British television personality Sharon Osbourne has penned a first person editorial on fame in the 21st century as she anticipates the release of her debut novel, Revenge, hitting shelves this week.
The wife of rock star Ozzy Osbourne managed to parlay that notoriety into a career as a music manager and reality show sensation, starring on the popular MTV docusoap The Osbourne and later lending her sharp-tongue to TV talent searches The X Factor and America’s Got Talent. In her piece, published on the pages of the UK’s Daily Mail on Sunday, Sharon explains the differences between fame, success, and happiness, and reminds readers that talent plus hard work remains the recipe for success.
Sharon writes: “Fame has been on my mind a lot recently. My debut novel, Revenge, is about two fame-hungry sisters and how their quest for celebrity impacts upon their lives in negative ways that they never anticipated. And my second novel will focus on a popular TV talent show and look at what really happens behind the scenes….Today, though, young people regard fame as a birthright. They have a sense of entitlement the size of one of my houses. I recently heard about the work of an American psychologist who discovered that in the Fifties only 12 percent of youngsters agreed with the statement, ‘I am an important person’. By the end of the Eighties, that figure had risen to 80 per cent. I think we can all guess what it is now… Children leaving school today no longer want to be doctors or lawyers or architects. All I ever hear is ‘I wanna be famous’, or ‘ I wanna be a celeb.’”
She warns: “Just as power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so fame corrupts and megastardom can destroy….”
