Sheryl Underwood addresses Sharon Osbourne’s exit from The Talk
The conflict/conversation—conflictversation?—over Sharon Osbourne’s exit from daytime talk show The Talk has hit yet another milestone in recrimination today, as Osbourne has launched into a very Sharon Osbourne-focused argument aimed at former co-host Sheryl Underwood, over whether or not she apologized for the original on-set altercation that led to her departure from the series. (Which was, in turn, sparked by Osbourne’s public defense of Piers Morgan over his own host-ending comments about Meghan Markle, because everything is always Piers Morgan’s fault.)
Underwood talked, for the first time, about the incident that led to Osbourne’s departure earlier this week, on her podcast Sharon Walks Away. Given that it was a three-episode discussion, Underwood said a lot of things about the incident, in which she and Osbourne argued on-air over Underwood’s suggestions that Piers Morgan might just be a racist—including stating that she supports her friend “in good and bad,” and that “There was a part of me that felt like she had to do the best for herself and for her family.” But Underwood also reportedly said that Osbourne had yet to apologize to her over the incident, and whoops, here we go again, because Osbourne (also criticized in recent weeks for a past incident in which she spoke disparagingly of former co-hosts Holly Robinson Peete and Leah Remini) immediately barged back into the conversation to deny this latest alleged “attack.”
You know you’re in good shape, credibility-wise, when U.K. tabloid The Daily Mail is your go-to market for disseminating the truth. But that does appear to have been Osbourne’s choice yesterday, releasing to the paper screenshots of text messages she sent to Underwood in the days after the March 10 broadcast. And we can’t tell if Osbourne realizes this, but the exchanges in question actually make her come off, to our eyes, quite a bit worse, making it clear that she both accused her long-time colleague of “fake crying” on the show, told her to “f*** off,” and then attempted to deploy a sort of extended “us versus them” mentality on her in the guise of seeking forgiveness. While they do, technically, fall within the bounds of an apology, Osbourne’s texts also put a lot of emphasis on “having your back,” etc., which feels notable in that they were sent (if we have our timelines right) in the midst of the CBS investigation that led to her departure from the show.