Dannii Minogue has dusted off some old TV memories, and they are anything but fond. Speaking on the How to Fail With Elizabeth Day podcast, the Aussie star, now 53, revisited a 2007 appearance on Graham Norton’s BBC chat show where, she says, the host and Sharon Osbourne “torn her to pieces”.
The clip in question shows Norton joking that she “looked bizarre” and poking fun at her accent, while Sharon, 72, piled on by calling working with Dannii on The X Factor an “odious chore”. When actor David Boreanaz asked to see a photo of her, Sharon even stood up, pointed to her backside and said “look at this”.
Nearly two decades on, Dannii still cannot believe it happened. She told Day, “I think the difference was it wasn’t being rude. There had to be production meetings to set up the things that they were doing on set in this show and these huge personalities that I looked up to and just loved what they had done.” She added, “I’d loved Sharon Osbourne on X Factor. I’d love her on the Osborne’s. I loved what Graham Norton was doing, and here were these people just tearing me to pieces. That show would never be made today”, reported the Mirror.
Her clash with Sharon hardly began and ended with that sofa. The pair famously bickered while judging The X Factor, and rumours swirled that Simon Cowell’s supposed interest in Dannii made matters worse. Sharon later told Piers Morgan, “I didn’t hate her because hatred is very close to love and takes a lot of emotion, and I don’t have that time for her. She was like an insect, a mosquito that wouldn’t go away.”
In her memoir Unbreakable, Sharon went even harder: “She had an uppity attitude as she was fing the boss. She felt shing Simon gave her vicarious power, and it was so immature, not to mention deeply irritating to deal with.”
Never one to take a swipe lying down, Dannii compared her co-star to a bully in her book Dannii: My Story. “When I sat on the judging panel next to Sharon each Saturday, having seen her publicly destroy me on yet another television show or press interview that week, I felt as if I was back at primary school when I was forced to sit next to the school bully.”
She recalled a relentless campaign: “Over the course of the next year, Sharon announced to anyone who would listen that I was impossible to work with (but never explained why); that I was only on The X Factor because of my looks, not any visible talent or contribution to the entertainment industry; and Simon employed me only because he wanted to sleep with me.”
Sharon still fires back when asked, telling Best magazine that Dannii simply cannot handle women with strong personalities. “We just have nothing in common,” she said, before twisting the knife further. “I love women, but there are some who don’t love other women. Dannii didn’t care for me.”
Graham Norton has yet to respond to Dannii’s latest comments, but with modern viewers less tolerant of on-air pile-ons, you can imagine any fresh reunion would be a ratings goldmine. For now, the bad blood bubbles away in podcast land, leaving fans to debate who crossed the line first and whether time will ever soften those sharp memories.
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