there was a "racially insensitive and hostile environment" on the show's set. This followed a heated debate on-air with her co-host Sheryl Underwood about racism after Osbourne was asked to explain a tweet she wrote defending Piers Morgan.
At the time, Morgan was himself receiving criticism for his comments against Meghan Markle following her and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah Winfrey. During Osbourne's last episode on the show, she asked Underwood to explain what Morgan had said that was "racist."
—Sharon Osbourne (@MrsSOsbourne) March 9, 2021
Speaking to Sirius XM's "The Megyn Kelly Show" about the controversy, Osbourne said: "'I think that the showrunners were doing what Amy [Reisenbach, the head of CBS Daytime] had told them to do. Weak, weak women, that didn't have a backbone to turn around and say, 'This is suicidal. We can't do this.' And to let it go after the break, so it was 20 minutes on national TV of bashing me. 20 minutes … They just — it blindsided me."
Osbourne had previously made the accusation that the TV executives at CBS had "blindsided" her. CBS released a statement after their investigation saying that they did not find "any evidence that CBS executives orchestrated the discussion or blindsided any of the hosts."
During the Sirius XM interview, Osbourne added: "They were friends of mine, especially Kristin Matthews [showrunner]. And I told them that they've destroyed me. I told them I will never be able to get over this. It's like, once you have that seed put on you, that you are a racist, it never goes away. I told them they destroyed me. 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."
"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," Osbourne continued. "I was talking to a woman that I've travelled 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."
During the episode, Underwood tried to reassure Osbourne that no one was calling her "racist" but Osbourne replied that the "seed's already sowed." In an interview with Yashar Ali, "The Talk" former co-host Leah Remini claimed Osbourne had made homophobic and racist remarks before the incident in March, which Osbourne has denied. Morgan and the reality star's husband Ozzy Osbourne have defended Sharon Osbourne after her exit.
