Kelly Osbourne Opens Up About Body Shaming: “I Got More S--- for Being Fat Than I Did for Being a Drug Addict”

Kelly Osbourne at the Beacher Vitality Happy & Healthy Summit in L.A. on May 10, 2025. Cassidy Sparrow/Getty

By Zara Noelle

staff writer

May 11, 2025

Kelly Osbourne is speaking candidly about her lifelong struggle with body shaming and how it’s often overshadowed even her most difficult personal battles.

During a panel at the Inaugural Beacher Vitality Happy & Healthy Summit at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles on May 10, the 40-year-old TV personality and singer shared how society’s fixation on her weight has been harsher than the judgment she faced for her past addictions.

“We live in a fat-phobic world,” Osbourne told the audience. “I have been a drug addict, an alcoholic … I’ve been a complete mess, disrespectful to people, horrible but I got more s--- for being fat than I did for anything else. It’s insane.”

She noted that commentary about her body has been a constant throughline in media coverage: “You’ll never read an article about me that hasn’t got a comment about my weight.”

Recalling backhanded compliments she used to receive, Osbourne said people would often tell her, “You’re so pretty. Why don’t you just lose a little bit of weight, and then you’ll be the total package.”

The Dancing with the Stars alum revealed that her turning point came not through a diet or a surgery alone, but by shifting her mindset. “I tried probably everything that there is out there… but I got my mind where I needed it to be, and everything started to fall into place.”

She stressed that true change begins with mental and emotional healing: “It’s not just as simple as change your diet and move. You have to change your brain. You have to come to peace and acceptance about where you are in your life before you can start.”

Osbourne previously underwent gastric sleeve surgery, which she has described as “the best thing I have ever done” but clarified that it was not a quick fix. “If you don’t work out and you don’t eat right, you gain weight,” she said, explaining that the procedure helped reset her direction, but didn’t do the work for her.

She also emphasized the importance of therapy, revealing she underwent a full year of emotional preparation before even having the surgery. “What people don’t realize is, it cuts out this hormone that… makes you not emotionally eat, which is a huge problem for me.”

Osbourne’s vulnerability is a powerful reminder that body image issues are complex and that real health journeys involve far more than numbers on a scale.