Jack Osbourne Admits He Has a ‘Strange Relationship’ With His MS Diagnosis, Says He ‘Feels a Bit Like a Fraud’

Charna FlamWed, November 4, 2026 at 5:50 AM UTC

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Jack Osbourne on September 12, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty -

Jack Osbourne confessed that he feels like a “fraud” in the multiple sclerosis community because his symptoms have not slowed him down

He made the admission on the Tuesday, Nov. 3 episode of Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s MeSsy podcast

The TV personality was diagnosed in April 2012 at 26

Jack Osbourne continues to share his journey with multiple sclerosis.

Ozzy Osbourne and Sharon Osbourne’s son appeared on Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s MeSsy podcast on Tuesday, Nov. 3, where he opened up about his “strange relationship” with the disease.

“If I’m being honest, part of me feels a bit like a fraud in a sense,” he explained.

The autoimmune disease “causes breakdown of the protective covering” of nerve fibers, known as myelin, per the Mayo Clinic. It’s an “unpredictable disease of the central nervous system” that “disrupts the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the rest of the body,” according to the National MS Society.

It can cause permanent damage to the nerve fibers, as well as several symptoms, including numbness, weakness, trouble walking, vision changes, fatigue, memory problems and other symptoms.

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Jack, 40, was diagnosed in April 2012 at age 26. He was diagnosed three weeks after he and his now ex-wife Lisa Stelly welcomed their daughter Pearl Clementine.

He told Applegate, 54, and Sigler, 45, that his complicated feelings stem from seeing people who suffer more than he does. “I’ll go to these MS events — I’ve had the disease, been diagnosed 14 years now — and I’ll see people who were diagnosed a year ago, and they’re in a much worse position and they’re having a much harder time.”

Jack Osbourne on September 11, 2012, in Los Angeles, California.Credit: Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic

“It hasn’t stopped me, and it hasn’t really slowed me down,” he acknowledged, before noting that the disease has impacted him throughout the years in different “windows” of time. He reiterated that it makes him feel like “a bit of a fraud.”

“Even though I’m not,” he said. “But it’s just this strange relationship I have to it.”

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Sigler replied by saying that the disease manifestation for Jack proves the “wide spectrum of ways that it can affect” diagnosed people. She urged him to “shift [his] narrative,” explaining, “I don’t think anybody would view that view that way.”

She emphasized the community’s gratitude to have a celebrity using their “platform to speak out about awareness of all the different ways that this disease can affect people.”

Jack Osbourne on September 18, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California.Credit: Charley Gallay/Getty

During the episode, Osbourne also admitted that once he received his diagnosis, he “went full Negative Nancy.”

“It was so frustrating because I just... I instantly went, ‘What the f--- did I even get sober for? I should have just burned this whole thing down,’ ” he recalled.

“It was defeat,” the reality TV alum added. “I just had my daughter and I was entering this new phase. And it was scary. I didn’t know anything about MS. The only thing I knew about MS is that Richard Pryor died from it.”

Pryor died at 65 after suffering his third heart attack, nearly 20 years after being diagnosed with the disease.

After his diagnosis and while leaving the hospital, Osbourne reached out to a friend he got sober with, whom he called a mentor, to tell him of his diagnosis. He described his friend as “a real hard-ass, [that] just gives you that hard truth.”

“ ‘Well, are you gonna die?’ ” he recalls his friend asking him. “I’m like, ‘Well, not today.’ And he’s like, ‘Cool, call me tomorrow,’ ” before hanging up. He called Osbourne the next day and asked, “ ‘How you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I’m okay.’ He’s like, ‘You gonna die today?’ And I went, ‘No.’ He’s like, ‘Cool, call me tomorrow.’ Hung up the phone.”

“And it was just that thing of, like, ‘Dude, just, like, deal with it. Live in the now ... You might not be great today, but you’re alive today. Don’t take that s--- for granted,” Osbourne said.

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”