Just hours after doing the morning school run near her new home in the English countryside – where she is still living among half-unpacked boxes – Kelly Osbourne steps into the grandeur of Berkshire’s Cliveden House for her first exclusive photoshoot and interview since the devastating loss of her father, Ozzy Osbourne.
It is a delicate balancing act.
Kelly is quietly preparing for some exciting new projects this year – more on those later – while navigating seismic shifts in her personal life. Between returning to the UK with her three-year-old son, Sidney, following her split from her former fiancé, Sid Wilson, and grappling with the sheer weight of her grief, she is rebuilding her world from the ground up.
"It's been the hardest year of my life," Kelly, 41, tells HELLO! after the photoshoot, having carried it off with effortless style and unshakable Osbourne swagger. Speaking candidly about her grief, she says: "I'll never be the person I was before my father died… a part of me died, too."
After an emotional pause, she continues: "Everything is different. I'm different. Everything has changed, but it's just taking it one day at a time and putting the pieces back together in a way that you think will work."
Rock legend Ozzy died on 22 July last year at the age of 76, surrounded by his family in England, just weeks after performing a historic farewell show with Black Sabbath in the band’s birthplace of Aston, Birmingham.
"We didn't put my dad in any sort of morgue," Kelly says of the days following his death. "He came straight home and we got to spend a few days with him and mourn with him, and make sure that everything was the way we wanted it to be."
© Zoe McConnellA few weeks later, tens of thousands of fans lined Broad Street in Birmingham for a funeral procession. The heavy-metal icon's cortege travelled through his home city, led by the Bostin Brass Band playing Black Sabbath classics, before coming to a halt at the Black Sabbath Bridge.
Kelly says that in those devastating early weeks, the love expressed by members of the public was a lifeline for her family, including her mother, Sharon, 73.
"It saved us," Kelly says. "Every note, every flower, every gift that was sent to us – we received, we read, we acknowledged, and the people we could find the time to write back to and thank, we did. It showed us that they loved him as much as he loved them. Because he really did.
"I'm so proud that half of me is from a city like Birmingham," she adds. "They’re salt-of-the-earth, working-class heroes who say it as it is. They're incredible people, and I don't think Birmingham gets enough credit.
"[Ozzy] will always be that little boy from Aston," she adds, smiling. "You know, he never realised the icon that he truly will be for ever. There was no one like him, and there never will be again."
However, despite the outpouring of emotion from fans, Kelly found herself at the centre of relentless online scrutiny after she appeared at the Brit Awards in February, facing cruel body-shaming and speculation about her grief-induced weight changes.
How did she navigate that time? "I didn't navigate it – I wasn't well," she says. "How can you navigate something so cruel when you're so sick? I'm getting a lot better. I've got all the help I need and I’m grateful for the support I have in my life.
"[I have] this incredible team of people I’ve built around me who are not just my friends, because what you'll find when you're grieving is that people don't know how to handle it, and you do lose a lot of friends. But the ones who stick around are the real ones.
"To go through what I had to go through on top of all of that just made it even harder. So I just had to ignore it."
When it comes to nurturing her overall wellbeing and finding her footing again, Kelly is taking a steady, gentle approach. "It's one foot in front of the other," she says.
"You've got to fix the head before you can fix the body. It's a slow process. It's going to take me a minute. I'm not going to be fixed in a day. I'm not going to be fixed on one therapy session. This is a lifetime of work I've got to do and continue to do for the rest of my life.
"It's great discovering things about yourself [in therapy], and the reasons why I do certain things that stem from my childhood. You go all the way back and you're like: ‘Oh my god, that's why I do that. That's crazy.’ I'm getting to know myself in a whole new way, but it's a lot more healthy, I can tell you that."
Following the Brit Awards, reports emerged that Kelly had ended her engagement to the former Slipknot DJ Sid Wilson, seven months after his high-profile proposal backstage at her father’s farewell concert with Black Sabbath. Kelly began dating Sid, 49, in early 2022, welcoming their son, Sidney, later that year.
When asked about their current situation, Kelly politely declines to comment. Although she does not want to address the split directly, she makes one thing abundantly clear: her primary focus is on protecting young Sidney, with their return to the UK from Los Angeles firmly in his best interests.
© Zoe McConnell"I have so many reasons to keep going," Kelly says. "I've got my baby boy, and he makes me the happiest person in the world. Being home in the UK has changed a lot for me. I've never been a California girl. It's been great to be home, and making a life for me and my son where I can see he's truly happy."
Sidney – who will turn four in November – is now going to the same pre-school in Buckinghamshire that Kelly attended as a child, and where her former teacher still works to this day.
"I met my best friend on my first day at school and she's still my best friend. Her child goes there too; she's a bit older than my son but they're best friends too. They love each other."
Kelly adds that gun violence in schools in the US was another reason for the move. "I don't ever want to have to explain to my son what to do during a gun raid," she says. "That's the realistic thing that you have to do in schools in America, and to me, that's insanity."
If there is a silver lining to her grief, it's in the daily moments when she sees her father looking back at her through the eyes of her young son.
"Most people say that they see my dad in him," Kelly says. "They got to spend so much time together in the little time that he's been on this planet. I moved into my mum and dad's house when I got pregnant, and then I spent pretty much the first two years of his life with my dad."
Sidney affectionately refers to his late grandfather as Papa, and Kelly says: "He talks to his Papa every day."
© Zoe McConnellSidney, it turns out, is a mini Ozzy in the making, complete with the legendary Osbourne knack for unfiltered language. As for where the youngster picked up his new vocabulary? "Every time we ask him, he goes: ‘Nana told me!'" Kelly laughs. "I'm like: 'He heard it from Nana!'"
Speaking of Sharon, the strong bond between mother and daughter is on full display during Kelly’s photoshoot. Sitting in hair and make-up, Kelly pauses to call her mother, offering to send her hairstylist over to do Sharon’s roots.
"I talk to my mum almost ten times a day," she says. "Even when I’m p***ed off with her."
Beyond the playful banter lies a fierce, protective devotion. "You get to a certain age and it's no longer your parents' job to look after you – it's your job to look after them, and make sure that whatever life they have left in them is good," Kelly says.
"And my god, does my mum deserve a good life. A peaceful life. I mean, whatever the f*** she wants to do, you know? Whatever the f*** she wants to buy. Being with whoever she wants to be with, and making more beautiful memories with our family and the babies."
Where Kelly is concerned, what’s the nature of the forthcoming projects she mentioned earlier? Keeping her cards close to her chest, she reveals that a major TV comeback is already under way.
"I've got some very exciting projects coming up," she says. "I can't go into it too much, but it involves television, me, lots of animals and beginning again."
There are also plans to launch her own fashion-led brand, which is still in the "embryonic stage".
© Zoe McConnellKelly made a surprise return to her pop-star roots in May, joining the Scissor in London’s Brockwell Park to give her first live performance of her 2005 hit One Word for more than 20 years.
Is she planning to head back into the recording studio? "My dad always wanted me to do it again," she says. "If I did it, I'd do it for the gays!"
Certainly, a special mentor in her life – the late Joan Rivers, alongside whom she starred in the TV show Fashion Police for five years – would tell her to go for it.
"The best working years of my life were working side by side with Joan Rivers," she says. "I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world. I was like her apprentice… I learnt so much from her.
"Her daughter, Melissa, was one of the first people I called when my dad passed," Kelly adds. "She was really there for me. Being able to work under somebody so incredible, fearless, funny, a powerhouse – I was lucky."
For Kelly, Joan was a secondary matriarch who instilled a work ethic and resilience that guide her to this day.
"I'm fortunate enough to have a mother who is all of those things, too. But getting to spend almost six years learning about gratitude and work ethic, and knowing that, at the end of the day, it doesn't f*****g matter – you're going to p**s people off wherever you go – that was invaluable."
When it comes to her own life lessons and experience of parenting, Kelly admits that the turbulence of recent years has reshaped her perspective entirely.
"Time is the most important thing we have. Life is so precious," she says, her thoughts drifting back to her father. "Trust me, if you could love someone back into this world, he'd be sitting next to me right now. But you can't – it’s just gone. I encourage people to love more. Tell someone you love them when you feel it."
That same philosophy extends to how she is raising Sidney. For Kelly, motherhood has been a masterclass in sharing emotional space. "I've learnt patience in a way I never thought I was capable of," she says. "You can't make your kids be anything – they will become exactly who they want to be. When he’s dysregulated, I just sit with him and let him go through it. I don't try to control his feelings, because they're his.
"Sometimes, yeah, it's really f*****g hard and really f*****g annoying! But I want him to have his voice, and to feel confident enough to express himself."
Part of that freedom involves letting Sidney explore the world untethered by adult labels or rigid expectations around gender.
© Zoe McConnell"I've never explained gender to him – I don't believe it's a concept that a three-year-old boy needs to try to understand," Kelly says. "You like what you like, and that's it. One day he loves Gabby's Dollhouse, and the next day we're at Rugbytots and he's loving every moment of the physicality and the rough play.
"When he meets someone, he naturally addresses them by how they present. I've never taught him that; he does it on his own. I think that's so special."
With our interview drawing to a close, Kelly is eager to dive back into building their new life in the countryside, and continuing to unpack. "I'm getting back into my OCD mind and unpacking everything," she laughs, quoting the musical Annie as she adds: "I want this place to shine like the top of the Chrysler Building!"
Most of all, she's looking forward to welcoming family and friends from Los Angeles to her new haven once the dust settles. "When it's all put away and everything is where it's supposed to be, they'll be able to come and visit," she says. "Happy is not the word, but I'm where I’m meant to be."
