Fierce (20 page)

W
HEN
The Osbournes
show started, I knew I wasn’t skinny, but I just thought I was normal. I was a UK size ten (American size six) and I was 5ft 2in. I’m short, so of course I’m going to look that bit bigger than someone who is 5ft 4in and a size ten. But I would never have considered myself as fat. I really wasn’t prepared for the whole world to have an opinion on my appearance.

The first time I read that people thought I was fat was in
US Weekly
, a gossip magazine in America. It was the issue that had come out the week after the first episode of
The Osbournes
.

I was flicking through it while sitting on the sofa in the kitchen at Doheny. It was exciting to see myself in a magazine that I’d been reading for years. We were all still very surprised at how well received that first show had been, so everything felt new and fun.

But when I read the words that went with the piece, I couldn’t
believe it. I forget the exact details of the article. I just read FAT. It felt like someone was crushing my heart. It was that overwhelming. I got this hot feeling that made me feel like my face was on fire. It was sheer panic and sadness. I burst into tears. I kept thinking, ‘How can you think this?’ I was practically a child. It destroyed me. It really did. I just wasn’t prepared for that level of criticism.

I was sat there, curled up on the sofa in my own home, where I had always felt so safe and happy. All of a sudden, it felt like I was public property and there was nothing I could do. Where do you hide? It was there in black and white for everyone to read. From that moment on, I saw life as Before
The Osbournes
and After
The Osbournes
. Those references to me being fat also really upset my mum too. She does this thing where she puts a shit in a box and sends it to someone who has upset us. She used to get Jack to shit in a box when he was a baby too. Really normal parenting, yeah? Obviously, Mum would do this to someone who had said something about her family. My mum always says that you can say whatever you want about her, but don’t slag off her husband or her children. She used to place the shit in one of those lovely blue boxes from the upmarket jewellers Tiffany’s. The she would send it to whoever had pissed her off. She hasn’t done it for a while, though people still think that she does it.

When the show came out, there was one guy who wrote a review of
The Osbournes
in a well-respected newspaper. He made reference to the kids being fat. Mum thought that article was really irresponsible. So she got someone to shit in a box and sent it to him with a note saying, ‘I’ve heard you’ve got an eating disorder? Eat this.’

Can I just say, my mum has got to stop fighting my battles for me! I mean, when she sent that shit to the journalist from the newspaper, well, that was just plain crazy. Don’t get me wrong, it was really upsetting what they’d written. Jack and I were just kids. But she can’t fight our battles. She really can’t.

I consoled myself with one fact: you could bet your life that the person who wrote that article would have been one ugly motherfucker!

When we started filming
The Osbournes
in the October, I was still taking a Vicodin when I went out, but nothing more than one or two at the weekend. In the same way that people get drunk at a weekend, I’d take a Vicodin. I’d drink too, but never to excess.

When the
The Osbournes
aired on 5 March 2002, I’d started taking maybe one or two pills during the week. I’d begun to build up a bit of a resistance and so I was taking two tablets to get the same feeling I’d experienced that very first night. I was aware that other people I was hanging out with were also taking them, but for me it wasn’t a communal thing. Apart from the guy I was buying them from, who
was now a friend, no one else really knew. My parents certainly didn’t have a clue.

But I began to rely on Vicodin more and more to help me cope with the downsides of fame. Not knowing how to deal with it meant any articles making reference to my size really got to me. I think I was always someone who was going to have weight issues, but I don’t think it would have been such a big problem had I not become famous.

I started to binge-eat – big time. It was the start of a vicious circle. Publications would call me fat and it would really hurt my feelings. So then I would comfort-eat to make myself feel better.

Was I fat? Of course I wasn’t. But it didn’t matter by then because I’d convinced myself that I was. I went up to a UK size fourteen and I was so miserable and hated myself and didn’t care what I looked like and didn’t put any effort into what I wore.

When I say binge, I wasn’t one of those people who wouldn’t eat for ages and then all of a sudden would eat a million burgers and then make themselves puke. It was more a case of eating to comfort myself, which meant I’d turn to quick fixes – junk food. I was eating too much bad stuff. I used to eat everything I could get my hands on. I was miserable. I was eating my feelings. I was eating tons of crisps.

I was only seventeen and so unbelievably sensitive. There is nothing wrong with that. Everyone is at that age. What you want to hear is positive things about yourself. What you don’t need to hear is loads of people saying you’re fat. I would eat to make myself feel better. Crisps, chips, chocolate, sweets … I didn’t feel guilty afterwards, no. But I did get fatter, which made me feel even more fucking miserable.

I needed food and quickly. I wasn’t interested in cooking anything. I would just grab whatever was available. I was also drinking endless cans of fizzy drinks – they’re my big downfall. There is so much sugar and calories in those drinks. French fries from McDonald’s were also a big favourite of mine. I would jump in my car and drive to the nearby restaurant and buy the largest box and eat them straight away. Then sometimes I’d go back and buy another box.

Jack was also suffering from a similar problem. There was one time I visited a burger joint I’d not normally go to, but that Jack would go to all the time. I refused to go because on the television advert for the restaurant, when the man took a bite out of a burger it made a horrible chewing sound that went right through me. People chewing noisily – gum, crisps, crackers, whatever – is my biggest pet hate. Friends do it to wind me up now. They’ll put the biggest piece of chewing gum in their mouth and then chew it really loudly in my ear. Fuck, it drives me absolutely insane. It really does.

But that night my friend really wanted to go to the burger joint I hated, so I went with her. When I walked through the door they just assumed that I was collecting my brother’s ‘usual’. It dawned on me that my brother was also binge eating.

I think weight gain is caused by a mixture of things; genetics definitely play a part. I think Jack and I will always struggle with our weight to some extent. My mum has a problem with her weight too. But I also think it’s about how you deal with big situations in your life. I eat when I’m stressed out, I eat when I’m not stressed. I’m just one of those people who turn to food no matter what. As I’ve got older, I’ve learned to recognise the signs. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter if you put weight on. Of course, it’s not good for your health to be obese. But I think – especially if you’re a woman – that your weight is going to yo-yo. That’s perfectly normal.

I’ve been thin – a UK size six – and I’ve been bigger – oh my God, shock horror I’ve been a size fourteen – but should it really matter? One of the times when I was a UK fourteen I’d just come out of rehab when I was twenty-one. I was trying to win my battle with drug addiction and I’d just moved to start a new life. It was probably the first time I really wasn’t bothered about my weight, it was the least of my worries.

When I was in the musical
Chicago
in the West End, I started to lose weight. I was in a routine and I felt happy. I usually lose weight when I’m feeling settled and content. Or I’m doing so much stuff my mind is distracted from food. I was incredibly busy juggling the theatre production with my Radio 1 show as well as doing press and publicity.

The funny thing is, even when I’ve been at my biggest, I’ve never felt self-conscious if I’ve been pictured next to someone really skinny. It’s a good fucking job!

What I’ve learned through the media is that they look down on someone for being fat far more than for being a junkie. Magazines see it as such a massive crime. It really is quite unbelievable.

During those first few weeks of
The Osbournes
I was referred to as ‘fat, big, overweight …’ and the list goes on. It doesn’t matter what size I am physically; I’m a fat person in my head – because everyone still tells me I am.

Even when I’ve lost weight, magazines and newspapers have still written that I’m fat or they say that I’ve ‘ditched the diet’ when I’ve put on two pounds. They love to publish pictures of me that compare when I was thinner and then fatter. Like, what the fuck? Every time they write that shit I think to myself, ‘Oh come on. I’ve done far more shitty things that you could write about.’

The thing that struck me as well was that the magazines were not just criticising me, they were also labelling as fat any other girl in the world who was the same size as me.

How fucked up is that?

At the beginning, my battle with my weight would probably have been fine if I could have hidden away. But
The Osbournes
was
attracting massive viewing figures which meant that we had started on this huge merry-go-round of press and publicity.

I
LEARNED
very early on that I was never going to be one of those people who hugely posed on the red carpet. The day my dad got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was the first time I’d been to an event where there were loads of photographers interested in taking my picture. When we were at that event, we were being bombarded. Uncle Tony turned to us and said, ‘This is something else. I’ve never seen anything like this.’