Wednesday open thread: Will someone please show Sharon Osbourne the door?

Sharon Osbourne losing her ish on "The Talk"

One of my guilty pleasures is to occasionally follow celebrity news. It's like eating chocolate: wonderful in small doses, but I don't overdo it.

However, when celebrity news intersects with issues of race, well, inject it into my veins.

If you recall, guttersnipe and bellend Piers Morgan was given the bum's rush out the door of ITV's studios in the UK after losing his shpadoinkle over Meghan Markle's claims about racism within the British royal family. Morgan is probably like Noël Coward's Mr. Bridger in The Italian Job, who stands to attention—and expects everyone else to as well—when the Queen addresses the nation. His dedication to an outdated institution which is of little utility to a modern democratic state is that of every Little Englander who still sighs wistfully at the loss of empire.

Sharon Osbourne—talk show host, wife of a man who bites off the heads of rats, and daughter to someone who was the UK's version of Suge Knight—decided, very idiotically, to tweet out support for her dear friend on the day of his sacking. It didn't go well.

Now, that was bad enough. But then, a couple of days later, she had the gall to lecture one of her Black cohosts on the show—a lady who was trying to gently direct her to an off-ramp from her inanity. Well, needless to say, things have just escalated from there.

All the receipts are being spilled. From her calling Julie Chen "wonton" and "slanty-eyed", to calling Holly Robinson-Peete "ghetto"—and if you are of a certain generation, the ludicrousness of calling Ms. Robinson-Peete by that pejorative is as plain as day—those who don't forgive or forget are raking Osbourne over the coals. She even threatened Robinson-Peete with a lawsuit if she didn't remove the tweet in which she alleges being called the slur. Which is what a totally innocent person does.

Osbourne is much like Donald Trump in rising to fame based on reality TV. And like Trump, her abrasiveness and lack of empathy are portrayed as selling points. As in the time she fired an assistant after he rescued her dog from a fire because she removed the oxygen mask from him to give it to said dog, and he had the temerity to complain. Based on that, the allegations of casual racism are easier to believe, because her world revolves around her and her wants, uncaring of anyone else.

Accusations of racism and homophobia—she called her former co-host and the creator of "The Talk", Sara Gilbert, who is gay, a "fish eater"—are raining down on her, and the poor dear just doesn't know what to do. A cis-het, rich white woman shouldn't be held to account for her casual disparagement of others in non-normative communities, don't you know. Why, I'm sure she has Black friends.

After the past four years, but especially after the past year, how anyone could think they could get away with this in image-conscious popular media is a puzzlement. But there you have it. It all started by sticking up for a racist churl, and the consequences flowed from that act like a finely calibrated machine. You hate to see it.