So it’s come to this: Sharon Osbourne on “The Arsenio Hall Show” Wednesday night with her cohosts from “The Talk,” defining the difference between their show and daytime rival “The View.”
“They can go f— themselves,” screeched Osbourne, after swigging something presumably not coffee from a plastic cup she tossed over her shoulder before flinging caution — and F-bombs — to the wind.
“Woop, woop!” shrieked Hall’s audience, and Arsenio’s eyes popped with glee. You could almost see the thought bubble above his head:
“Thank God. News!”
It was the clip shown round the world. Well, at least it made it to England, where Osbourne was born 61 years ago. “Lewd, crude and rude,” someone posted on MailOnline. “She has a lot of class — all low,” sneered another. While Osbourne pointedly excluded the “divine” Barbara Walters from her comments, so far the only comment from that camp was from Jenny McCarthy, the newest member of the team. “Sharon and I have been friends a very long time,” McCarthy told “ET” that night. “I love [Sharon] and I love ‘The Talk.’ She sent me flowers two weeks ago.”
When McCarthy’s the classy one, we’re in trouble.
To her credit, Osbourne recanted Thursday afternoon on “The Talk.”
“I was inappropriate, trying to be irreverent,” she said. “I respect Jenny, Sherri and Whoopi . . . It was a bad joke.” But the onus shouldn’t be on Osbourne. She’s been absolutely heroic in the face of colon cancer, a double mastectomy, two troubled children and a muddled old metal-head of a husband. In fact, she’s the only one in that reality-TV family who hasn’t been to rehab, though judging from the way she’s sounding lately, well . . . her “Talk” sisters don’t call her “buzzy Sharon” for nothing.
The real trouble is that THIS is what passes for talk-show discourse in our shrill, over- Tweeted times.
Wit walked out the door a long time ago — and that sound you hear is Jack Paar rolling over in his grave.
And while everyone loves a good catfight, this is more like a stray turd flung from the litterbox, thanks to the ladies at “The View,” who’ve maintained a dignified silence. Thursday’s show featured observations and YouTube clips, including one of Justin Bieber sleeping in a Brazilian girl’s bed.
“I just feel bad for everyone involved,” said Whoopi Goldberg. I know how she feels.