Ozzy Osbourne, lead singer of the legendary rock group Black Sabbath who did greater than possibly some other 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’s with extra unhappiness than mere phrases can convey that we’ve to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has handed away this morning. He was along with his household and surrounded by love,” the assertion mentioned.
The singer had just recorded his farewell concert with Black Sabbath just a few weeks in the past. Titled “Again to the Starting: Ozzy’s Remaining Bow,” it’s set for a theatrical launch in early 2026.
Osbourne advised The Guardian in Could that he was wanting ahead to a unique life after filming the live performance ― one with fewer individuals and extra animals.
“Yeah. Get some ponies and chickens, and one million canines. I need to open a canine rescue centre and a horse rescue centre. Scream on the neighbors a few instances. There you go,” he mentioned.
He additionally lately shared updates about his Parkinson’s prognosis, saying it had slowed him down however he was “nonetheless actively doing issues.”
“For all my complaining, I’m nonetheless alive,” he mentioned on his Sirius XM radio present in February. “I could also be moaning that I can’t stroll as nicely … however as I look down the street, there’s folks that didn’t do half as a lot as me they usually 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, partially 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 mentioned. “It was like being hit by a bolt of lightning.”
“It modified my life without end, and at that time I knew what I wished to do with my life,” he continued. “I by no means knew it will prove the way in which it did ― it turned out means greater than my wildest expectations ― however I knew that I wished to be the singer in a band.”
Michael Putland by way of Getty Pictures
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 path. Their sound was heavy, darkish and completely different.
The band’s self-titled 1970 debut album bought decently nicely, but it surely was their second album, 1971’s “Paranoid,” and the hits on it, like “Iron Man” and “Conflict 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 crucial response.
“I don’t suppose we ever had a very good evaluation. Possibly that was a catalyst in a means: each critic didn’t like us, so extra of the individuals appreciated us. We have been a individuals’s band: 4 guys from Aston, one of many poorest components of Birmingham,” he mentioned.
Possibly much more influential than the band’s music was its picture. Darkish in coloration and wealthy in spiritual 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 Steel” and “Prince of Darkness,” though he personally didn’t wish to affiliate himself with the time period “heavy metal.”
Paul Natkin by way of Getty Pictures
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 each day for 2 years. However regardless, Osbourne’s drug and alcohol abuse overwhelmed these round him by the tip of the Seventies, and the opposite members of Black Sabbath kicked him out of the band.
Quickly after, he would begin a solo challenge 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 vital well-known songs of Osbourne’s profession, the driving anthem “Loopy Prepare.”
Shortly after, Osbourne did two issues that may cement his place in rock-and-roll lore. At a gathering with document executives in Los Angeles, he bit the heads off two live doves. Then, at a 1982 live performance in Des Moines, Iowa, he bit the pinnacle off a dwell bat. Osbourne later mentioned he thought the bat was a rubber toy, but it surely didn’t matter: He had develop into rock royalty.
Osbourne’s life would take a darkish flip that yr, when his guitar participant and good pal Rhoads died in a airplane crash close to a bus the place the singer had been sleeping, pushing Osbourne right into a melancholy. Later, he would say, “I’ve no regrets besides that I wasn’t as much as maintain Randy from getting on that airplane.”
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 challenge 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 the most shameful moment 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 multiple lawsuits that garnered nationwide consideration, every introduced by dad and mom who believed Osbourne’s tune “Suicide Answer” had brought about their youngster to commit suicide. Osbourne gained in each case on First Modification grounds.
Later in life, Osbourne discovered fame with an a wholly new technology on MTV’s “The Osbournes,” a actuality TV present that documented probably the most mundane of the Osbourne household’s day-to-day shenanigans, and showed a funnier side of a man 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 a couple of buttload of fucking bubbles?”
Nothing ever went easily for Osbourne. Even when the four original members of Black Sabbath introduced in 2011 that they might reunite for a brand new album and world tour, issues took a flip after drummer Invoice Ward dropped out, supposedly for contractual causes.
Osbourne wished his personal drummer, Tommy Clufetos, to exchange Ward, however didn’t get his means. Producer Rick Rubin had Rage In opposition to 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 however possessed the humor and self-awareness to know simply who he was and the way he was seen.
“I do know what’s going to be on my tombstone, and there’s no getting round it,” Osbourne said in 2004. “‘Right here lies Ozzy Osbourne, the ex-Black Sabbath singer who bit the pinnacle 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 Need,” a collaboration with Publish Malone.
Nonetheless, 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 recognized with Parkinson’s illness, a neurodegenerative dysfunction with no identified remedy.
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 USA due to all of the gun violence.
