Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are breaking up after more than 33 years of marriage, E news reported this weekend. A representative for the couple has confirmed “Ozzy is not in the marital home. The rumor mill says Ozzy is having an affair with a ‘celebrity hairdresser.’ ”
Investing emotional energy in a Hollywood marriage is a game for naifs and People magazine editors. As a population, celebrities have a higher divorce rate than Donald Trump. They are attractive and insecure, and they travel frequently—not exactly a formula for stability. Still, jaded observers will be forgiven for feeling a twinge of regret at this news.
From 2002 to 2005, the Osbournes were the stars of a groundbreaking reality show that was about nothing more than the fact that they were a long-time married couple. Ozzy was daft and goofy; Sharon was sharp and witty. (An alternate read: Ozzy was disturbingly addled; Sharon was naggy and grating.) The show often aped sitcom tropes: The Osbournes visit Europe! The Osbournes’ dogs misbehave! The Osbournes bicker! They were like Lucy and Ricky, but with cursing and black velvet.
The Osbournes got its real sweetness and surprise from the fact that Ozzy and Sharon had been through so much together. The couple met in the 1970s, and Sharon served as the Black Sabbath singer’s manager. The early years were turbulent, even for a rock ’n’ roll couple. “Our fights were legendary,” Sharon told the Guardian in 2001. “We’d beat the shit out of each other. At a gig, Ozzy would run off stage during a guitar solo to fight with me, then run back on to finish the song!”
Actually, all the years were turbulent. But nonetheless, they stuck together through recurring substance-abuse issues, domestic violence, Ozzy’s bat-biting brouhaha, the chaos of reality-TV stardom, son Jack’s diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, and Sharon’s treatment for colon cancer. Breakup rumors would swirl occasionally—they separated temporarily in 2013—but the two of them always seemed to like each other.
Now, at ages 67 and 63, apparently they can’t make it work anymore. It’s always tempting to reach for larger lessons when a couple breaks up after many decades together. When Al and Tipper Gore split in 2010, for example, the split was taken as emblematic of “gray divorce”—baby boomers’ treating post-retirement life as an entirely new phase of life.
In the Osbournes’ case, it would be silly to generalize. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne aren’t emblematic of anything but themselves: a couple of rich weirdos, alternately annoying and affecting, whom Americans fell for in the heady years when reality television felt fresh and funny and fascinating. It was only TV, though, and they were only celebrities. After all, Lucy and Ricky split up, too.
