Jack Osbourne's mental health struggles began before 'The Osbournes'
Jack Osbourne recently sat down (virtually) with Lily Cornell Silver and opened up about his struggles with mental health and time on The Osbournes. As many of you already know, the success of The Osbournes took Sharon, Ozzy, Jack and Kelly by surprise.
However, the overwhelming media spotlight on Jack during that time eventually caused him to enter rehab at 17. Now, Jack is opening up further about his experiences filming the hit reality show.
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Both Jack Osbourne and Lily Cornell Silver were born into incredibly well-known music families. For Cornell Silver, she is the daughter of late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell and music manager Susan Silver. Similarly, Jack is also the child of a music manager and music legend.
So, it made a lot of sense when the two of them came together for Cornell Silver’s Mind Wide Open series. Together, they talked about their upbringings in well-known families and how the media spotlight has impacted their mental health.
For Jack, the three years he filmed The Osbournes with his family was a “rough patch.” The surprise success of the show eventually caused him to turn to alcohol and drugs at a young age. As a result, he entered rehab at 17.
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“I went through a real rough patch [during the show],” he says. “From the moment that when we did The Osbournes to when I was about… We only did the show for, like, three years, but during that three years, I was not in a good place. And it’s because human beings are not designed to be famous. And I’m sure you can relate — growing up with a rock star father, fame is torturous, and as a child, all of a sudden, it’s, like, [being] on this hugely successful show, which kind of happened very accidentally. It’s not like we were, like, ‘Yeah, let’s go out and we’re gonna go do this thing.’ It just kind of happened. And I really lost my way.”
As well, Jack further explains that he had a history of depression long before the show even started filming.
“I struggled a lot with depression even before the show, and then once the show kicked off, I kind of fell into drugs and alcohol,” he continues. “And it was pretty aggressive. I often joke that I picked up a good, healthy Oxycontin habit. And I ended up in rehab at 17. And I’ve been sober ever since, but it took a lot of self-work to kind of try and knock back a three-year experience.”
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Back in April 2020, Jack celebrated 17 years of sobriety.
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As well, last year, Aimee Osbourne revealed the real reason why she chose to not appear on the reality show. For her, she values any privacy she can get being Ozzy and Sharon’s daughter.
“To me, I’d grown up around having a pretty well-known dad anyway, and I always really valued my privacy within that family,” she said. “For who I am, as far as morally, and also just to give myself a chance to actually develop into a human being as opposed to just being remembered for being a teenager, it didn’t really line up with what I saw my future as.”
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Aimee acknowledged that the reality series “definitely worked great” for the rest of her family. However, in order for her to grow, she knew the show wasn’t right for her.
“I just knew it was never something that I would have been able to consider realistically.”
Back in 2019, Ozzy even expressed his own regrets about doing the reality show.
“All I can say to you is this: number one, if someone offers you a shitload of dough to be on television, you’d have to be a mug to turn it down,” he told Metal Hammer. “I thought it was gonna be a piece of cake, but you have a camera crew living in your house for three years and see how you feel at the end of it. You feel like a fucking laboratory rat.”
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In April 2020, Jack teased that his family was entertaining the idea of possibly doing another season of the show. However, nothing has been confirmed at this time. As well, Jack explained that it may be hard to bring the reality show back for one main reason.
“I would be lying to say the conversations haven’t been coming up recently,” he said. “I think nostalgia is such a huge, hot-button word right now. You look at all these shows coming back from 20 years ago. The only thing, and what I struggle with, is we don’t all live together. One thought I’ve had is, why don’t we all just move in together for two months? It’s 20 years later; we’re all moving back into the house together.”
What are your reactions to Jack Osbourne’s comments about making The Osbournes? Would you watch a reboot of the reality show? Let us know in the comments below.
