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We have a predictable follow-up to a really atrocious news item: Sharon Osbourne is now changing her story about the assistant that she fired following a fire at her home, because, according to Sharon, he didn’t find the incident funny. As you may recall, Sharon was on Would I Lie to You? on which a panel of contestants try to determine whether a story that someone shares is true or false. Sharon said, “I once sacked a member of my staff because he showed absolutely no sense of humor during a house fire.” She said that the story was true and then told it great detail: She and Ozzy left a candle burning on Christmas night when they went to bed. Sharon awoke later to Ozzy yelling for her because his arm-sling and some of his hair were on fire. After pushing Ozzy into a fountain, she woke his then-assistant, who had the gall to be sleeping in the middle of the night in their guest house where he lived. She made him run into her house to rescue their dogs and as many paintings as he could carry. When he didn’t find the incident funny after the fact and said that he was worried about lung damage, Sharon fired him.

Strangely enough, no one other than Sharon and Ozzy found this funny, and the internet let Sharon have it. So now, predictably, she’s trying to act like she’s not a terrible human being:

The 67-year-old star clarified her previous comments on Friday’s broadcast of The Talk, explaining she told the anecdote in jest and that she didn’t actually fire the assistant shortly after he had saved her family’s artwork collection from a house fire.

“I told a true story about a fire I had in my house,” she said, describing to her cohosts how she had told Ozzy Osbourne‘s personal assistant to save her paintings from the burning flames at the time. “He went in, he got the paintings out. And then, just to be precocious, I said at the end of this little thing I was doing, ‘Oh, and then I fired him.’”

“It was a joke because I was on a comedy show,” she remarked.

Sharon went on to make it clear that she didn’t actually terminate the assistant’s employment shortly after the incident.

“I fired him about 15 years later,” she said.

[From People]

Sure, Jan. I have no idea why anyone would tell this story the way that Sharon told it in the first place and think that that would be a great idea. It’s not funny. It’s horrific and inhumane. Why would anyone tell this story and NOT make clear that they fired the assistant years later, and for some other offense if that were the case? No. Sharon is so out-of-touch and oblivious and thought that this would have been a bizarrely funny story to share. Then when more decent people started calling her out, she tried to backtrack. She could have gotten this assistant killed, and all because she and Ozzy did one of the most careless things that people can do: knowingly go to sleep while a candle is still lit. I’d love to hear from Ozzy’s former assistant, though I assume that he signed an NDA. Oh well. At least he can take some small comfort (if he wants) in knowing that people feel for him and think that Sharon is terrible.

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