Sharon Osbourne once acted as though asking questions about her support for racist-adjacent men was a form of persecution. She wept, she pointed, she demanded to be “educated.” Now she is publicly backing a Tommy Robinson rally, which makes the old “how can I be racist?” routine sound a lot less like innocence and a lot more like rehearsal.
The woman who told Sheryl Underwood not to cry because only she was the real victim has apparently decided that the far-right demagogue with a criminal record for fraud and contempt of court is someone worth signalling allegiance to. And at some point, the question answers itself.
The far‑right ally she is now embracing
Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is not a misunderstood friend with a bad temper. He founded the English Defence League. Facebook and Instagram banned him for hate speech, and the courts jailed him for contempt after he filmed defendants outside a trial and posted the footage online. Critics have widely condemned his anti-immigration rally later this month as a far-right mobilisation that normalises Islamophobic rhetoric and intimidates Muslim communities.
Sharon Osbourne has not merely “liked” a post. She has publicly signalled her support for the event and intends to attend. According to multiple reports, she has been promoting the rally on social media, aligning herself with a movement that mainstream politicians, including many in her adopted homeland of the United Kingdom, have condemned outright.
This is not ambiguous. This is not “controversial” in the way that, say, a tax policy might be controversial. Tommy Robinson’s politics are explicit, well-documented, and the reason his events draw counter-protests is that people understand exactly what he stands for. Sharon Osbourne has chosen to stand beside him.
The question Sheryl asked was the right one
Back in March 2021, The Talk became a very different kind of television. The show had already been discussing Piers Morgan’s departure from Good Morning Britain after his attacks on Meghan Sussex. Sharon, a long-time friend of Morgan, had tweeted “I stand by you” and came on air prepared to defend him.
Sheryl Underwood, the Black woman sitting across from her, asked a careful question: whether giving a platform to Piers Morgan’s rhetoric – even if he did not use explicit slurs – validated racist views. She described it as “the implication and the reaction to it” rather than direct words. That is all she said.
What followed was a masterclass in white fragility performed live. Sharon demanded proof. She asked Sheryl to “educate” her on exactly what racist things Piers had said. She raised her voice and pointed. Then came the line that should have haunted her forever: “Don’t try and cry, because if anyone should be crying, it should be me.”
The Sharon meltdown was never about confusion, it was about control
At this point, the through-line is not exactly hiding. First, Sharon Osbourne publicly backed Piers Morgan while he was attacking Meghan Sussex with that mix of contempt, mockery and racialised hostility that many people instantly recognised. And it was not just the Piers defence. Sharon herself repeatedly took swipes at Meghan and framed Meghan’s account of racism, mistreatment and institutional coldness as exaggerated, manipulative, or somehow unfair to everyone else in the room. She did not treat Meghan as a woman describing harm. She treated her as a liar, a nuisance, and a target.
— Sharon Osbourne (@MrsSOsbourne) March 12, 2021
Then came The Talk. Sheryl Underwood, a Black woman, calmly asked Sharon to explain why she was standing so firmly beside a man who had spent days going after Meghan in exactly that way. Sharon did not respond with thoughtfulness or even basic self-command. She erupted. She cast herself as the victim, told Sheryl not to cry, demanded to be “educated,” and behaved as though being asked a fair question about racist rhetoric was some great act of cruelty against her. The clip went viral because it showed exactly how fast white innocence can turn nasty when a Black woman asks the obvious.
Then Holly Robinson Peete added another tile to the mosaic by alleging Sharon once called her “too ghetto” for The Talk. Sharon denied it, but by then the issue was no longer one ugly outburst. It was starting to look like a pattern with a very clear theme.
And now Sharon is openly backing Tommy Robinson, a far-right agitator whose public brand is built on anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim grievance. That is what makes all the old denials collapse.
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The performance of innocence has finally run out of road
What makes this grimly satisfying is that Sharon spent years acting as though accountability itself was abusive. The tears, the outrage, the “how can I be racist?” theatrics, all of it was designed to shut down the conversation before it could reach anything uncomfortable.
But Tommy Robinson is not a misunderstood friend, and this is not a grey area. He is a far-right demagogue with a record. If Sharon still wants to stand beside him, then the 2021 performance looks like a woman furious that anyone noticed the obvious.
She was not being marched to “the electric chair.” She was being asked a question. Now she is answering it, not with words, but with the company she keeps. And the answer is exactly what Sheryl Underwood was too polite to say out loud.
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