Ozzy Osbourne claims he and Sharon had to have ‘armed guards’ after The Talk racism row

‘She got a lot of flak from that, so we actually had to have f***ing armed guards and all that,’ rock star said in an interview

Ozzy Osbourne has claimed that he and his wife Sharon had to enlist “armed guards” after a backlash against Sharon surrounding her talk show exit.

Sharon Osbourne was removed from her CBS chat show The Talk following a racism row, in which she defended Piers Morgan over his criticism of Meghan Markle.

In August, the couple announced that they would move back to the UK after 20 years in LA due to a number of recent shootings.

“Everything’s f****** ridiculous there. I’m fed up with people getting killed every day. God knows how many people have been shot in school shootings,” Osborne told The Observer in August.

“And there was that mass shooting in Vegas at that concert … It’s f****** crazy. And I don’t want to die in America. I don’t want to be buried in f****** Forest Lawn,” he added.

However, the Black Sabbath frontman has now said that the decision was also due to the “flak” they were getting from Sharon’s row.

“When my wife got called a racist on [The Talk], she is absolutely not a racist,” Osborne told Consequence of Sound on Monday (7 November).

“Her friend is Piers Morgan. She didn’t say, ‘I agree with him.’ She just respected his ability to have freedom of speech. That’s all that she said,” he continued.

“And she got a lot of flak from that, so we actually had to have f***ing armed guards and all that,” he said.

Sharon and Ozzy in 2020 (Getty Images for The Recording A)

Osbourne said he has now changed his mind about wanting to move back to the UK from the US, despite sharing the news of a BBC series documenting the move, titled Home to Roost.

“To be honest with you, if I had my way, I’d stay in America,” he said. “I’m American now.”

“To be honest with you, I don’t want to go back [to England],” he added, “F*** that.”

When the couple announced the news, Osbourne had originally been very keen to make the move away from their home in LA where they’ve lived for 20 years.

“I’m English,” he had said to The Observer. “I want to be back. But, saying that, if my wife said we’ve got to go and live in Timbuktu, I’ll go. But, no, it’s just time for me to come home.”

Osbourne was lead vocalist of heavy metal band Black Sabbath, which he formed in 1969 alongside guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward.