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'Worst thing I've ever done': Kelly Osbourne reflects on 2015 Latin-American immigration comment

Kelly Osbourne has broken her silence on the unsavoury comment she made about the Latin-American community and immigration in 2015.

As a guest presenter on The View, Osbourne had been part of a discussion sparking from Donald Trump’s speech saying “Mexico isn’t sending their best”, which launched his presidential campaign.

Attempting to add nuance to conversation led by co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie Perez, Osbourne had loftily interjected, “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilets, Donald Trump?”

Watch the video above.

Kelly Osbourne’s lofty comment did not have the intended effect.

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The remark faced immediate backlash, with her co-hosts gasping and Perez saying, ”Oh, that’s not-“, before Osbourne jumped back in to try to save her stance.

“In the sense that… You know what I mean?” she continued, panic visible on her face. “I didn’t mean it like that. Come on!”

Though she meant to highlight the contributions immigrants make to the US, she had inadvertently pigeonholed them into the stereotype they only do service work and manual labour.

In the immediate aftermath, Osbourne admitted she made a ”poor choice of words,” but refused to “apologise for being racist as I am NOT.”

Now, almost 10 years on from the clip, TikTok users have resurfaced it as part of a viral trend making fun of dated stereotypes about different communities.

“If you kick every Black person out of this country, then who’s going to make your trends?’ asked one TikTok creator. Another asked, “If you kick out all the fat friends from every girl group in the country, who are the skinny girls going to when they’re bloated and want to feel better about themselves?”

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Even animals got involved, with one black cat “demanding”, “If you kick every cat out of this country, then who will be making your biscuits, America?”

Nine years on, Osbourne says the incident made her realise the power of her words.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, she said the comment is “by far… the worst thing [she’s] ever done.”

“I realised that I’m not great on live TV and that words are so powerful. And to be labeled as something you’re not is really difficult. But it happened. There’s nothing I can do.”

She adds that she will one day be showing her son – one year old Sidney, who she shares with her boyfriend, Slipknot turntablist Sid Wilson – the video of her monumental mistake.

“I want him to understand what I was trying to say and how powerful words are,” she said.

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Kelly Osbourne son Sidney
Osbourne says she will be showing the clip to her son Sidney to teach him the lesson she learned the “hard way”. (Instagram)

The 39-year-old welcomes the fact that the moment has become a joke. “It goes to show that people never forget,” she said. “And even though I’m the butt of the joke, I’m still laughing. And some of them are very smart. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hate myself a little bit more each time I see it.

The moment has taught her a lesson she “learned the hard way”. In the past she said many people had liked her “crazy opinions, and they liked the shock factor of it. And I fed into it a lot because I didn’t understand it.”

The incident taught her one very important point about having conversations about race: “Nobody wants to hear from a white person about race.

“It is time for us to accept the change that’s happening and embrace it and support it rather than being scared and feeling like someone’s taking something away from you. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but like I said, it’s time to sit down and shut up.”

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