Fierce (12 page)

The problem with fake tans – and this was definitely the case with mine on that occasion – is they take on a life of their own after you leave the salon. They seem to change colour. I was very afraid of this,
so I scrubbed that off too. I preferred the tan marks. I'm simply not meant for a tan. Everyone else in my family can tan, but I just don't tan at all. If I go into the sun, I get an awful heat rash. I burn really easily too. I really have to look after my skin. Now I'm pleased I can't sunbathe because sun really ages you. The last thing I want to look like is an old leather boot.

M
Y
first waxing experience was Home Waxing À La Sharon! My mother had only gone out and bought a home-waxing kit from a beauty store in the Beverly Center. We were living at North Beverly Drive and I was fourteen. My mum shouted from her bedroom, ‘Kelly, my darling, come here.' I'd come to learn that those ‘callings' would more than often mean, ‘Hello, here comes trouble.'

My mum was standing in the middle of her bedroom, with this little pot that looked like it was bubbling. In her hand she was holding a plastic spatula. She said, ‘Just lie down on your back for a minute.' I didn't have a clue what was going on. She then propped a towel under my head and another under my chin and over my T-shirt and jeans.

I was thinking, ‘Oh my God. What the fuck is going to happen to me?'

She straddled herself across my stomach then proceeded to dip the spatula into the wax and smear it on my top lip. I screamed out in pain and my head involuntarily jerked up. My mum had heated the wax for too long and at too high a temperature. She didn't have a fucking clue what she was doing. Can you believe it? I was fourteen for God's sake. She was laughing her head off. I was lying back in absolute agony with a lump of congealed yellow wax sitting on my lip. I could barely move my mouth so I was mumbling to my mum, ‘Oh my God. What the fuck have you done?' Mum was laughing so much, she wasn't concentrating, so when she finally got round to ripping off the wax it had stuck solid. After some small tugs at the corners, she did eventually pull it off. But half of my skin from my top lip went with it. I can't tell you how fucking painful it was. It was agony.

To make it worse, while I was wriggling around, my mum had pissed on me. She was laughing so hard that she couldn't keep the wee in. So as well as burning and scarring me, she also pissed on me. I stood up and I just knew. I knew. I walked over to the mirror and I had the biggest reddest mark ever on my top lip. I could hear my mum's distinct laugh in the background.

As the days went on, the scab grew. In the end, I was walking around school with the nastiest, biggest scab you've ever seen sitting under my nose. You know what? I'd actually like to say that everyone took the piss out of me at school. But they didn't. They all just felt sorry for me, which I think might have been worse. I'd tried to shrug the whole thing off by saying that I'd burnt my lip on a mug of chocolate. Yeah, one massive mug of hot chocolate. I don't think anyone believed me.

I now get my moustache waxed, even though it's what you'd call a ‘milk moustache'. I don't want to be standing with someone and
it catches the light and someone goes, ‘Oh, look at Kelly's glistening blonde hair on her top lip.'

I
WENT
for my very first bikini wax at a fancy salon in Santa Monica. It was one of those places where you could get your fanny waxed into the shape of a butterfly or something crazy like that. I was really nervous and I didn't know what to expect. When I walked into the room she made me take off my knickers and put on those trusty paper knickers. I now understand that when it's done properly, the beautician has to pull your skin really tight as she yanks the wax strip in the opposite direction. The reason I know is because she didn't do that when she did mine. That first strip hurt so badly!

I hobbled out like bloody Charlie Chaplin. For days I was walking around with a fanny that looked like someone had kicked me between the legs. I was mortified. During those first few days, I winced every time I moved.

O
ZZFEST
was my favourite time of the year because we'd all get to go on the road with my dad. It was my summer camp. While all the other kids at my school, Westmark, were going off to camp to sail or play basketball or whatever, I was getting to hang out with some of the coolest rock bands in the world like Slipknot or System of a Down.

Mum and Dad had come up with the idea for Ozzfest in early 1996. It was a summer tour that started on the East Coast of America and finished on the West Coast. My parents decided to organise the festival when the organisers of a festival called Lollapalooza refused to let my dad join the tour. The first ever Ozzfest went on for just two days in October 1996, but from then it grew and grew. Over the years it's got bigger and bigger and has even come over to Europe to do some dates.

My parents' business manager Colin and his family would always
travel from London for Ozzfest and that meant I got to hang out with Fleur, which was great because I didn't see as much of her after we'd moved to America.

The night before was always really exciting because we would all be frantically packing and deciding what to take, then hardly sleep for excitement and we'd all be wondering what the bus that we'd be sleeping on was like. Many of the people on the tour I'd not seen since the previous year, so it was one big get-together.

To give you an idea of how big Ozzfest had become after that first year in 1996, there were about sixty crew, twenty bands and two stages. It was for up-and-coming bands as well as established groups. Ozzfest has helped the career of many bands and singers like Marilyn Manson and Linkin Park. Jack and I would go around and cause chaos. I guess we were the kids of the organisers, so people used to hang out with us because they thought they could get away with murder. In the early days of Ozzfest it was all very innocent for me. It was like the best playground ever. I mean, the shit that we used to get into. People were always daring me to do things – and I'd always be the fucking one to do it.

Jack and I had these golf buggies that we drove around backstage. I used to do this thing where I'd wait for someone to go inside one of the portable toilets that would be lined up backstage. I'd wait until they'd locked the door and then I'd drive my golf cart straight into the loo. It would fall over, the door would bang open, and the poor guy inside would be lying there, covered in all the blue chemical shit that was in the toilet. I was so fucking naughty. I always used to feel really bad, but it was always so funny. The toilet would kind of rebound and stand back up again.

Fleur and I used to have the best fun. Jack and I would never let her drive the golf buggies because she was so shit at it. But there was one time when she'd asked us so many times, that we let her drive. She got in, put her foot on the accelerator, turned a corner, tipped over and just lay there on her side. She didn't drive again. We banned her.

When we first started going, I didn't give a shit about the bands. But I did watch my dad every night. That's always pretty special. Dad is such an amazing performer – when he gets on that stage he gives it one hundred per cent. He has the most amazing fans and he wants to make sure that they have the best night ever. Some people are born entertainers and my dad is one of them.

I met some friends for life at Ozzfest – one of them was Melinda. Her husband was a tour manager for one of the bands that was performing that year. After they got married, Aussie Melinda used to join him on the bus. I remember seeing her one day, reading a copy of
Heat
magazine that she'd got from the UK. I walked over to her and said, ‘Oh my God, can I read your magazine?' She was about twenty-three then and we used to hang out all the time after that, reading magazines and making fun of the other people on the tour. Not long after, Mum was looking for a new nanny for us and I suggested Melinda. We all got on really well and I saw her as a big sister.

Many people will know Melinda from
The Osbournes
. She featured in the show – usually she was trying to get Jack out of bed or was telling us off for fighting.

Like so many people, she became a part of the family. She has always been there for me. When I'm in America she is the person I go
to when I want advice if I'm not sure about going to my mum.

In 2008, she moved back home to Australia, but she still works for my family and manages to organise everything.

Following my initial lesson on sex when I was at primary school that had got me put into detention, my biggest sex education lesson came courtesy of Ozzfest. At every concert, there would be people handing out condoms and promoting safe sex to all the kids who would come along.

One year, Jack and I opened one of the packets and asked Mum what it was. She said, ‘Don't ever have sex unless you use one of these.' That was it. I was too young to think about it, but because I'd grown up seeing condoms being handed out, safe sex wasn't a big deal for me. It was something my parents have never been shy about. They always told us what they thought and that we should protect ourselves.

Many years later, I agreed to front a campaign for World Contraception Day to raise awareness of what teenagers can do to prevent unwanted pregnancies, get the correct contraception and learn about sexually transmitted diseases.

I spoke quite candidly about some of the situations that I'd got myself into or how embarrassed I'd been in the past. Like the time I went into a Boots chemist in central London to buy some condoms and a newspaper wrote an article about it! I was so fucking mortified and for a long time I refused to buy them – I would send my flatmate instead. But then I thought, no, fuck this, I will buy them. Why should people feel embarrassed about buying condoms? I felt it was important to speak out. Why should I feel self-conscious about protecting myself?
That's the right thing to do. Or there was the time I thought I was pregnant when I'd not even had sex yet! I even did a test. That was pretty embarrassing too.