The eldest daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne opted out of appearing on the family’s blockbuster MTV reality show from 2002 to 2005 that made household names of their other kids, Kelly and Jack family, save the one daughter who opted out of being a part of it.
Aimée Osbourne was even openly critical of some of the more over-the-top antics that her parents got into during the show’s run. But she stands by her decision and has no regrets about missing out on that level of exposure.
Both Jack and Kelly have parlayed their successes on the show into continuing and lucrative careers on television, as has their mother, Sharon. Aimée, meanwhile, has followed more directly in her father’s footstep, focusing on music.
“It definitely worked great for the rest of my family, but for me, and who I am, I just knew it was never something that I would have been able to consider realistically,” Aimée said on Q104.3 in New York.
After growing up with a famous father, Aimee says she learned the value of being out of the spotlight and perhaps more importantly, just how much her privacy means to her.
“To me, I’d grown up around having a pretty well-known dad anyway, and I always really valued my privacy within that family,” she said.
“For who I am, as far as morally, and also just to give myself a chance to actually develop into a human being as opposed to just being remembered for being a teenager, it didn’t really line up with what I saw my future as.”
She also wasn’t the same kind of kid as her siblings. “‘I was a real kind of loner in my teens,” she explained. “I would sit in my room for hours with my disco ball light, listening to all my favorite bands and just kind of, you know, creating this kind of inner world in my head to all these incredible songs and artists.”
Since Aimee’s focus was and still remains on her music, she worried about how appearing on the show might impact her career aspirations. “I felt if I’d stayed with ‘The Osbournes’ and done the whole thing, I would have been typecast right away,” she explained.
Calling herself “more mature then than I am now,” Aimée actually made the decision to move out of her parent’s house at 16, at least partly in an attempt to distance herself from the show. Sharon has expressed regret for letting her daughter do this.
“I know that my eldest girl, Aimée, left home at 16 and she couldn’t live in our house because we were filming and it drove her insane,” Sharon said on “The Talk” two years ago. “She felt too that she didn’t want to grow up on camera. She hated the idea — it was appalling to her.”
“And so she left at 16 and I regret every day that she did. She was happy, but it broke my heart when she moved.”
Unlike father Ozzy’s rock-and-roll roots, Aimée’s music is more in the synth pop genre. She writes and performs under the moniker ARO (her initials), which could be seen as even more of an effort to distance herself from her famous family.
Fans who’d thought ARO had disbanded were stunned when she released her latest single “Shared Something with The Night” under that name. It was the first new music for ARO in four years.
“I have been in a really great place creatively and personally which helps,” Aimée said. “I am forever interested and drawn to the unusual and love to combine genres. I definitely surprised myself with some of these new tracks.”
“Shared Something with the Night,” by ARO is currently available for streaming
