Kelly Osbourne earned backlash in 2015 when a comment she made on “The View” was widely slammed as racist. Osbourne was addressing Donald Trump’s policy on immigration at the time alongside hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie Perez when she said, “If you kick every Latino out of this country then who is going to be cleaning your toilets, Donald Trump?” She later acknowledged her “poor choice of words,” but stressed: “I will not apologize for being racist as I am NOT.”
The clip of Osbourne saying “If you kick every Latino out of this country” has now reemerged on TikTok and become its own meme, with users spouting their own ridiculous takes on stereotypes. It’s thrusted Osbourne and the accusations of racism against her back into the spotlight, so much so that she joined Rolling Stone for a new interview in which she called the quote “the most cringe moment of my entire life” and “it came out so wrong.”
“This whole country is built on immigrants, and if you stop people from coming into this country who do the jobs that make this country exist and thrive and flourish, who’s going to do all the jobs that you don’t want to do yourself?” Osbourne said, later adding: “Latin American culture is the backbone of America. I believe that Latin Americans are the hardest-working people you will ever meet.”
“It hurt a lot of people. That to me, by far, makes it the worst thing I’ve ever done,” she continued. “I realized that I’m not great on live TV and that words are so powerful. And to be labeled as something you’re not is really difficult. But it happened. There’s nothing I can do.”
The TikTok memes forced her to watch the 2015 clip over again. What kind of version of herself does she on the screen then? “Oh, a self-righteous little cunt,” she said. “I hate it. I hate it so much because I look at it and I’m like, ‘You think you know everything and you know nothing. Nobody wants to hear [your] opinion on this.'”
“Nobody wants to hear from a white person about race. No one. They don’t,” Osbourne said. “I learned that the hard way. Like I said, it is time for us to accept the change that’s happening and embrace it and support it rather than being scared and feeling like someone’s taking something away from you. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but like I said, it’s time to sit down and shut up. If you’re not supporting it, shut up.”
Osbourne said the backlash against her at the time included “death threats” and she’s now “definitely not the person I was before that incident.”
Head over to Rolling Stone’s website to read more from Osbourne’s interview.
