Kelly Osbourne sat down with the crew at Daily Blast Live on Monday (May 3) to talk about her pandemic relapse and commiserate with Billie Eilish about the difficulty of growing up in public.
“I have to be honest with you: I think it’s really selfish of her fans, because I was in that position,” Osbourne said of some of the criticism the 19-year-old Eilish has gotten for showing off some skin — and a new thigh tat — in her high-fashion British Vogue cover shoot.
Recalling when she was 18 and touring to support her debut album, Shut Up, Osbourne said her team tried very hard to keep her covered up and not show any cleavage. “Because I had really big boobs when I was really young. And so I think that Billie Eilish — not to speak on behalf of her because I don’t even know her — had a similar thing,” Osbourne said.
“The truth is we’re human beings — we evolve. What I liked when I was 17 I hated when I was 18, and I was completely different when I was 19. You’re evolving as a human, you’re figuring out what works for you, what doesn’t. I think this is actually a very brave move for her because she’s coming out and saying, ‘I’m owning my body, this is me and this is who I want to be, I want to try something new,’” she said of the difficult balancing act young female performers face as they juggle figuring out what they are comfortable with versus what their audience expects from them.
“So instead of saying, ‘You’ve abandoned us,’ it might not be something that they like because they prefer the other way of dressing, but at the same time, she’s expressing herself,” Osbourne added. “Nobody should ever ever ever be told how to express themselves, how to portray themselves to the world, and that’s the way she wants to do and I think she looks beautiful.”
Kelly, 36, who recently revealed that she relapsed after four years of sobriety by drinking alcohol during a “nervous breakdown” in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown, said she’s not sure she could follow the “California sober” path that Demi Lovato described in her harrowing YouTube series Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil.
“I can’t sometimes drink. That doesn’t happen for me so I don’t understand that,” said Osbourne. “That doesn’t fall into my brain at all. That’s not an option for me. Look, for me, life is the pursuit of happiness and it’s about what makes you happy. Everybody works differently, there’s not one set of rules for everyone when it comes to happiness because it doesn’t work that way.”
But instead of criticizing Lovato or dissecting her decision to continue occasionally drinking and smoking pot after a nearly fatal drug overdose in 2018, Osbourne wants to be supportive. “I’m just going to sit here and say, I think a little bit more love and support and kindness, and I don’t agree with it, that’s all,” she said. As for her own sobriety, Osbourne said she’s “really good” now and she’s happy to be very open about what happened and how she’s getting herself back on track.
“I need to be honest because it’s the only way I know how to hold myself accountable,” she said, adding that she’s in an outpatient program again in order to find the root of what made her believe she could drink again “like a normal person because I can’t.” Osbourne said she’s focusing on staying happy and healthy, which is what she was before she began drinking again.
“I don’t understand what happened and that’s the nature of addiction and how everything can just be fine, and then all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Whoa, what happened? I didn’t expect this,’” she said. “So it was difficult, a bump in the road, but we all have it so I just wanted to be open and to the point about it and kind of tackle it head on, rather than lying about it. I believe you’re only as sick as your secrets. I could have gone on and nobody would have known, but I don’t think that would have made me any better.”
Watch Osbourne’s interview below.
