When Sharon Osbourne released the apology texts she sent to Sheryl Underwood following Sheryl’s claim that Sharon had not directly reached out, I was floored. Surely there must be some explanation, I thought. Surely Sheryl didn’t receive those texts, because no human being would just outright lie in such a fashion. Turns out I’m naïve.
For those just tuning in, Sharon Osbourne unceremoniously exited The Talk following a heated conversation about race with Sheryl Underwood in which Sharon blatantly disrespected her co-host on air. When Sharon took to Instagram to issue an apology, she neglected to mention Sheryl’s name. Many saw this as further disrespect. Sheryl subsequently doubled down on a podcast, INSISTING that Sharon NEVER reached out. In fact, she made a joke about it. Sharon defended herself by leaking multiple apology texts to Sheryl immediately following the on-air spat and then again days later – to no response.
So did Sheryl block Sharon? Did Sharon have the wrong phone number? Surely there must be some good explanation for Sheryl’s claim. Unfortunately, there is not. Here is what Sheryl said:
“I have not spoken to and do not have any phone call missed or received that I can find in my phone, but there were text messages sent to me. The reason I did not speak about or acknowledge or even respond to those text messages, because they were coming to me during the internal investigation. I didn’t know if you were supposed to communicate or not communicate … I want to be clear on this: I have not spoken to Sharon. I have not had phone calls from her. And my fear of answering something because something pops up in the media that’s misunderstood.”
While it might be true that Sheryl strategically ignored Sharon’s texts, that does not justify Sheryl denying she received those texts in the first place. Furthermore, if you were in fact concerned about impacting an internal CBS investigation, then you should not have publicly discussed this issue until that investigation finished. Instead, you not only discussed it, you lied about it.