Getty TV personalities Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner and Kylie Jenner attend Cosmopolitan's 50th Birthday Celebration at Ysabel
Two reality TV stars and “Dancing With the Stars” contestants made some bold claims during the premiere of “For Real: The Story of Reality TV” on Thursday, March 25 on E!. Kelly Osbourne said if it weren’t for her family, there would be no Kardashian-Jenner celebrities, and her brother, Jack Osbourne, had a profane message for Gene Simmons and Ted Nugent.
Here’s what they had to say.
Kelly Osbourne Said They Were the First Family of Reality TV
“For Real: The Story of Reality TV” features Andy Cohen taking a look at the history of the reality TV genre. The premiere episode focused largely on MTV, who really started the reality TV craze with its “Real World” franchise. But the channel also launched the kind of “docu-soap” TV that became “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and the “Real Housewives” franchise when it premiered “The Osbournes” in 2002, something Kelly Osbourne is happy to take credit for.
“If it wasn’t for us doing what we did, there would be no Kardashians, there would be no any of these shows that people watch now. We did pave the way for that,” said Osbourne, adding that people had a real love-hate relationship with her family.
The special asserted that the Osbourne family’s “willingness to put their vulnerability in front of the camera made it less scary for other people to have to do that too.”
“It’s one of those things where it’s two-sided — people will either say ‘yay, thank you,’ or ‘yay, we hate you,'” said Osbourne, who competed on season nine of “Dancing With the Stars.”
Jack Osbourne Says ‘F*** You’ To Critics
When the show first debuted, several rock ‘n roll artists were vocally critical of it. Ted Nugent famously told the New York Post that the show was “the manifestation of self-indulgent poisoning, and it’s ugly.”
“I think it’s an indictment to the soullessness of modern man that we get a kick out of witnessing a magnificent creature reduced to a blithering hopeless idiot … I hope he’s happy. But I hope there’s not too many people who are stupid enough to pursue that kind of lifestyle, because it’ll kill you or turn you into a blathering idiot like Ozzy,” said Nugent. “The reason he’s so successful is everyone wants to see a train wreck.”
Gene Simmons also slammed the show, calling it “sad” in a 2004 interview (via Blabbermouth).
“Everybody sees it as a comedy, but I see it as very sad,” said Simmons. “I’ve known Ozzy for twenty-five or thirty years. The one thing nobody ever says at the beginning of a show is, ‘Please don’t use drugs, otherwise you’ll end up like me.’ Because all the shaking and the stuttering and all that — Ozzy’s come clean on that — it’s because he’s done that to himself. And it’s sad, because when the cameras go away, the same person is a real human being, it’s not just a TV show. And yet, every day of the week, there are new fifteen-year-old kids saying, ‘Let’s get in the car and get high.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Another idiot is born.'”
But both Nugent and Simmons went on to have their own reality shows — Simmons had “Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels” and Nugent had various reality shows over the years including “Surviving Nugent” and “Wanted: Ted or Alive.” Therefore, Jack Osbourne thinks they’re hypocrites.
“Gene Simmons and Ted Nugent were two musicians who talked so much s*** about [my dad] when he did the Osbournes and yet they went on and did their own shows?” said the “Dancing WIth the Stars” season 17 alum. “I always felt very ‘f*** you’ towards them. Oh, you’ll talk s*** about it, but when you get the opportunity, you’re all about it? Please.”
‘The Osbournes’ Was Really a Fly-by-Night Show
The special also revealed that the producers running “The Osbournes” were on the high-wire without a net — i.e., nobody really knew exactly what they were doing.
“There was nothing scripted, there was nothing even planned,” said producer Rod Aissa, who is now an executive vice president at NBC Universal.
Another producer, Sue Kolinsky, added that the camera operators were instructed to just film everything they could. “For every 500 minutes shot, we used one minute. I mean, by today’s standards that is crazy,” said Kolinsky.
In fact, they filmed so many mundane, everyday activities that initially, patriarch Ozzy Osbourne hated the show. Aissa said that when they screened the pilot episode for Osbourne, by the time it got to the end, Osbourne “stands up, yells at me, ‘I’m the fucking Prince of Darkness and you ruined me!'”
“There was no longer the mystery of Ozzy Osbourne, which was a huge concern for him going into the show,” added son Jack Osbourne.
But Ozzy Osbourne relented and “The Osbournes” became one of MTV’s biggest hits, running for four seasons between 2002 and 2005.
One thing the special did not address, however, was the recent things Leah Remini said about Sharon Osbourne making racist and homophobic remarks about her “Talk” co-hosts. “For Real’s” premiere episode was most likely already edited and ready for air before that story broke.
“For Real: The Story of Reality TV” is a seven-part series about the reality TV phenomenon. It airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on E!.
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