Last month, reports brought to light that allegedly Gabrielle Union was fired from America’s Got Talent due to racism that she reported.
Sharon Osbourne was once a panelist on that same talent show, and she’s weighing in on her own experiences at that alleged “boy’s club.”
“It is a boys’ club, okay, it is,” Sharon Osbourne says of America’s Got Talent, on which she was a panelist for six years.
“And the boys take care of each other,” she adds. “And the women are not paid as much as the men.”
“I was on the show before Howie,” Sharon cites as an example, referring to Howie Mendel.
“I was one of them that helped put the show where it was. Simon wasn’t on the show,” she recalls.
“Simon owns the show and the time I was there, Simon was never on the show,” Sharon notes.
She points out: “So when the show was doing 16 million, 14 million, Simon was never there.”
“They brought Howie in. He got his own plane,” Sharon points out,
She does offer a disclaimer: “I love Howie, and I don’t begrudge anyone earning what they earn…”
“But, when my old ass has been there shooting the show,” Sharon argues. “And I get an American Airlines ticket and he gets a private plane.”
“And I get that because I’m me and I’m not in the club and I’m not one of the guys…” she complains.
Sharon then stops holding back, saying: “NBC can kiss my ass.”
Despite issues on the show itself, Sharon expresses that the network itself was her real problem.
“I left,” Sharon affirms. “And that’s the truth. I left because NBC, not because of the show.”
She explains: “I had my own problems with the network.”
“I don’t know about any of her concerns about the show,” Sharon freely admits, though she is of course not discounting Gabrielle Union’s experience.
Sharon wants to be as honest and accurate as she can, even if it means confessing that she didn’t see then what Gabrielle has seen now.
“Obviously, there wasn’t anybody of color on the panel when I was there,” Sharon admits.
That in and of itself sounds like a very reasonable grievance all on its own.
“So, I honestly can’t say,” Sharon admits, in terms of eyewitness testimony. “But when I was there it was, you know, a great show to work on.”
“The crew and everybody was amazing to me, everybody, except the network,” she repeats.
If America’s Got Talent was looking for some sort of exhoneration, they’re clearly not getting it from Sharon.
One, because a rich white woman not seeing racism firsthand doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Two, because she laid bare other issues of sexism that were allegedly pervasive even years ago on the show.
Sharon’s issues may have been with the network, but clearly the show has more (alleged) problems than people initially realized.
