Kelly Osbourne, America's Newest Sweetheart

It was somewhere between telling her rocker dad to F off and seeing her rock a glittery cap and ski goggle-sized Chloe sunglasses that I fell in love with Kelly Lee Osbourne.

A little sunnier than MTV's sardonic cartoon character Daria, part Janeane Garofalo served with a hefty helping of Andrew Dice Clay's mouth, Kelly is the kind of teenage girl I wish I had been -- a self-assured, sweet girl badass (with fabulous designer threads, of course).

We wouldn't be exposed to this pink-haired, quirky beauty were it not for MTV introducing her and her family to the world with the reality sitcom, "The Osbournes." The show, which garnered some of the highest ratings ever for the network, has been a bonafide hit, even embraced by none other than the sharpest tool in the shed, George W.

Though she shares the stage with papa Ozzy, business mama Sharon and younger brother Jack, Kelly is a standout in her own right. With a nose that seems to wiggle like Samantha's on "Bewitched," she goes clubbing around Los Angeles and beats up Jack as if she were blindfolded and swinging wildly at a piñata. She recently cut the Madonna cover "Papa Don't Preach" -- which is included in the forthcoming soundtrack for "The Osbournes" -- and performed the song live on MTV at its annual Movie Awards telecast June 6. The video for "Papa Don't Preach" video premiered June 11 on MTV's "Making the Video."

She was slated to perform the song again on The Tonight Show Friday, but recently canceled because she broke her hand -- she told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America that it was raining and she slipped down some stairs. She is expected to perform on Saturday at the Wango Tango festival presented by the popular L.A. radio station KIIS. All this at the ripe old age of 17.

What Kelly may not realize, however, is the scope and breadth of her presence on television. She is not a Mandy, a Britney, a Christina or any hot young teen thang with minimal talent and an army of stylemakers and tastemakers yapping at their heels. She is very much her own person -- I'm just f---ing me, she would say -- and that has made all the difference.

She is impetuous and brash -- letting out loud yelps when she feels misunderstood or is the subject of a mishap, like the time she accidentally set the teakettle on fire. There was the time her older sister, Aimee (Ozzy's daughter from a previous marriage) set up a gynecological appointment for her and Kelly flipped out.

"I said, 'Aimee, my teeth, my car, my vagina, my business.'" But for every time she whines to her parents about curfew, Kelly displays her tender-hearted side, whether it is sitting on dad's lap and giving him a kiss before he takes the MTV Total Request Live (TRL) stage or taking the family cat (one of many) to the veterinarian for shots.

"I have my dad's bad habits of farting and burping in public and not caring," said Kelly to London's Sunday Times, "but I have my mum's sense of humor and strength."

More impressive is Kelly's unapologetic disregard for her appearance on TV, where she flaunts a makeup-less face, bed head and a buddha belly on more than one occasion. Never has an American television audience seen her kind of body either, which is equally refreshing. Neither stick-straight nor overweight, Kelly is the kind of girl who clearly does not deny herself a helping of meatloaf or ice cream sundae. It's a stark juxtaposition to MTV's endless images of half-naked, reed-thin spring break coeds and Real World roommates who freak out that they are filling out their size 0 pants.

"I'm not fat and I'm not thin," Kelly has told Entertainment Weekly. "And I'm not trying to be a f---ing supermodel, so I wish people would just leave it a lone. I'll read a Web site and someone will say, 'Two words, Kelly: Slim-Fast.' And I'm just like, Oh, f--- off!"