Ozzy Osbourne, lead singer of the legendary rock group Black Sabbath who did greater than possibly another musician to assist form the darkish, hard-partying picture of the heavy metallic style — even as soon as biting the pinnacle off a bat on stage — died Tuesday on the age of 76, his household introduced.
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love,” the assertion stated.
The singer had simply recorded his farewell live performance with Black Sabbath just a few weeks in the past. Titled “Back to the Beginning: Ozzy’s Final Bow,” it’s set for a theatrical launch in early 2026.
Osbourne advised The Guardian in Might that he was trying ahead to a special life after filming the live performance ― one with fewer individuals and extra animals.
“Yeah. Get some ponies and chickens, and a million dogs. I want to open a dog rescue centre and a horse rescue centre. Scream at the neighbors a couple of times. There you go,” he stated.
He additionally just lately shared updates about his Parkinson’s prognosis, saying it had slowed him down however he was “still actively doing things.”
“For all my complaining, I’m still alive,” he stated on his Sirius XM radio present in February. “I may be moaning that I can’t walk as well … but as I look down the road, there’s people that didn’t do half as much as me and they didn’t make it.”
Born John Michael Osbourne on Dec. 3, 1948, Osbourne grew up in a working-class household close to Birmingham, England. He struggled in class from a younger age, partly attributable to his dyslexia, and ultimately dropped out on the age of 15. However when he first heard “She Loves You” by The Beatles, he felt he had discovered his calling. “It was just magic,” he stated. “It was like being hit by a bolt of lightning.”
“It changed my life forever, and at that point I knew what I wanted to do with my life,” he continued. “I never knew it would turn out the way it did ― it turned out way bigger than my wildest expectations ― but I knew that I wanted to be the singer in a band.”
Michael Putland by way of Getty Photos
Along with guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Invoice Ward, he based a band known as Earth, later renamed Black Sabbath. Amid the flower energy revolution, Black Sabbath determined to maneuver their music in a extra sinister course. Their sound was heavy, darkish and completely different.
The band’s self-titled 1970 debut album bought decently nicely, however it was their second album, 1971’s “Paranoid,” and the hits on it, like “Iron Man” and “War Pigs,” that shot the band up the charts and solidified its standing close to the highest of the rock-and-roll hierarchy.
In his interview with The Guardian earlier this yr, Osbourne recalled the band’s less-than-stellar vital response.
“I don’t think we ever had a good review. Maybe that was a catalyst in a way: every critic didn’t like us, so more of the people liked us. We were a people’s band: four guys from Aston, one of the poorest parts of Birmingham,” he stated.
Possibly much more influential than the band’s music was its picture. Darkish in colour and wealthy in non secular symbolism, the band’s aesthetic frightened dad and mom however would assist outline the heavy metallic scene for many years, main followers to dub Osbourne “The Godfather of Metal” and “Prince of Darkness,” regardless that he personally didn’t wish to affiliate himself with the time period “heavy metal.”
Paul Natkin by way of Getty Photos
Osbourne married his first spouse, Thelma Riley, in 1971. The couple had two youngsters, Jessica and Louis, and Osbourne adopted her son Elliot from a earlier relationship.
In the course of the Black Sabbath years, medicine grew to become central to Osbourne’s identification as nicely. Legend has it that he and drummer Invoice Ward took LSD every single day for 2 years. However regardless, Osbourne’s drug and alcohol abuse overwhelmed these round him by the top of the Seventies, and the opposite members of Black Sabbath kicked him out of the band.
Quickly after, he would begin a solo mission with the assistance of guitarist Randy Rhoads, bassist Bob Daisley, and drummer Lee Kerslake. In 1980, they launched the extremely acclaimed “Blizzard of Ozz,” which featured one of the crucial well-known songs of Osbourne’s profession, the driving anthem “Crazy Train.”
Shortly after, Osbourne did two issues that may cement his place in rock-and-roll lore. At a gathering with file executives in Los Angeles, he bit the heads off two reside doves. Then, at a 1982 live performance in Des Moines, Iowa, he bit the pinnacle off a reside bat. Osbourne later stated he thought the bat was a rubber toy, however it didn’t matter: He had change into rock royalty.
Osbourne’s life would take a darkish flip that yr, when his guitar participant and good good friend Rhoads died in a aircraft crash close to a bus the place the singer had been sleeping, pushing Osbourne right into a despair. Later, he would say, “I have no regrets except that I wasn’t up to keep Randy from getting on that plane.”
That very same yr, Osbourne divorced Thelma and married his supervisor, Sharon Arden. The couple would have three youngsters, Jack, Kelly and Aimee, however Osbourne’s substance abuse remained a near-constant problem within the relationship. In a haze of medication and alcohol, he as soon as even tried to kill Sharon ― a second he would later describe as essentially the most shameful second of his life. Osbourne would spend a lot of the latter half of his life struggling to remain sober.
Within the late ’80s and early ’90s, Osbourne grew to become the focus of a number of lawsuits that garnered nationwide consideration, every introduced by dad and mom who believed Osbourne’s music “Suicide Solution” had triggered their little one to commit suicide. Osbourne gained in each case on First Modification grounds.
Later in life, Osbourne discovered fame with an a completely new era on MTV’s “The Osbournes,” a actuality TV present that documented essentially the most mundane of the Osbourne household’s day-to-day shenanigans, and confirmed a funnier aspect of a person who had constructed a life on mystique.
“Bubbles!” he as soon as proclaimed upon discovering out his present was scheduled to have bubbles and popcorn in it. “Oh, come on, Sharon! I’m fucking Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of fucking Darkness! Evil! Evil! What’s fucking evil about a buttload of fucking bubbles?”
Nothing ever went easily for Osbourne. Even when the 4 unique members of Black Sabbath introduced in 2011 that they’d reunite for a brand new album and world tour, issues took a flip after drummer Invoice Ward dropped out, supposedly for contractual causes.
Osbourne needed his personal drummer, Tommy Clufetos, to exchange Ward, however didn’t get his manner. Producer Rick Rubin had Rage Towards the Machine drummer Brad Wilk fill in as a substitute, which left Osbourne “pissed off.”
It was messy and sophisticated, identical to Osbourne ― a person who may seem in a daze, however who nonetheless possessed the humor and self-awareness to know simply who he was and the way he was seen.
“I know what’s going to be on my tombstone, and there’s no getting around it,” Osbourne stated in 2004. “‘Here lies Ozzy Osbourne, the ex-Black Sabbath singer who bit the head off a bat.’”
In 2014, Osbourne launched “Memoirs of a Madman,” a career-spanning compilation. He had a High 10 hit in 2019 with “Take What You Want,” a collaboration with Submit Malone.
Nevertheless, Black Sabbath didn’t. The band introduced it was calling it quits in March 2017, a month after its final efficiency in Birmingham.
In January 2020, Osbourne revealed he had been identified with Parkinson’s illness, a neurodegenerative dysfunction with no identified treatment.
He held out hopes of getting again on the street, however canceled a scheduled 2023 tour due to points along with his backbone.
Osbourne did make a transfer, although, saying in 2022 that he was transferring out of the US due to all of the gun violence.
