Kelly Osbourne is opening up about her journey with rehab and addiction recovery.
In the new documentary TMZ Investigates: Matthew Perry and the Secret Celebrity Drug Ring, the 39-year-old TV personality reflected on her experiences with rehabilitation for drug and alcohol addiction, revealing that her time in treatment wasn’t always beneficial.
“The first rehab I went to was like a university for becoming a better drug addict,” she admitted.
Osbourne elaborated, saying she learned numerous tricks and methods from other addicts during her stay. “I picked up so many things I hadn’t even thought of from the other people in there,” she explained.
“I also saw individuals threaten to leave unless they were given what they wanted, whether it was Ambien for sleep or Valium for anxiety. They always seemed to get it.”
Having been to rehab seven times, Osbourne made a startling claim about her experiences, alleging that some facility staff exploited vulnerable patients struggling with addiction.
“They’d wait outside AA meetings, looking for people who were weak and vulnerable, encouraging them to relapse so they could then pick them up again,” she said. “I swear on everything it’s true, and it’s heartbreaking.”
Osbourne has been candid about her battle with addiction. In a 2021 appearance on Red Table Talk, she shared that her struggle began when she was prescribed opioids after a surgery at age 13.
“I kept getting sick with tonsillitis, and eventually, they had to perform a serious surgery. After that, they gave me Vicodin,” she recalled. “And that was all it took.”
Osbourne explained that taking the medication silenced the negative voices in her head.
“Before that, I constantly heard, ‘You’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re not good enough, no one likes you, people only like you because of who your parents are.’ But once I took Vicodin, those voices stopped, and it felt like life had given me a hug.”
From there, her addiction worsened. “I went from Vicodin to Percocet, and from Percocet to heroin because it was cheaper,” she revealed.
In a separate interview, Osbourne also discussed relapsing after nearly four years of sobriety, admitting that recovery is a lifelong process.
“This is something I’ll battle for the rest of my life,” she said. “It’s never going to be easy.”
