IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Sharon says she left Ozzy — briefly

Osbourne matriarch angered by rocker’s boozing, drug use
/ Source: The Associated Press

Sharon Osbourne said she briefly left her husband, Ozzy, around the time their teenage son, Jack, entered rehab this spring.

THE OSBOURNE MATRIARCH said that while the family was waiting for a bed to become available for Jack at a treatment center, her rock-star husband continued abusing alcohol and prescription drugs himself.

“I just said, ‘You just have to stop,’ and he didn’t. And I said, ‘Well then, I’m going.’ And I packed my bags, and I left,” Sharon Osbourne told Barbara Walters in an interview for ABC’s “20/20.”

The separation lasted just a few days, she said.

“The minute I left, the next morning, he gave up drinking. But I needed to make sure that he was on a roll. That he really meant it,” the 50-year-old Osbourne said. “And, after four days, I came back to see him. And he was trying so hard. So hard. Still is clean and sober.”

Jack Osbourne, who spent two months in rehab for alcohol and drug abuse, acknowledged that he tried to commit suicide because he was so depressed about his mother’s colon cancer, which is now in remission.

“I attempted to overdose,” said the 17-year-old, who gained fame with the rest of his family on the MTV series “The Osbournes.” “Take a whole bunch of pills and drink some absinthe.”

The interview is scheduled to air at 10 p.m. EDT Friday.

Then on Monday, Sharon Osbourne’s syndicated daytime talk show debuts.

© 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.