How Ozzy Osbourne became the original King of reality TV with 'The Osbournes'

New York Post

3 days ago

It was a crazy train.
On Tuesday, Ozzy Osbourne died at age 76, five years after he announced his Parkinson's disease diagnosis in January 2020.
He passed away, 'surrounded by love,' his family said in a statement to The Post.
The rock star was the Prince of Darkness, the father of heavy metal, but perhaps the strangest Ozzy milestone is starring on one of the first reality TV shows – with the seminal series, 'The Osbournes,' which aired on MTV from 2002 to 2005.
Sue Kolinsky, who worked as a producer on 'The Osbournes,' exclusively told The Post, 'We realized early on that anything Ozzy did was going to be funny. Like making a milkshake – we were gonna have [that be] three minutes of an episode. He was so funny, and he had no idea how funny he was.'
12 Ozzy, Sharon, Jack, and Kelly on 'The Osbournes' in 2003.
AP
She added, 'No one ever said to Ozzy, 'hey, can you say that again?' Whatever you shot, that's what we had to use. And that's what made the show so brilliant, because it really was real.'
Kolinsky continued, 'Everything he did was kind of like a crazy rocker version of 'Father Knows Best.' And he was kind.'
Jason Mittell, professor of Film and Media Culture at Middlebury College, exclusively told The Post, 'It's pretty amazing that it started in 2002, which was really the very beginning of the reality TV boom. 'Survivor' and 'Big Brother' had only been on for a couple of years at that point.'
He explained that when 'The Osbournes' premiered, 'There was a real sense at the time that reality TV was a passing fad.'
12 Ozzy Osbourne and Sharon Osbourne at the MTV EMA's 2014 at The Hydro on November 9, 2014 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Dave Hogan/MTV 2014
With 'The Osbournes' diving into the family's life and following them as characters, 'that really had not been done before on TV,' he shared.
It was swiftly followed by Paris Hilton's 'The Simple Life' in 2003, and the reign of the Kardashian family, which first launched on TV when 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' premiered in 2007, just two years after 'The Osbournes' ended.
The show followed the outrageous antics and home life of the Black Sabbath frontman, his wife Sharon, 72, his daughter Kelly, 40, and son Jack, 39. The couple's other daughter, Aimee, 41, chose not to participate in the series.
12 Sharon Osbourne, Ozzy Osbourne, Jack Osbourne, Minnie, Kelly Osbourne, Robert Osbourne in 2003.
©MTV/courtesy Everett
'He and the family were the ones who really put reality TV on the map. I believe the reason why the show was so successful was because they really were a loving family,' Kolinsky said.
'And we got such creative freedom because it was new. I don't know what other family in the rock world would have been able to pull this off.'
She added, 'The family was just so gracious with giving us access to everything about their lives. They let us film them when they woke up in the morning. They let us film them in every situation that they were going through. They never said, 'No, we don't want to see ourselves in that light.''
12 Ozzy Osbourne in Hollywood in 2024.
ALEXJR / BACKGRID
Kolinsky recalled an incident when Ozzy and Sharon were leaving on a trip, but 'The Osbournes' wasn't allowed to film on a plane. So, the creative team filmed the pair sitting in 'a black SUV that kind of looked like a private plane,' she recalled.
'And we found shots of a pilot's hand punching in instruments. We used that and cut to his assistant. So, we made his assistant the pilot, and tilted the shot, to make it look like the car was taking off.'
She recalled showing Ozzy the footage before it aired, 'and he was on the floor, hysterical. Like 'Oh my God, I can't believe you made the car a plane and used Tony as the pilot!'
At the time, 'The Osbournes' was the highest-rated show in MTV's history, drawing over 5 million viewers per episode.
12 Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne at their home on December 31, 2004 in Buckinghamshire, England.
Getty Images
During a 2021 appearance on the 'Armchair Expert' podcast, Kelly said that when 'The Osbournes' began, 'No one had ever done what we did before. So as we were doing it, we didn't know either. We didn't know what they were going to use, and what they weren't, because they filmed everything.'
She recalled that when the show premiered, 'The next day, everything changed. It was like Beatlemania, except for 'The Osbournes.''
In 2002, the Kardashians and 'Real Housewives' weren't even a twinkle in TV producers' eyes.
12 Khloe Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Kendall Jenner on 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' in 2013.
Brian Bowen Smith/E!
Reality TV existed – that was the year 'The Bachelor' premiered, too – but it was mostly competition shows like 'American Idol' or ones about niche industries, such as 'Monster Garage.'
Today, fame-hungry people let viewers into their lives all the time – on shows like 'Vanderpump Rules' or 'Below Deck.'
A slew of celebs also have their own reality shows, such as Sylvester Stallone in the 2023 Paramount+ show 'The Family Stallone,' Denise Richards (her first of several shows, 'Denise Richards: It's Complicated,' premiered in 2008).
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin currently have TLC's 'The Baldwins.'
12 Kim Kardashian,, Kourtney, Khloe, and Kris Jenner on 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians.'
12 Mia Regan, Romeo Beckham, Cruz Beckham, Harper Beckham, David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz attend the Netflix 'Beckham' UK Premiere at The Curzon Mayfair on October 3, 2023 in London, England.
WireImage
David and Victoria Beckham also saw viral success with their 2023 Netflix series, 'Beckham.'
But, the Osbournes 'set the template,' Mittell explained.
About Ozzy's unlikely path from heavy metal rocker to reality TV star, he said, 'I think a lot of [the show's appeal] was just the combination of the sense of, here's this guy who is known for these massive rock shows and this flamboyant onscreen personality and the piercing voice. And here he is, just watching history documentaries. Or, wandering around the house, and living the normal family life.'
He added, 'So I think that was a big part of [the show's success], was the idea that it was such an unusual contrast to what we would think the life of an iconic rocker would be.'
12 Annemarie Wiley, Erika Jayne, Dorit Kemsley, Kyle Richards, Garcelle Beauvais, Sutton Stracke, Crystal Minkoff on 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' in 2023.
Emily Shur/Bravo
In a 2019 SiriusXM interview, reporter Jess Cagle told Sharon, 'Without you, you realize, there would be no Kardashians.'
The family matriarch replied, 'It was really Ozzy. He was the one that was in the public eye. He was the celebrity, and he's the one that took all the risks….I think it paid off for Ozzy because people saw how funny he is. He's just hysterical, and a teddy bear.'
'The Osbournes' showed the metal star as a foul-mouthed loving father who was often amusingly bewildered by mundane daily life.
12 Sharon Osbourne, Kelly Osbourne, Jack Osbourne and Ozzy Osbourne appear as guest presenters on MTV TRL at The Penthouse, Leicester Square on December 17, 2004 in London.
Getty Images
For instance, in the series premiere episode, Ozzy struggled to figure out how to use a TV remote.
'I'm a very simple man. You've got to have computer knowledge to turn the f–king TV on and off,' he said. 'I pressed this one button…I'm going: 'What is this? Where am I, man?''
'He just didn't really care that much about doing anything embarrassing,' Mittell told The Post.
12 The show only lasted four seasons.
Getty Images
Cameron Glendenning, who became a camera operator on 'The Osbournes,' told The Post that Ozzy would hang out in the garage with the show's crew at night when he was bored, and he'd prank fans who would turn up at his gate by turning the sprinklers on them.
'He'd come in there and he would be like, 'Oh yeah, let's get him! Let's go get him,'' he recalled.
To Glendenning, it was just another day in the office.
'He's a f–king rock legend and we were just a bunch of kids in his garage shooting a TV show about his life and he would like break that fourth wall, walking in the garage, and we would all, you be like, 'Oh s–t! The boss is here,' but you know he was just so funny,' he added.
12 Ozzy has mixed feelings about his time on television.
Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The 'War Pigs' singer had mixed feelings about his own show, which is why it lasted only four seasons, despite its outsized impact on TV history.
'I don't know how the Kardashians have done it for so long — it sent us crazy at the end,' Ozzy recounted in January 2023.
'I am not sorry I did it, but after three or four years I said, 'Do you know what, we're going to lose somebody because it is getting too crazy. There is rock 'n' roll fame, which is pretty intense, but that Osbourne level was just unbelievable.'
Kolinsky remembers the show as being 'part of something so special, and so unique, and so iconic.'
She recalled an incident where she felt the show's impact. Shortly after it premiered, the producers went out to the House of Blues. There were no seats available, but when it came out that they worked on 'The Osbournes,' they were swiftly escorted to the venue's VIP section.
'That was the effect that show had on people. Everybody wanted to know you. [Ozzy] united different generations. The fact that he was a heavy metal rocker didn't dismay an older crowd from being hooked on the show. And, to so many people who didn't know him from his music, he was just this funny TV dad.'