Sharon Osbourne's defense of Piers Morgan is a reminder she has made a career out of being cruel

The Independent

"The foundation of Osbourne’s fame has been her perceived truth-telling," says Adam White, pointing out that Osbourne's truth-telling amounts to being mean. He adds: "For a good portion of the Noughties, Osbourne was British TV royalty – someone beyond reproach, and whose nastiest moments were deflected with a shrug and a nervous giggle. She was notorious for posting Tiffany boxes full of feces to journalists she didn’t like. She said Susan Boyle looked like 'a hairy a**ehole.' It would be insincere to suggest we didn’t get a perverse thrill from figures like Osbourne back then. Pop culture was mean, reality shows were vindictive, and a generation of children quoted The Weakest Link in the playground. Whether it was because we were indoctrinated by the sheer volume of nasty TV, or because the shows tapped into a primal pack mentality in all of us, we shrieked and gasped at the things she said, then went about our business. But her behavior had real-world consequences. Osbourne popularized an idea that being nice or pleasant meant being fake, and that to be honest meant sacrificing civility."