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Summarized by Kent Larsen
Osmond's work gets her past troubles
USA Today 31May00 P2
By Donna Freydkin: Special for USA Today
WASHINGTON, DC -- LDS Entertainer Marie Osmond has been through a difficult
year. Following the birth of her seventh child, Matthew, she suffered a
severe bout of post-partum depression. And this past January, she split from
her husband of 13 years, Brian Blosil.
Now, Marie says she is recovering from these difficulties, "I'm as happy as
I can be. You take every day a day at a time," she says. Her explanation for
her happiness is that her work has helped her recover, "Work has always
brought me happiness."
Last fall, her work as a talk-show host (along with her brother Donny on the
syndicated Donny and Marie show), gave her a forum to talk about the
depression. She hope that going public with the depression has helped others
too. "Maybe it just helped a couple of people, and that's worth it, to me."
But if responses through e-mail, letters and calls are any indication, her
public disclosure helped more than just a few people, "I was absolutely
overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of e-mails and letters and calls .
. . that came in from women saying, 'Thank you for giving it a name.'"
But going public with her depression wasn't easy for Marie. She says that
going public was a "very tough" process. "I hid it for a long time," she
says. Marie adds that she also got some relief from the depression by
working on a now nearly-finished book on her battle with depression. A
release date has not yet been set.
In contrast to her public disclosures on depression, Marie won't talk about
her separation from her second husband, Blosil. But she does say that she
doesn't think the divorce has harmed her image, in spite of the fact that it
hasn't always worked in her favor, "I think there has been a stereotype that
if you're a certain type of image, that you're naive and goodie-goodie," she
says. "And I think the biggest educational process that I have laid out
there with people is, 'How can you be in this business as long as I have and
be naive?' There's no way. It's just a matter of choices."
Osmond was scheduled to speak to the National Press Club on Wednesday on the
state of children's health care, the area where she does most of her charity
work. Yesterday, for the fifth consecutive year, Marie was scheduled to take
50 children to the White House for the Children's Miracle Network, the
charity she co-founded with "Dukes of Hazzard" star John Schneider. Today,
she will appear on the 18th annual Children's Miracle Network telecast live
from Walt Disney World.
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