After decades of ridicule and abuse, fighting through mental illness,
and losing children of her own, Marie Osmond has found a way to remain an eclectic and
positive force in the entertainment industry for over half a century.
For many, childhood is a time when schoolwork and spelling tests are
the biggest concerns. That wasn't the case for Marie Osmond, who entered the high-pressure,
high-profile entertainment world at an age well before most kids enter kindergarten.
After the 2012 death of entertainment legend Andy Williams, Osmond celebrated the many insights he
offered her about singing. She also recalled to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that when she was
just 3 years old, he took the stage with her to sing and dance — and that was just the beginning.
In her memoir, Might as Well Laugh About it Now, Osmond reflected on how her parents made sure she
and her brothers had all the best teachers and choreographers they could afford. Each
of the siblings were responsible for learning an instrument and then teaching the others,
and, despite her wishes, Osmond was made to play the marimba.
"I pick up all the drum sticks and guitar stands that Alan leaves behind."
In her other book, Behind the Smile, she reflected on how the earlier portion of
her childhood was filled with fear, hard work, and abuse, which transitioned into
sexualization and condemnation as she transitioned into her teens.
Marie Osmond is perhaps most famous for the 1970s-era variety show Donny & Marie,
which she hosted alongside her brother. Audiences loved it,
but according to what Osmond told PageSix, filming it was less than ideal.
She shared that one day while on set an executive very aggressively confronted
her about her weight, calling her "fat" and an "embarrassment," even
threatening the show's entire cast and crew if she didn't start eating less.
"All I'm trying to do, Marie, is — is help you with your poor eating habits, that's all."
In Might as Well Laugh About it Now, Osmond wrote about the impact that had
on her teenage psyche. She'd lie about eating breakfast and dinner, and for four days a week,
she would drink only a mix of water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup. She elaborated,
"I still didn't feel I was thin enough — even when
I became too weak from hunger to do the dance numbers in the show."
Osmond says once the show ended, she still struggled with body image well into adulthood.
While the death of Karen Carpenter in 1983 helped open up a conversation about eating disorders,
she said that she eventually realized that holding herself
to extreme standards was having a negative impact on her fans' body images as well.
Donny & Marie was a massive hit that was packed with all the biggest stars of the day.
"Right now it's time for a word from Farrah Fawcett Majors! Yeah!"
While it seems like meeting a who's who list of celebrities every week would be pretty awesome,
Marie Osmond has talked about the toll that it took on her. At just 16 years old when the show
started, she reflected in Might as Well Laugh About it Now that it had been soul-crushing
to stand next to actors, singers, and models who she saw as having it all.
One guest that really affected her was Cher. The
singers met when Osmond and her brother guest-starred on The Sonny and Cher Show,
and it had a devastating impact on her self-confidence. Osmond wrote,
"I felt like the ugly duckling. Cher always made a splash,
no matter what she did. I thought I was going to drown in my awkwardness."
The list of women who appeared on her show included actors and supermodels like Jaclyn
Smith, Cheryl Ladd, and Farrah Fawcett. Osmond might have been a household name,
but she wrote that standing alongside so many famously beautiful women often made
the host feel extremely insecure about her own appearance. She felt as if she were an imposter
that didn't belong on her own program.
Not only was Marie Osmond working by the time she was 3 years old,
but she was also working at a time when child actors were subjected to conditions that would
be considered cruel even for adults. In her memoir Behind the Smile, she wrote,
"In some situations I was treated more as a product than a person."
She went on to tell the story of shooting a commercial in Japan when she was 11 years old.
The week-long, mid-ocean shoot turned potentially deadly when the boat capsized and she found
herself swimming with sharks. After being rescued, she was sent back out to keep filming. By the end,
she was severely dehydrated and sunburned so badly that she was covered in blisters.
Things were no better in the recording studio, where she recalled being bullied into performing
at the snap of a finger. Such degrading treatment eventually conditioned her to
believe her perspective on the projects she sang on was completely irrelevant.
To add insult to injury, financial planners hired by her parents to
oversee the money she and her siblings made left them in such a bad state that
they were nearing bankruptcy even as their hit TV show was just wrapping up.
In Behind the Smile, Marie Osmond observed that she was mistreated in a variety of ways,
some of which had extremely deep and lasting effects on her. While
reflecting on these abuses, she confirmed that she was a victim of sexual assault.
Osmond wrote that it was only after having children of her own that she revealed to
those closest to her — her brothers — that she had been sexually assaulted as a child.
She recalled that each time it happened, the abuse was perpetrated by someone her parents
trusted to be alone with her, and that the abuser would threaten her against telling
anyone about the attack. Reflecting on how the abuse continues to impact her, Osmond wrote,
"Even today, the issue for me is not about the details of what happened.
Those diminish in importance compared to the debilitating effects sexual abuse has on the
human spirit and even the ability to function on a day-to-day basis."
Years later, she was still dealing with the assault that had happened to her as
a child. Even decades later, she still struggled to come to terms with the fact
that being a victim of abuse was in no way a reflection or product of her own behavior.
In 2010, Marie Osmond's 18-year-old son, Michael, died by suicide. Over the years,
Osmond has been honest about the events surrounding his death and
circumstances that made an impossibly difficult situation even harder.
On an episode of The Talk, Osmond shared the fact that her son was mercilessly bullied
growing up because of his sobriety. While she said that she never confronted the bullies,
she believed that there needed to be some consequences for bullying.
On another episode of the show, Osmond spoke about how she had been shamed for choosing to return to
work a week after his funeral. She said that she chose to show her other children that life needed
to go on even in the face of insurmountable sorrow, and she was attacked for it.
She's also reflected on how grief can change a person forever, and contrary
to the popular saying, time doesn't actually heal all wounds. Nine years after his death,
she appeared on CBS Sunday Morning and said,
"You know, I don't think you're ever through it. I think God gives you respites, and then all of
a sudden it'll hit you like the day it did. The ripple effect is so huge, what you leave behind."
2001's Behind the Smile provided an intimate look at something that hadn't been widely talked about
at the time of its publication: postpartum depression. She wrote of her feelings of
failure and struggles with self-worth, and she also wrote of the women who had reached out to
her since she first started talking openly about her experiences with the illness.
She included many anecdotes about how symptoms of the depression appeared in her day-to-day life.
She reflected on how her children would check her mood before speaking to her,
and how she acted reclusively even to friendly neighbors. She even wrote that
she handed her newborn baby to her nanny with a stack of blank checks,
before leaving to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway feeling immense despair. There are even
sections of the book where Osmond admits she could understand why someone would take their own life.
"And there were times I thought, 'Everybody would be better off without me.'"
In a 2023 interview with NBC 15 News, Osmond looked back on the book,
saying that she was one of the first celebrities to give a voice to the countless women who were
suffering. In the interview, she reiterated the message she layed out in Behind The Smile,
that women suffering from postpartum have no reason to be ashamed of the problem,
and that it is always okay to ask for help.
In 2013, Marie Osmond sat down with Diane Sawyer
and spoke about her daughter, Jessica, coming out as gay.
Osmond said that it broke her heart. Not because it changed her love for her daughter,
but because she knew how cruel the world could be. It's not surprising,
then, that Osmond has been outspoken on the issues surrounding marriage equality.
"My daughter deserves everything she desires in life. She's a good girl. She's a wonderful child.
On an episode of The Talk, she spoke candidly of the cruelty she'd witnessed and felt firsthand,
particularly after going to her daughter's wedding. Some of this criticism even came
from her own family. Her brother, Alan Osmond, has written scathing articles
condemning being gay as a choice, and in 2013, hosted an event called "Celebration
of Marriage — Every Child Deserves a Mom and a Dad," at the Utah state capitol.
In 2019, Marie Osmond and her brother Donny dropped a major announcement: After 11 years
performing at Las Vegas' Flamingo, they were calling it quits. According to what they told
ET, it had nothing to do with disagreements — which were a
normal part of being siblings — but simply that they both had other projects that they
wanted to pursue. Considering that when they first signed on to do the show,
they were only going to be there for six weeks, this decision isn't particularly surprising.
Retirement from the show hasn't gone as planned, though, and when they wrapped,
it was with Marie in some serious pain. She slipped, fell, and broke her knee in the run-up
to closing the show. Dancing might have been off the table, but she still took the stage.
Meanwhile, it was the end of the show that brought a catastrophic injury for Donny.
When he spoke to The Mirror in 2021, he said that it was during their very last song that
he realized he could no longer feel his arms or legs. The show wrapped, and doctors discovered
that an old injury meant spinal surgery was on the table. He was ultimately paralyzed from
a subsequent infection, and it was only after months of rehab that he was able to walk again.
In addition to losing her son, Marie Osmond has said goodbye to multiple family members
due to tragic circumstances. In 2004, the Osmond family matriarch, Olive, passed away
from complications of a stroke she had suffered two years prior. Three years later, the siblings
said goodbye to their father, George, after he died from natural causes at the age of 90.
Then, in 2014, the 7-year-old granddaughter of her brother, Jay Osmond, was killed when she was
crushed by the door of a moving truck. Tragedy struck that branch of the family again in 2022,
when the little girl's father, Chris Mortensen, was shot and killed in a
road rage incident. The man accused of the attack was immediately arrested.
In 2018, Marie's 33-year-old nephew died,
likely from an undiagnosed medical condition. Marie spoke at the funeral, saying in part,
"I know that feeling of utter despair, praying to wake up from a horrible nightmare and not
being able to breathe. I remember that seemingly impossible task to continue on."