After nearly four years of sobriety, Kelly Osbourne revealed that she experienced a relapse in April. Now, in a new episode of Red Table Talk, Osbourne explained the factors that contributed to her relapse—and how being in a supportive relationship made her realize she needed help.
Osbourne told hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris that she had her first drink when she was alone by a pool waiting for someone to come meet her. She saw a couple drinking champagne and “it looked really nice so I thought, Oh, I can do that too. And then the next day I had two glasses. And the day after that it was bottles,” she said.
“For the first two days I could handle just having one drink, but it was because I sat there and was like, ‘You’re only having one drink, you’re going to prove to everyone that you»re normal now and you can do this,’” Osbourne explained. “And all of a sudden everything’s falling apart.”
Osbourne said in the interview that her addiction issues began when she was 13 and had been prescribed opioid pain medication after having surgery due to a severe case of tonsillitis. “That was all I needed,” she said. “Very quickly I went from Vicodin to Percocet, from Percocet to heroin because it was cheaper.” Now her substance of choice is alcohol, she said, and she’s been through treatment several times and has been sober on and off.
What felt different about this relapse was that she has a loving, supportive partner in her life that she didn’t want to let down, Osbourne said. The moment she realized she was in trouble, she was at her boyfriend’s house eating pizza on his couch while drunk. “He looked over at me and I felt the way he looked at me,” she said. “And I was like, ‘Oh no I never want him to look at me like that again—ever. That didn’t make me feel good. What am I doing?’”
Osbourne said her boyfriend, cinematographer Erik Bragg, was “disappointed because he hadn’t seen that side of me.” And for her, “it was embarrassing because for the first time ever, I actually care how he feels. And I care how my behavior impacts him,” she explained. “I only ever want to be the best version of myself with my family and my boyfriend and my friends, and I was not. I was the furthest thing away from that.”
Shame and embarrassment may not always be the best motivators, but they can kickstart the introspection and honesty necessary to make different choices—as long as there is also nonjudgmental support there too. “I’ve never had a boyfriend who is supportive of me in that area before, and he is very communicative and incredible in that way,” Osbourne said.
As a self-described “closet drinker,” Osbourne said she prefers to keep her drinking private, which just fuels feelings of loneliness. So a big factor in her recovery now—especially without the sobriety community that she relied on pre-pandemic—has been getting honest with her loved ones, particularly with her brother, Jack, who has been sober for 18 years. “You’ve got to get honest with someone—it doesn’t matter who it is as long as you’re honest with one person,” she said. “My brother is that person to me, so I told him everything, and we put together a plan.”
Now Osbourne is back in outpatient treatment and focusing on healing. “I thought I would hate doing the work because I avoided it my whole life,” she said, but instead she’s found it interesting and engaging to see where she still feels pain and where her coping strategies developed. She’s also started doing breathwork. “I’m turning into a hippie,” she said, “and I don’t know how I feel about it!”
Related:
- Kelly Osbourne Says She’s Been Sober for a Year After Experiencing a Relapse
- 3 Things Not to Say When a Loved One With Addiction Relapses—And 6 to Try Instead
- The Sweet, Honest Way Dax Shepard Talked About His Relapse With His Daughters