Kelly Michelle Lee Osbourne (born 27 October 1984) is an English television personality, singer, actress, radio presenter, and fashion designer. She is the daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. Osbourne first rose to fame in The Osbournes, the Emmy-winning reality TV series about her famous father and his family.
Early life
Osbourne is the middle child of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, the others being her older sister Aimee and her younger brother Jack. She also has two half-siblings: Jessica Hobbs and Louis John Osbourne from Ozzy’s first marriage. She also has one adopted brother, Robert Marcato, who Sharon and Ozzy adopted after Marcato’s mother died. Kelly grew up travelling with her father as he went on tour, and lived in more than 20 homes.
The Osbournes
Kelly Osbourne, and the rest of her immediate family (sans Aimee), were thrust into the international spotlight with the MTV reality show The Osbournes. It chronicled their day-to-day life, and became a runaway hit for its portrayal of a dysfunctional, though close-knit, family where metal music, profanity and other harshness were a daily part of life. Kelly, the middle child, emerged (according to Rolling Stone) as “a wickedly funny, brutally honest, pint-size, potty-mouthed spitfire.”
Music career
Cover to Osbourne’s first single “Papa Don’t Preach”.Her debut album, Shut Up!, was released in 2002 to moderate sales, fueled mostly by a cover version of the hit Madonna song “Papa Don’t Preach”, which was debuted with Houston rock band Pure Rubbish at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards. Osbourne’s 2002 debut with Epic Records, “Shut Up!”, debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. The album was met with bad critical reviews and, by May 2003, Osbourne had been dropped from Epic Records. However, by autumn she had resurfaced on the Sanctuary label, later recording a duet of “Changes” (a Black Sabbath song) with her father. The duet hit #1 on the UK charts, a first for both father and daughter. Shut Up! was repackaged with this duet and a few live cuts and re-released as Changes. Sales did not improve, however. Her tour sales were mediocre, and citing exhaustion and food poisoning, she cancelled the rest of the dates on August 12 of that year.
Osbourne’s second album, Sleeping in the Nothing, saw Osbourne making a transition from rock to 80s dance-pop and was co-written and produced by songwriter/former-popstar Linda Perry. It debuted at #117 on the Billboard 200 in the US, selling just under 9,000 copies. The first single from the album, “One Word”, peaked at #1 on three Billboard dance charts, and was a critical darling. Osbourne became the first artist in the history of the Billboard charts to top all three dance surveys in the same week. However, the album was not without controversy, due to its reporedly heavily-altered album cover, in which Osbourne appeared slimmer, despite her previous assertions of being happy with her size.
During an interview in late 2005, Osbourne denied reports she was ending her music career, saying: “I don’t know where the quit rumours came from - I’ve just recorded a version of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” with Cyndi Lauper”.
Kelly was forced to back out of her final performance in West End Musical Chicago after the 31 October 2007 incident that injured her back.