What's more important: a court of law or the court of public opinion? Sharon Osbourne of MTV's The Osbournes may get the chance to find out.
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As we reported earlier this week, Sharon and Hollywood agent Renee Tab got into a brawl last Thursday at an LA restaurant. The battle apparently was linked to Sharon's bizarre theft charge against Tab. (By the way, Tab says she was a guest of one of Sharon's son Jack's friends.) Each of them filed a battery complaint against the other, but the police don't seem inclined to pursue either one.
Sharon decided to take her campaign for "justice" to tabloid TV. Ananova.com reported that Sharon went on the show Celebrity Justice on Tuesday, April 15, to show off her bruises and allege that she was the victim. She whined that she was afraid her 50-year-old jaw had been broken by the 26-year-old Tab, and she said that she had "nothing to hide."
A related story from MTV, the network which owns The Osbournes, said that Celebrity Justice had found two witnesses who said that Tab hit Sharon first. (We don't know whether their first names were Ozzy and Jack.) In the court of public opinion, Sharon's case was made.
However, in any court, the other side gets a chance too. The Associated Press and MTV now both report that Tab's lawyer issued a statement from Tab seeking her own "celebrity justice." According to the reports, Tab claims that Sharon's claims are "baffling" and raises the issue about who would have the most to gain by the publicity: a private citizen (Tab) or a woman about to launch the third season of a fading reality TV show?
Tab's statement also claims that Sharon Osbourne called Tab, who was born in Iran, a "Persian carpet cleaner" and threatened to "send someone to slash [her] face and break [her] leg," Tab's lawyer claims that she will seek a restraining order against Sharon. Oh, and Tab's lawyer also showed her willingness to move the case into a new court, saying that Sharon will have a chance to explain her comments in a court of law. Since the criminal cases don't seem to be going anywhere, that probably indicates that Tab is looking at filing a civil suit, perhaps for defamation of character, against the foul-mouthed Osbourne matriarch.
Stay tuned -- the circus is back in town. We haven't heard the last of this fight by any means.