Kelly Osbourne biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actress, singer and fashion designer Kelly Osbourne was born Kelly Michelle Lee Osbourne on October 27, 1984, in London, England. The second of three Osbourne children born to heavy-metal singer Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon Osbourne, Kelly was raised in the shadow of her father's hair-raising, often wild career as Black Sabbath's lead singer.

Kelly's home life was scarred by her father's swings between sobriety and addiction. In her youth, Kelly, along with her older sister, Aimee, and younger brother, Jack, often witnessed her parents fighting. The most volatile of those occasions came in 1989, when a drug-enraged Ozzy tried to strangle his wife. Somehow the Osbourne marriage survived the incident, and Ozzy spent several months in a mental health facility following the episode.

Worried that his children might one day face the same addiction issues that he faced, Ozzy sat his children down when Kelly was just 8 years old, and warned them, "One of you, if not all of you, will have 'the gene.'"

By age 15, Kelly seemed to have paid little attention to her father's words. With Ozzy's newfound commitments to staying clean and family life, the Osbournes settled in Beverly Hills, California. In her adopted country, the young Kelly was a regular at Los Angeles' biggest nightclubs. Her mother did her best to keep tabs on Kelly, even hiring a private investigator to research her daughter's first boyfriend. "That was my mum," Kelly later said. "That's just what she does."

Commercial Success

In 2002, MTV showcased a new reality series that documented the strange, sometimes frenetic suburban life of the Osbourne family. The Osbournes, which went off the air in 2005, proved to be a monster of a hit, and Kelly was at the heart of its success.

Fans instantly gravitated toward Kelly's sharp opinions and her overall outsized personality. Not long after the show's debut, Epic signed Kelly to a record deal. In November 2002, she released a cover of Madonna's hit, "Papa Don't Preach." Name recognition certainly helped Kelly garner fame as a singer, and her "Papa" rendition climbed the U.K. music charts. It's parent album, Shut Up!, however, fared poorly, and Epic eventually dropped Kelly from its lineup.

Rocky Years

The fame that The Osbournes had brought Kelly and her family seemed to be quickly fading away, making Kellly feel vulnerable. Soon, the same kind of addiction that had once nearly ruined Ozzy Osbourne's life began to take hold of his daughter's: Around this time, Kelly was drinking heavily and taking drugs frequently.