Sharon Osbourne - Gervais on the Tarrant episode

I knew about Sharon Osbourne's deranged verbal assault on Chris Tarrant, but Marian Yule - who wrote in - supplies so much excellent colour (I didn't know Louis put Chris up to it) that it would be a waste not to post it here ...

Oddly enough, I was at Ricky Gervais's stand-up show yesterday, where he used his encore to tell a story about Sharon Osbourne's, er, unique approach to other people.

Apparently he was sitting with his girlfriend at the back at the recording of the live final [of The X Factor] for the last series, near Chris Tarrant and his daughter, and chef Aldo Zilli and his wife.

As the show was live, every commercial break was filled with a warm-up man taking questions from the audience to be put to the judges.

Chris Tarrant had apparently colluded with Louis Walsh to get to ask a question. He stood up, and started: "Sharon, you're married to an intelligent, articulate man..."

He got no further because Sharon Osbourne started screeching obscenities, including liberal use of the words 'fuck' and 'cunt' - all this just metres away from horrified families with children. She also threw in something along the lines of "No wonder your wife left you, Chris!"

Poor Chris tried to protest in vain that he wasn't about to take the piss out of Ozzy, while Louis mouthed apologies over Sharon's shoulder. Alas, there was no stopping the termagant's ire until the break ended and the show went back again.

At the next commercial break, Sharon stood up and said: "I'd like to apologise to all the mummies and kiddies out there - but you know what it's like when a loved one is attacked, you're like a tigress, aren't you?"

To Gervais's astonishment - this got a round of applause.

Clearly, as long as Sharon plays the 'I'm a mum under pressure, just like you!' card, she can get away with pretty much anything.

Sharon Osbourne is flushed away

My prediction on Sunday that the latest X Factor will be Sharon Osbourne's swansong series may prove correct - I see that the woman who likes to share her shit with her nearest and dearest has leaked (so to speak) to The Sun her intention to quit the show. Apparently, she's tired of being pitted against Dannii Minogue by Simon Cowell and "being out of the loop". The reality is she was told to shove it after the producers read last weekend's News of the World - her brother David Arden's most serious allegation was that she tried to persuade her protege Ben Mills to quit the third series when it became obvious Simon's Leona Lewis would triumph. She's never won a series. As for Cowell, Minogue's appointment was a masterstroke to remove the demented and bullying Osbourne - a woman who should redirect her finances from cosmetic surgery to psychiatry.

Sharon Osbourne is browned off

Given the scatological nature of Sharon Osbourne’s revenge tactics as reported in the News of the World yesterday – such as smearing her unperfumed shit over Sir Elton John’s Rolls - it’s unfortunate that the publisher of her two memoirs is … Little, Brown.

Sharon Osbourne: How she shat on Elton John

David Arden trashes his monstrous celeb sister Sharon Osbourne in the News of the World today - the revelations are so destructive that I think we can view the current series of The X Factor as her swan song. Because the paper pinches Arcati's story on Paul Gascoigne without credit, I'm happy to lift promiscuously.

Of Elton John, Arden says: "'Elton is Sharon's oldest friend. But to this day, he still doesn't know about one truly disgusting act of spiteful revenge she took against him in the early 70s, long before she met Ozzy.

"'Sharon and Elton both fancied the same young man in Los Angeles. And when Elton was the one who finally got him into bed Sharon was furious. Accompanied by a friend of ours, who told me everything, she sneaked up to Elton's Beverly Hills mansion, defecated on his driveway then used it for her own dirty protest all over his Rolls-Royce. It was absolutely appalling. But that's just the way Sharon ALWAYS retaliates.

"'Many years later, after she had Ozzy arrested for trying to strangle her, I sent a note telling him to keep his chin up. A few days later, it was hand-delivered back to me in a Tiffany box. I opened the box to discover Sharon had sickeningly used my note as toilet paper.'

"She pulled a similar stunt after finding a cuddly toy monkey given to her dad by his mistress. 'Dad said after soiling the monkey's head, Sharon moved it outside the front door so it would be sitting there to welcome him home.' Added David: 'She's got a real problem. Sharon must know that.' In her autobiography she even admits once peeing in singer Lynsey de Paul's suitcase!"

Arden also claims that she attempted to sabotage The X Factor by trying to persuade her protege Ben Mills to quit the show to save her face as a likely third-time losing judge. Osbourne persists in telling anyone who'll listen that Simon Cowell is gay and regularly betrays the confidence of her "close friend" the Duchess of York by reporting that her marriage to Andrew broke up when she found him in bed with "his celebrity lover". That curious phrasing suggests to me that his lover was male - a variation on the male servant urban myth.

My congratulations to Colin Myler on the first decent story of his editorship.