Ozzy Osbourne passed away at the age of 76. His joyful “Prince of Darkness” persona made him one of the most recognizable rock frontmen of all time. The Osbourne family released the following statement: “We must announce with more sorrow than words can express that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne passed away this morning.
He was surrounded by affection and with his family. At this time, we kindly ask that everyone respect the privacy of our family. Although Osbourne had suffered from a number of illnesses in previous years, no cause of death was stated.
One of the most infamous people in rock history, Osbourne was a pioneer whose eerie scream helped bring heavy metal to the world, a performer who once bit a bat’s head off on stage, a drug addict who tried to kill his wife, and, most recently, a reality TV personality who was adored for his laughter at family life on The Osbournes.
Less than three weeks after he retired from performing, he passed away. For the first time since 2005, Osbourne joined his old bandmates in the groundbreaking band Black Sabbath on July 5th for Back to the Beginning, an all-star farewell show that included some of the biggest names in metal. He told the audience that evening, “I’ve been laid up for six years, and you’ve got no idea how I feel,” alluding to a number of surgeries on his spine and a form of Parkinson’s disease. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
The son of two manufacturing workers, he was born John Michael Osbourne in Aston, Birmingham, in 1948. His childhood was difficult. In addition to living in relative poverty, two boys sexually assaulted him repeatedly when he was eleven years old: “It was horrific … In 2003, he told the Mirror, “It seemed to go on forever.” For burglary, he was also imprisoned: “I was no good at that.” He said in 2014 that he was “fucking useless.”
This industrial working-class setting influenced the sound of Black Sabbath, Osbourne’s signature band that transformed British rock music with its heavy sound. Geezer Butler, the band’s bassist, stated in 2017 that they intended to express their thoughts on the world at the time. “We had no intention of writing upbeat pop songs. We infused it with an industrial vibe.
The band, which also included guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, was named after a Boris Karloff horror film. They launched their self-titled debut in 1970, and subsequent albums are considered to be the cornerstones of the heavy-metal genre. While the booming, hallucinogenic sound of Master of Reality (1971) continues to have a significant influence on the slower sound of doom metal, Paranoid (1970), which contained the strutting anthems Iron Man and War Pigs, topped the UK album chart.
Osbourne went on to record five more critically acclaimed albums with the group, but his drug and alcohol abuse led to his dismissal in 1979, and Ronnie James Dio took his place. In the end, Osbourne rejoined the group for the 2013 album 13, which peaked at number one on the US and UK charts. Black Sabbath also toured, and on February 4, 2017, they played their last show in Birmingham.
Soon after departing Black Sabbath, Osbourne went solo. He started with Blizzard of Ozz, which went five times platinum in the US. He went on to create eleven new albums, the most recent of which being Ordinary Man in 2020. It included guest appearances by Elton John and collaborations with up-and-coming rap talents Travis Scott and Post Malone.
Osbourne’s most well-known incident occurred in 1982 when, while performing in Des Moines, Iowa, he bit off the skull of a dead bat that he thought was a stage prop. He subsequently received a preventative rabies vaccination at the hospital. He also claimed – and this was substantiated by his one-time publicist Mick Wall – to have bitten the heads off two doves during a 1981 record label meeting that went sour, having originally intended to release the birds as a message of peace. He had sporadic UK Top 40 singles in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Bark at the Moon (1983) and Perry Mason (1995). Changes, a duet he performed with his 34-year-old daughter Kelly, eventually peaked at No. 1 in 2003.
Osbourne has two children with his first wife, Thelma, namely Jessica and Louis, and two more with his wife Sharon, Jack, 33, and Aimee, 35. He later acknowledged that he couldn’t recall the birth of Jessica and Louis, and that his drunkenness had caused his marriage to Thelma to disintegrate.
He married Sharon in 1982; the two had met three years prior, and Sharon had started handling his solo career. They amassed enormous wealth thanks to her business savvy and his ongoing appeal. In addition to touring the US most of the time, Sharon’s 1996 metal music event, Ozzfest, also made appearances in the UK and Japan. The couple ranked No. 17 on the 2018 Sunday Times list of the wealthiest musicians in Britain, with a combined net worth of $196 million (£157 million).
