Sharon Rachel Osbourne (née Levy, then Arden; born October 9 1952) is a well-known English music manager and promoter, television personality and presenter. She became prominent in the public view for appearing in The Osbournes which followed her family's daily life. She later became a judge on The X Factor. Sharon was born in Brixton, London, the daughter of Ashkenazi Jewish music promoter and rock and roll entrepreneur Don Arden (born Harry Levy), and his wife Hope, an Irish Catholic. Sharon is the wife and manager of Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, and the mother of Aimee, Kelly and Jack Osbourne. From the mid 1990's until the end of The Osbournes in 2004, Sharon was primarily based in Los Angeles with the rest of her family. However since then and with her British television career burgeoning, she and Ozzy have chosen to spend most of their life back in their Buckinghamshire home, 20 miles west of central London. Sharon met husband Ozzy Osbourne at the age of 17 while working in Ipswich as a receptionist for her father, who had been looking to manage Ozzy's band Black Sabbath. When Ozzy was fired from Black Sabbath in 1979, Sharon took over his management from the Arden organization. Proving to be as hardworking and ruthless as her father, Sharon coordinated the recruitment of a technically gifted backing band for the recording of The Blizzard of Ozz and, by engaging proven songwriters, helped Ozzy launch what became a highly successful solo career. A series of high selling albums and world tours followed through the 1980s, eventually making Ozzy one of the world's most popular metal acts. In 1996 she created the successful Ozzfest summer touring festival. It went on to become a prime rock occasion and celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2006. In 2007, Sharon took the decision to make Ozzfest tickets free, as she wanted everyone to have equal opportunities of being able to afford tickets and attend a concert, due to tickets previously reaching prices of £76. Sharon gained celebrity status as one of the stars of MTV's reality show, The Osbournes, which was known nationwide and followed her family's daily life. As the person who negotiated with MTV to screen the show, she is often credited with bringing about her husband's emergence from heavy metal icon into mainstream celebrity. The show began airing in early 2002, and when, in July 2002, Sharon was diagnosed with cancer, she insisted that filming should continue. The final episode of the show aired in the US on March 21, 2005. MTV's British affiliate has been airing the show since 2003. The Osbornes' Beverly Hills home made famous on the show has currently been sold and the Osbournes have taken up residence in another home in Beverly Hills. Her Beverly Hills home was later seen in The X Factor during series two. The show saw that Sharon is responsible for the livelihood of 12 dogs and employs a dog walker named Cherie. In 2003 Sharon became the host of her own television talk show, The Sharon Osbourne Show, which was syndicated to various US channels and also shown in the UK on Sky One. The show was meant to be a reflection of her personality and home life – similar to her reality show but with the inclusion of guest interviews and performances. However, it was never very successful in the ratings and critics panned her inability to perform the basic tasks required of a talk show host, such as reading cue cards and conducting interviews. Eventually the show's format became extremely standardised – not at all what Osbourne had wanted. A sequence on her reality show found her struggling to book any noteworthy celebrity guests because their agents did not feel an appearance would be beneficial. The show was cancelled in early 2004. Sharon has been a judge and mentor on the UK reality TV talent show The X Factor in 2004, 2005, and 2006 alongside Simon Cowelland Louis Walsh. In the first series she mentored the 16–24's and chose Roberta Howett, CassieCompton and Tabby Callaghan to represent her in the live rounds of the show. The best placed of these was Tabby, who finished third overall. The final was contested between Simon's act Steve Brookstein and Louis' act G4, with Steve winning. Sharon's outburst against Steve on the night of the final is widely credited with helping him to win, although according to her autobiography he was well ahead at all stages of the voting. In the second series she mentored the 25-and-overs, and selected Andy Abraham, Brenda Edwards, Chico Slimani and Maria Lawson to contest the final rounds. Andy Abraham finished in second place to Louis Walsh's act Shayne Ward. During this series, the judges were again required to bring the selected candidates to their homes. Sharon chose her Beverly Hills home as a suitable location, which saw Sharon inviting her neighbours and Ozzy Osbourne to attend live performances by the candidates. During Chico's performance, he jumped into her functioning fountain with a live microphone. Sharon also appeared in the spin-off show The X Factor: Battle of the Stars. She did not choose her singers but was selected to manage the 16–24's Nikki Sanderson, Matt Stevens and Michelle Marsh During the show, Osbourne engaged in a feud with contestant Rebecca Loos, due to her recent claim of having an affair with David Beckham. Osbourne insulted Loos, after one of her performances saying, "You should try doing tomorrow's performance with your knickers on because it will help warm up your voice. You have a very bad vibe that comes from you. After the incident, it took a lot of persuading to convince Loos to stay in the competition after being publicly humiliated. In series three of The X Factor she was mentoring the 25-and-overs, and selected Ben Mills, Dionne Mitchell, Robert Allen and Kerry McGregor. Kerry and Dionne were voted out in a double elimination on 28 October, Robert was voted out on 18 November and Ben was voted out on 9 December, sending Sharon out of the competition. During the making of series three, Sharon lived at the Dorchester Hotel in central London. This was not just due to the fire at her house in Buckinghamshire, but also because the hotel is closer to both The London Studios (where The Sharon Osbourne Show is filmed) and The X Factor studio in Wembley. Sharon Osbourne has been criticised for her outbursts on the show, where in Series 3 she spoke out against Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? presenter Chris Tarrant, who was in the show's audience prior to taping. Tarrant had apparently made a joke about Ozzy Osbourne to which Sharon took offence, but most of her outburst focused on criticising Tarrant's recent infidelity to his wife Ingrid from whom he was in the process of separating.[3] It is now rumoured that Simon Cowell fellow judge and creator of the show was displeased with her performance in series 3, and is thinking of replacing her and Louis Walsh for the next series. However, it has been confirmed that Sharon Osbourne will be returning for a fourth series of the show, unlike Louis Walsh and presenter Kate Thornton. In 2006, UK TV channel ITV1 commissioned a new Sharon Osbourne chat show, initially to be called Mrs Osbourne Presents, but eventually just named The Sharon Osbourne Show. The show began on Tuesday 29 August 2006, and was scheduled to run for six weeks in the 5 pm weekday timeslot. The premiere episode proved a close competition as the show received 1.9 million viewers with 17% share – 400,000 viewers (and 3% share) ahead of Richard and Judy on Channel 4. Her second show attracted 2.1 million viewers.[6] However, ratings appeared to decrease after Channel 4 moved its game show Deal Or No Deal, hosted by Noel Edmonds, into the timeslot, with Sharon managing 1.2m viewers compared to DoND's 2.9m. Channel 4's The New Paul O'Grady Show returned on Monday 25 September 2006 with 2.3 million viewers compared to Sharon's 1.6 million. At a charity auction, Sharon bid for and won the opportunity to guest star in an episode of the well-known NBC comedy Will & Grace. She played a bartender in the spring episode No Sex N' in the City in 2004. In October 2004, Sharon announced that she and husband Ozzy would be teaming up for yet another MTV show entitled Battle for Ozzfest, in which a group of unsigned bands battle it out for a spot on the 2005 Ozzfest tour. She has also co-hosted one of the Royal Variety Performances with Jonathan Ross. Sharon has appeared frequently on Children in Need in order to raise money for charity. In March and April of 2006, Sharon undertook a short run in The Vagina Monologues in Southampton and Newcastle. In January 2005 she was selected to feature in an advertising campaign for the UK supermarket chain ASDA. She has also provided a voice for a character in Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. In 2007, Sharon became the new face of Galabingo when she was featured in advertisements promoting the gambling website. Sharon has also managed the bands Coal Chamber and The Smashing Pumpkins. Never one to mince words, in 2000 she made news by severing her relationship with The Smashing Pumpkins and then announcing in a statement: "...I must resign due to medical reasons... Billy Corgan was making me sick!" She also claimed to have briefly worked with Queen before being fired by Freddie Mercury. Sharon has also worked with Gary Moore, Motörhead and ELO. Sharon Osbourne's autobiography, Extreme, (co-authored by Penelope Dening) was published in October 2005 and tells of her difficult childhood growing up with her father, Don Arden, and also documents the highs and lows of her marriage to husband Ozzy Osbourne, shedding light on areas of her life previously not commented on. Published by Time WarnerBooks, it went straight to Number 1 on the Sunday Times Bestseller List (UK) where it remained for 15 weeks, selling over 621,000 copies in hardback, becoming the biggest selling autobiography since British records began. "Both the heroic vulgarity and the love are vividly captured in this pungent and distinctive autobiography," opined the Sunday Times, whilst the Irish Times considered it to be "truly unputdownable". In March 2006 it won Biography of the Year at the British Book Awards. The autobiography has proceeded to sell in excess of two million copies which has become the most successful female autobiography ever. In 2002, Sharon and husband Ozzy were invited to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner by Fox News Channel correspondent Greta Van Susteren for that year's event. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne were honoured for their contribution to the music industry at a ceremony in London when the couple won a Silver Chef award. Sharon was voted "the most amazing woman of 2003", according to a poll published by a website for women. Sharon took almost a third of the votes cast in the poll by Handbag.com. More than 7,000 votes were cast in a range of categories. During Sharon's time battling cancer, she attended an award ceremony to collect a gong for the success of her family's television show The Osbournes. She attended the Creative Arts Emmys in Los Angeles with her daughter Kelly Osbourne to receive the best reality television show award. In late 2004, Sharon attended the Woman of the Year awards in London to collect an award that she had previously won at the 2002 event, but was not able to attend due to illness. Osbourne has a wax figure of herself at the famous Madame Tussauds. In 2006, Sharon's autobiography won Biography of the year at the British Book Awards. At Iron Maiden's last Ozzfest performance, on August 20, 2005 at the Hyundai Pavilion at Glen Helen in San Bernardino, California, not long into the band's performance, several negative events took place, believed to be the work of Sharon Osbourne. During the first song, several members of the crowd started to bombard the British metal band Iron Maiden with eggs, bottle caps and ice. During Iron Maiden's next song, "The Trooper", the paper reports that lead singer Bruce Dickinson emerged onstage waving the British flag. Toward the end of the song, a man came upon the stage brandishing an American flag. He started to wave his flag toward the front of the stage, but was eventually hurried off by members of the Maiden camp. During significant moments of three of Iron Maiden's songs, the P.A. system was switched off, cutting power to Dickinson's microphone and the band's instruments. In audio captured during the concert and posted on various online metal forums, one can hear Dickinson accusing the festival's organizers of deliberately cutting off the band's power. On Iron Maiden’s departure, Ozzfest founder Sharon did command the stage to make a few statements. She told the audience that while she "absolutely loved Iron Maiden", she thought lead singer Bruce Dickinson was a prick and had "disrespected Ozzfest since they began their stint with the tour." Her words were met with booing, and soon after she walked off the stage. Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood issued a statement shortly after the debacle condemning the attack on the band.[16] Sharon Osbourne's most recent mention of this event came on Howard Stern's satellite radio show in 2006. Credit: Wikipedia