Secrets of talk show stars revealed

OSBOURNE. Explosive revelation.

Some weeks ago, “The Talk” was poised to launch its new season, but it had a problem to deal with: While the daily talk show was popular enough, it was starting to feel too much like a comfortable pair of shoes for its regular viewers. Now, old shoes don’t really make televiewers’ day, so the production had to think up a hot, new feature that people would look forward to watching—and would get the show a lot of free publicity when it made it as a novelty feature on TV magazine programs and show biz-oriented talk shows.

Well, with a lot of help from “The Talk’s” program hosts, the show has hit the jackpot with its new “promo” feature: Each day some weeks ago, its hosts sequentially shared their “darkest” secrets with their loyal viewers—the hotter or more painful the tooth-pulling act, the better!

Sharon Osbourne started the ball rolling with a real humdinger: She “sheepishly” confessed that, when she was just starting her show biz career, she had a fling with an established star.

Now, starlets’ stellar liaisons are by no means breaking news in the industry, since the casting couch is a veritable institution in the biz. But, Sharon took one step further and revealed the name of her stellar fling-mate: Jay Leno!

—Wonder what Leno had to say about that blast from the past! Would he choose to discreetly let it pass, or would he call Sharon’s bluff and use it as stand-up comedy fodder for his own talk show?

Deeply felt confession

After Sharon’s explosive revelation, it was co-host Aisha Tyler’s turn to bare all—and, she chose to do it not with her own erotic bromide, but with a deeply felt confession that she and her husband have been unsuccessfully trying to beget a child for many years—and their failure has hurt them to the quick.

While we commiserate with them, we hope that, in time, they will realize that adoption is a viable option for them, as it has been for many other childless couples, who have experienced the joy of parenthood in this rewardingly alternative way.

Next on the line was main program host, Julie Chen. She feelingly shared that, when she was starting her broadcasting career, she was advised to have an “eye job” that would make her distinctly Asian orbs bigger—and, despite the opposition of some members of her family, she did as she was told.

It’s likely that the cosmetic surgery did improve her job prospects, but it clearly presented racial issues that Chen acknowledged and confronted only years later.

For her part, Sara Gilbert discussed her battle to accept her lesbian preferences. While she’s decided to talk about them in public to enlighten more viewers, she admits that “there’s still a piece of me that wonders, what is this costing me in my career?”

Well, if we take our cue from Ellen Degeneres’ own self-outing experience, the fact that her decade-long TV show is a big hit indicates that the times have indeed changed, and Sara has nothing to worry about!

Finally, when Sheryl Underwood unburdened herself on the show, she threw viewers and her cohosts for a loop when she revealed that she was born a twin, but her sibling had died—and could even have been asphyxiated by their dad!

All those stellar secrets boosted “The Talk’s” viewership in a big way—so, will other TV talk shows follow suit? What skeletons are clattering about in Letterman, Kimmel and Lauer’s closets? —What, indeed?!