The Osbourne family can rarely escape controversy. This seems to be the result of their remarkable and downright entertaining honesty. Say what you will about Sharon, Kelly, Jack, or The Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy, but you can't deny their authenticity. This is why they were selected to be featured on their very own reality show for MTV. The Osbournes was really the first of its kind and paved the way for the careers of Kim Kardashian and the Real Housewives.
The show, which was birthed out of the success of MTV's Cribs, and ran for four incredibly successful seasons ended too early. While most reality shows as monumental to the genre as The Osbournes was have gone on for years and years, the show came to a close in 2005. There's no doubt that this felt early and left fans extremely disappointed. Of course, the entire Osbourne clan has gone on to become massive stars in the genre and in others. But that still doesn't explain why The Osbournes was canceled when it was still deemed a win for the network...
The Osbournes Changed Drastically After Season 1
Ultimately what made The Osbournes great was what killed the show. Of course, any network like MTV would have been thrilled to continue with the show for years due to its money-making power, the family itself wasn't happy. Sure, the final season's ratings weren't as strong as they were in the first and second, but they weren't low enough to warrant a cancelation.
The first season was very much a fluke. According to a fascinating article by The Ringer, the filmmakers, and The Osbourne family really didn't know what they were going to get when they stuck a bunch of cameras in their gothic and somewhat absurd Beverly Hills mansion.
That was its charm... The borderline chaotic nature of that family's authentic interaction was what drew millions of viewers to the show almost instantly. And that made the family (which was already rich due to Ozzy's success as a rock star and Sharon's as a music manager) exceptionally wealthy. In the first season of the show, according to The Los Angeles Times, each family member was making $5,000 per episode whereas they made $20 million for the following 40 episodes. Of course, that was just the beginning of the money they made. Merchandising, licensing, syndication, and book deals followed. But so did a lot of stress and, most importantly, the loss of what the show really was supposed to be.
"At the end of the first year, some of us talked about quitting, but we were also happy with what we’d made," executive producer Jeff Stilson told The Ringer. "Then the show hit, and it became a show about itself. In a Season 2 episode, Ozzy’s at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but he’s only there because of the show. And then Kelly got a recording contract. The success of the show changed their lives so it wasn’t the innocent family show that it was when we started."
The purity of the show began to be diluted by its success. As Jack Osbourne said in the interview with The Ringer, the show had "lost its earnestness" by the second season.
"It wasn’t that we were faking, but it had become a show, whereas early on it was an experiment," Jack said referring to how MTV really didn't know what the show was going to be after they took a chance on a growing interest in The Osbourne family after their appearance on Cribs. And this signaled the end of The Osbournes.
The Real Reason The Osbournes Was Canceled
In the middle of the second season, and definitely by the third, the family just became too famous, according to the filmmakers behind The Osbournes.This meant the show began to really know what it was. It was no longer an experimental, guerrilla-style documentary about the inner-workings of a celebrity family. It was everywhere and that meant that the show needed to try and top itself. The later episodes just simply weren't as good as the first, despite the show being beloved by millions of MTV watchers. Additionally, Ozzy was struggling with a number of his personal demons. His issues were enhanced by the show's skyrocketing success.
But it wasn't just Ozzy... Kelly also had some substance abuse issues and a complicated relationship with her fame. Then there was Sharon being diagnosed with cancer... All of this caused the family to close out The Osbournes before MTV could pressure them to make a fifth season.
"It would have destroyed our family if we’d have gone on forever. We just couldn’t," the wonderfully candid Sharon Osbourne told The Ringer. "It’s much too much attention. The kids were too young and were getting way too much attention. It was also way too much of living in a fantasy land. It’s not reality. Our lives were reality. But what came with that reality was not real."
Ultimately, it was Sharon who really made the call to end the show. It certainly wasn't MTV. And the viewers appeared to be all-in for another season. The strong-willed matriarch knew what was best for her family and their careers.
"If you’re on top, there’s only one place to go after that. How many of Michael Jackson’s other albums sold 35 million? When you’re number one, the only place to go is down so why not leave when you’re on top?" Sharon explained. "I told my kids, 'This can’t be your whole thing in life. You can’t just be a person that’s filmed every day. There’s much more to who you are and what you want to do.'"
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