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Sharon Osbourne says she suffered psychological trauma after exit from 'The Talk,' underwent ketamine therapy

Sharon Osbourne addresses her controversial exit from The Talk and believes she's owed an apology.
Sharon Osbourne addresses her controversial exit from The Talk and believes she's owed an apology. (Photo: CBS via Getty Images)

Sharon Osbourne is still upset with how her controversial departure from The Talk played out, blasting cancel culture and her former colleagues in a new interview with DailyMailTV.

Osbourne exited the CBS show earlier this year following a heated on-air discussion with co-host Sheryl Underwood. Osbourne was defending friend Piers Morgan amid widespread criticism for his coverage of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

"It was as if I had gone in there with a machine gun and threatened to kill somebody," Osbourne explained. "It wasn't like I was coming in with T-shirts, with horrible slogans. I didn't come in with a white hood, I don't tell jokes about religion or color."

She added, "It was a freedom of speech matter. It was pure freedom of speech. A journalist friend of mine who wrote something that people didn't like and then a few crazies out there go — 'You must be racist, that's why you're saying it' — about my friend Piers. It's like, come on."

The Talk went on hiatus after Osbourne and Underwood's uncomfortable exchange. Osbourne was then accused of racially charged behavior on set, all of which she denied. Osbourne says she was forced to hire 24/7 security due to death threats against her, her family and their animals.

"I definitely went through a difficult patch at the beginning. I found it embarrassing. The humiliation that people would think that I might be a racist," she explained.

Osbourne's friend and former co-host of The Talk, Sara Gilbert, apparently suggested she try ketamine therapy. (Ketamine treatments are sometimes used by psychiatrists to treat patients with depression.)

"I went through three months of therapy," she noted. "I had ketamine treatment and I got it all out. All the tears and everything that I felt, you know. All of that, it's gone."

Osbourne believes she was set up by a CBS executive who fed Underwood a question to ask during the infamous March 10 episode. (The network says it found no evidence of this during its investigation.)

"What would you say to people who may feel that while you're standing by [Piers], it appears you gave validation or safe haven to something that he has uttered that is racist, even if you don't agree?" Underwood asked.

"I feel like I'm about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend who many people think is racist, so that makes me a racist," Osbourne replied on-air. She also shouted at Underwood "not to cry" because "if anyone should be crying, it should be me."

Osbourne told The Daily Mail, "They all knew the question and they all knew what was going down. I felt totally betrayed."

"We had a disagreement and I told [Underwood] she shouldn't be crying, it should be me that should be crying and that didn't go down well," Osbourne added. "Then in the commercial break, she wouldn't talk to me. I was begging her to talk to me and she wouldn't, and basically I said, go f*** yourself."

"I would say that to any one of my friends," she added. "When you say it to a friend, it's different than saying it to somebody, a stranger. If you can't get real with somebody who you've worked alongside for 10 years, then then you don't have a friendship, and that's the way I look at it."

Osbourne hasn't spoken to Underwood since the incident and said it's likely that they will never talk again. She believes her co-hosts violated a "secret pact" they made one month prior at Carrie Ann Inaba's house not to ambush each other on-air.

"To leave me for 20 minutes on live TV ... on live TV ... unprepared, not produced, not knowing what's going on," Osbourne recalled. "Wait, where's their apology to me? They could have cut at any time and gone to a commercial break, and why didn't they cut?"

Osbourne called the whole thing a "set up."

"They didn't cut because they liked the controversy and they liked that everybody would be talking about this because they needed something for the show that was going into the toilet," she alleged. "So they thought, well, she's got the biggest following. Let's go for her."

She continued, "I felt totally betrayed, not protected by CBS. I felt used. I felt like an old shoe... They didn't care. It was a set up and it was set up by one of the executives."

CBS stands by the same statement the company issued in March.

"Sharon Osbourne has decided to leave The Talk," it read. "The events of the March 10 broadcast were upsetting to everyone involved, including the audience watching at home. As part of our review, we concluded that Sharon’s behavior toward her co-hosts during the March 10 episode did not align with our values for a respectful workplace. We also did not find any evidence that CBS executives orchestrated the discussion or blindsided any of the hosts."

Osbourne believes she's the victim of cancel culture, but she has no plans to slink out of the spotlight.

"It's like, f*** you missus, you don't know me and you don't know the full story," she quipped. "Where is the forgiveness? Where is a second chance? So you say something wrong. You're not threatening somebody, but you say something wrong. You're out, you are out."