Sharon Osbourne on her X Factor return: 'I was worried the public wouldn't want me'

23 Aug 2016

She was one of the original judges on The X Factor, so it's safe to assume Sharon Osbourne knows a thing or two about discovering talent – and Mrs O is back! She's returning alongside former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger and her "partner in crime" Louis Walsh, and we can't wait to see what she gets up to.

Sharon, 63, confessed that, following Simon Cowell's offer, she had no concerns about coming back to the show but she was worried about suddenly being out of the loop in the UK.

Sharon Osbourne has been reunited with Louis and Nicole

"I had reservations about coming back to England and whether people really wanted me here or not. It was like, is it right for me to come back because it's been such a long time since I have really spent any length of time here? I just wondered whether it's really right, whether I was wanted by the public, not by Simon or the network, but by the public."

Her television career means Sharon spends most of her time in America, and she's not planning on cutting back her US commitments because of The X Factor. But Ozzy's wife does insist that, just because she'll sometimes be more than 5,000 miles away from her contestants, her mentoring won't suffer.

She explained: "I'm going to leave LA on Thursday, I get in Friday and will go straight to the studio, be there Saturday and Sunday and, then Monday morning I film with the contestants and Monday afternoon I fly home. It honestly doesn't worry me, I'm kind of a traveller anyway, I'm always travelling somewhere.

She, Simon and Louis were judges on the first series of The X Factor

"It's all about Skype. Everything's on Skype these days. You might as well be in the room with them, so it's not like they can't sing for me or show me their routine or something they don't like. It's very simple."

And, while we haven't even seen the auditions yet, Sharon has already picked out her favourite hopefuls. She added: "There are a couple of girls and one guy, they are really phenomenal. It's really exciting."

The X Factor returns on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th August at 8pm on ITV.