SHARON OSBOURNE Says Doing 'The Osbournes' Reality Show 'Paid Off For OZZY'

Ozzy Osbourne's wife says that she has no regrets about the MTV reality show "The Osbournes", which followed the lives of the BLACK SABBATH singer and his family.

The "fly-on-the-wall" TV series, which became the highest rated original program in MTV's history, started in 2002 and ended in 2005. The show chronicled Sharon Osbourne's battle with cancer, as well as younger children Kelly and Jack Osbourne's stints in rehabilitation for drug and alcohol abuse.

"The Osbournes" was credited with being the first show where cameras followed celebrities around and led to a number of copycats like A&E's "Gene Simmons Family Jewels", which followed the life of KISS bassist Gene Simmons and his family, and A&E's "Growing Up Twisted", about the family of TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider.

Sharon spoke about "The Osbournes" during an appearance on SiriusXM's "The Jess Cagle Show", hosted by Jess Cagle and Julia Cunningham. Refusing to take credit for the series's success, Sharon said (see video below): "It was really Ozzy. I mean, he was the one that was in the public eye. He was the celebrity. And he's the one that took all the risks. We didn't — the kids and I. But he took a huge risk. And I think that it paid off for Ozzy, 'cause people saw how funny he is — I mean, just hysterical. And he's just a teddy bear. And I look back at some of it from time to time, and I think, 'Oh, my God. He's so funny.'"

Asked if there is anything she regrets from the show, Sharon said: "Um… No. And I'm really lucky for my kids that we stopped it when we stopped it. Because of the kids. And it was getting too much. And I'm glad that we stopped it before social media became what it was, 'cause people can be so cruel. The press were bad enough, but I can imagine peer groups of theirs online and what they would have said and done. It was cool. We had the best time of our lives. We have so much to look back on. Jack has so much to give to his girls to say, 'This was me at your age.' And that's a great family heirloom."

Earlier this year, Ozzy said that he was "falling apart emotionally" during the making of "The Osbournes".

"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.

"It got to the point where I was falling apart emotionally," he continued, "because you can't fucking relax. It doesn't matter where you go for a piss, you're paranoid there's a camera in there. But I'm not ashamed of it and it's a big hit. Would I do it again? It's now Kardashianville. The world's changed, man."

In a 2012 interview, Sharon said that her family's "lives were never the same again" after "The Osbournes". "Everybody's grown up with Ozzy, everybody loves Ozzy, but for us, we were a family," she said. "You know, we weren't in the public eye at all, and it changed our lives so much."

In "The Osbournes", the legendary singer would often be seen running on a treadmill and getting fit. But he told The Daily Record back in 2009 that it was all a charade. Once the cameras stopped rolling, Ozzy, supposedly a recovering alcoholic, would go to a room and get stoned.

Sharon said: "As Ozzy will tell you, the three years that we were filming, Ozzy was stoned the whole time. He wasn't sober for one day."

Ozzy revealed: "When the filming ended, I'd go in my little bunker and smoke a pipe and drink about a case of beer every day.

"I'd give myself some goodness and get up early in the morning and go jogging for six miles."

Ozzy admitted he couldn't watch the show — because it's obvious by his body language in front of camera that he didn't know what time of day it was.

He said: "I used to do a lot of prescription drugs as well."