Sharon Osbourne Opens Up About Dad's Death

[Brian Damage]

Rock matriarch Sharon Osbourne has described her "relief" that her father Don Arden's long and harrowing battle with Alzheimer's Disease is over. Music mogul Arden passed away at a nursing home in Los Angeles last month. He was 81.

Osbourne was estranged from her father for 20 years, and revealed his violent ways in her autobiography Extreme. However, the pair were reconciled in 2002 after he developed Alzheimer's Disease and Osbourne was glad to share his last moments in a bedside vigil.

She says, "He had been through so much. But I am happy I managed to be there and spend time with him when he went. It's such a cruel illness and you are so powerless to help. It gets to a point where your brain is dead but your body's alive which is the worst thing. He was actually in a coma for a while before he died. but I was with him when he passed away and, to be honest, it was a relief. It had been a long and terrible ordeal for him."

Osbourne also hits out at criticism she's received for missing his funeral, insisting allegations she has "a heart of stone" are hurtful.

She explains, "I looked after him for years - his 24-hour care, his nursing home, everything. I didn't go because I didn't want it to become a circus. We had made our peace some years back. I'd said goodbye. "I know in my heart that I did everything I could for him - and no one else can judge me on that. No one."