Former The Talk host Holly Robinson Peete says Sharon Osbourne complained she was too "ghetto"
The (purely metaphorical, we should probably note for legal reasons) sulfurous stench we typically associate with Piers Morgan opening his mouth and letting things emerge from it continued to spread further and further afield this week, as it’s now begun to engulf and slowly corrode the enamel of CBS’s daytime talk series The Talk. This, not surprisingly, is due to Sharon Osbourne, who’s been with the series since its inception, and who decided to spend some of her apparently indefatigable reserves of celebrity staying power on defending Morgan earlier this week, after the former Good Morning Britain host was typically himself re: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s recent Oprah interview.
Osbourne’s defense of Morgan “speaking his truth” led to one of her former co-workers resurfacing a personal truth of her own, which is to say that Holly Robinson Peete spoke up on social media today to remind the world of the time Osbourne allegedly declared her and Leah Remini too “ghetto” for the show, and reportedly angled to have them fired from The Talk. (Robinson Peete and Remini both lasted only a single season with the series, which has been running since 2010.)
Osbourne has always denied that she tried to get either Robinson Peete or Remini fired, although both women have told the story at different points in their careers.
Robinson Peete was specifically moved to post about this topic because of a heated conversation Osbourne had with co-host Sheryl Underwood on Wednesday’s installment of the show, where she stated that “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.” She also demanded that Underwood “educate me” on what, exactly, about Morgan’s statements read as racism, because nothing speaks to allyhood for the Black community like demanding that a Black woman educate you on the existence of racism.
Anyway: Osbourne did issue an apology for her defense of Morgan today via Twitter, stating that she felt “panicked and blindsided” in the moment and “got defensive.” (CBS noted that Wednesday’s installment of The Talk is currently undergoing an internal review.) All of which would be well and good (for a very low-bar definition of well and good) except that the whole incident then provoked Morgan to once again open his mouth, and lo, did the (metaphorical) tide of stench once more emerge to wash over the land, ruining children’s birthday parties and forcing the fetid smell of bullshit six inches down all the people’s noses. There’s no need to re-print the exact content of his manufactured indignation—bluster, demands for apologies, etc.—but take it as read that this story will never end, and will be the final thing remaining on Earth after we have all been drowned in Piers Morgan’s unkillable and unfathomable Stink.