Sharon Osbourne Changes Her Story About Her Assistant's Termination After a House Fire

Sharon Osbourne says the story she told on Would I Lie To You? — in which she claimed she once forced an assistant into a burning building before firing him — was highly exaggerated.

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.

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The daytime talk show host first spoke of the house fire during a December episode of Would I Lie To You?, a BBC game show in which celebrity guests tell a story and others would guess if it were true or false.

In the segment, Sharon recalled how she and Ozzy, 71, were home for Christmas one year when their house became engulfed in flames from a candle they were gifted for the holiday.

“This alarm was ringing and ringing,” she said. “A fire alarm. I sent him [Ozzy] down. And so he went down, and suddenly I hear my name being called. ‘Sharon, Sharon, help me!'”

“I went downstairs and there he was in the living room and his arm was on fire,” Sharon continued. “He had a sling on. And half his hair was all on fire.”

After noting that Ozzy’s assistant was still sleeping during the crisis, Sharon said that she used a magazine to try and stop the fire on Ozzy’s shirt and hair, but to no avail.

“So then outside there was a fountain,” she explained. “I pushed Ozzy out and then the arm and his hair stopped. And then I think ‘Right, where is that assistant?’ So I go into the guest house and he’s going, ‘Everything alright?’ and I’m like ‘No, the house is on fire. Get out, help. Go in and get the paintings out.'”

“There were dogs, and I said ‘You must go in and find the dogs,'” she remembered telling the assistant. “So he did get the dogs, and the fire engines arrive. Very lovely people. They came and they had this oxygen for the assistant. So then I said to him ‘How very dare you, you work here, and you get more paintings out right now.'”

“I took the mask and I put it on my dog,” Sharon said, which earned applause and laughter from judges and the audience.

“After this terrible night, he was not talking to me,” Sharon went on to recall. “And Ozzy and I were counting everything and we were laughing and laughing and he goes ‘I don’t see what’s funny about any of this. I think I am going to have damaged lungs.'”

“So then, I just said ‘If you don’t think that’s funny, do you think this is funny?’ And he said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘You’re fired,'” Sharon said, again receiving applause and laughter from the studio.

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Following the broadcast, fans flocked to social media to express their disappointment in Sharon.

“Well @MrsSOsbourne has just ousted herself as a horrible person on WILTY,” one Twitter user wrote. “I hope they sue for everything!”

“Sharon Osbourne really showed her true colors, didn’t she,” wrote another.