Ozzy Osbourne joined Black Sabbath on stage for poignant final show weeks before death aged 76
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OZZY Osbourne joined Black Sabbath on stage for a poignant final show just weeks before his death aged 76.
The rock legend arrived on stage at Villa Park in Birmingham, dressed in his trademark black in what was his last ever performance earlier this month.
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Ozzy Osbourne said goodbye to performing with Black Sabbath at the age of 76
Credit: @RossHalfin
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The rock legend came out to chanting fans on a bat throne to perform
Credit: ROSS HALFIN
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The gig took place at Villa Park in Birmingham
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Ozzy, Sharon and Jack were pictured together at the historic gig earlier this month
Credit: Instagram
The crowd were heard roaring with excitement as the rock legend sat entered for the historic gig on July 5.
Ozzy sang with his fellow founding fathers of heavy metal while seated on a black bat throne.
His performance at the show, Called Back To The Beginning, was sadly the rock veteran's last time performing on stage.
It comes after Ozzy's sad death was announced today, following the star's brave battle against Parkinson's disease.
The crowd was delighted to see the iconic rocker back on stage this month and kept chanting his name.
Ozzy was equally thrilled to be performing, and repeatedly broke out into a massive grin.
The gig was already being touted as "the greatest heavy metal show ever" ahead of Saturday and Ozzy played a short five-song set reuniting with his bandmates Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward.
It was the first time in 20 years that the original Black Sabbath line-up have performed together.
Ozzy had heartbreakingly vowed it would be his final performance due to his deteriorating health.
He went public with his Parkinson's diagnosis in 2020.
Back To The Beginning also featured a mega line-up of fellow rock stars, performing their own sets and as a super-group, and all the profits made will be going to charity.
Ozzy Osbourne top five greatest moments
The money will be shared equally between Cure Parkinson's, Birmingham Children's Hospital and Acorn Children's Hospice.
Metallica and Slayer were on the line-up for main sets as they celebrated Ozzy's remarkable legacy at his final show.
Pantera, Gojira, Alice In Chains, Halestorm, Lamb Of God, Anthrax, and Mastodon also played at the show.
Ozzy previously talked on the Sirius XM radio show in the US about his condition.
He said: 'I have made it to 2025. I can't walk, but you know what I was thinking over the holidays?
"For all my complaining, I'm still alive.
'I may be moaning that I can't walk but I look down the road and there's people that didn't do half as much as me and didn't make it.'
Black Sabbath have sold more than 75million records since forming in 1968, while Ozzy has also released 13 solo albums.
In 1970, the group gained a cult following in both the US and UK after releasing their eponymous first album.
The group later became known as Black Sabbath and went onto shatter the music world with their whining guitar solos, Occult-based lyrics and Ozzy's screeching vocals.
Ozzy Osbourne's iconic career
The singer then pursued his love of music after hearing The Beatles hit She Loves You in 1963, aged 15.
After appearing in a handful of school plays, Ozzy joined Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler in their first group Rare Breed in 1967.
When that band split, the pair reunited in Polka Tulk Blues alongside Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward.
The group later became known as Black Sabbath and went onto shatter the music world with their whining guitar solos, Occult-based lyrics and Ozzy's screeching vocals.
In 1970, the group gained a cult following in both the US and UK after releasing their eponymous first album.
Black Sabbath saw incredible success with hit tracks such as Paranoid but discord in the group saw most of the original line-up leave.
Ozzy himself quit the band in 1978, with a spiral into drug abuse leading to a divorce from first wife Thelma Mayfair, who he had two children with.
It was then he first met a young Sharon Arden, who Ozzy at first wrote off as he believed she would think he was a "lunatic".
But the singer could not be more wrong and the pair married in Hawaii in July 1982 before going on to have three children together, Aimee, Kelly and Jack.
With Sharon's encouragement and help from her music manager dad Don, he began to carve out a successful solo career.
His seminal first album Blizzard of Ozz in 1980 became a multi-platinum success thanks to Ozzy's howling vocals and macabre laugh on hit Crazy Train.
Coupled with the Prince of Darkness' insane tour that saw him bite the head off a live bat, a string of successful tracks followed - cementing Ozzy as a rock legend around the world.
In 1992, the singer announced his retirement but four years later created the beloved annual music festival Ozzfest with Sharon, which featured heavy metal acts touring the US and some of Europe.
Ozzy returned to Black Sabbath in 1999, with the band winning a Grammy for best metal performance for the song Iron Man.
They later earned the same award in 2013 after releasing single God Is Dead? from album 13.
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Ozzy's health had not dampened his rock and roll spirit
Credit: ROSS HALFIN
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Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne has sadly passed away
Credit: Getty
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A former neighbour Karen, who lived a few doors away until Thelma moved several years ago, remembers her being 'always beautifully dressed'. 'I knew her name, but we never socialised.' But in 2017, following the final appearance of Ozzy's second wife Sharon on ITV's The X Factor, Karen joked with Thelma about her shared surname, asking if she was any relation. Karen recalls: 'I loved The X Factor and when I bumped into Thelma in the street after Sharon's final appearance I had a laugh with her. I didn't really know her but cheekily asked her if they were related and she looked horrified and said, 'No way, who would want to be part of that mad family!' 'Until this day I had no idea I was a neighbour of Ozzy Osbourne's first wife! She never let on and clearly didn't want to.' A short distance away, at a block of flats Thelma is understood to own and manage, one of her fellow directors tells the Mail that he too is shocked. John Fender, an economics professor, tells the Mail: 'I know Thelma, we are both directors of a company, but I had absolutely no idea. I am in a state of shock, she never mentioned it. She kept it very quiet. I am completely astonished. Osbourne is a fairly common name and I never put two and two together.' She was not always so guarded, though. The Mail spoke to one former colleague who says she burned 'red hot' with fury in the wake of her divorce. Thelma, who is thought to have had a brief third marriage, is now happy with a long-term partner, retired and living quietly on the outskirts of Birmingham. She is very much a part of her children's and grandchildren's lives. That she might want to draw a veil over the torment of her second marriage is not surprising. Ozzy himself spoke regretfully of his treatment of Thelma in his autobiography I Am Ozzy. From the 1960s to the 1980s, Birmingham's Rum Runner nightclub had legendary status. And one night in 1970, Ozzy and fellow Black Sabbath member Tony Iommi, rolled in. In the cloakroom was Thelma Riley. 'Who's that?' asked Ozzy, to be told Thelma was a 'lovely gal. Brainy too. But she's divorced and she's got a kid, so watch yerself'. Ozzy unsurprisingly ignored this instruction and, by his account, the night ended with him and Thelma kissing in the back seat of Tony's Ford Cortina. A year later they married at the Birmingham Register Office. 'A terrible mistake,' wrote Ozzy. Black Sabbath were touring; drugs, booze and groupies were beckoning and Thelma, now pregnant, was home alone. 'I would get this crazy restless feeling whenever I was at home, like I was going out of my mind,' wrote Ozzy. 'If I loved Thelma, I certainly didn't treat her like I did. If I've got any regrets about my life, that's one of them. 'I put that woman through hell. I should never have married her. She didn't deserve it; she wasn't a bad person, and she wasn't a bad wife. But I was a f****** nightmare.' Ozzy's worst excesses have been well documented. On the home front, he once took a shotgun to the 17 cats at the couple's home in Staffordshire. He left a stash of cannabis-laced cake in the kitchen that was accidentally given (by Thelma) to the local vicar. And he also shot all the chickens (purchased by Thelma) with a semi-automatic gun then doused the coop with gasoline and set it on fire, finishing off the sole survivor with a sword. In an interview with the Mail, he once admitted his abuse of Thelma was both mental and physical. 'You name it, I did it,' he said. 'I hit her big time and I was a complete idiot.' In the 2011 documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, he revealed he could not remember when Louis and Jessica were born. Louis recalled: 'When he was around and he wasn't [drunk], he was a great father. But that was kind of seldom, really, I just have a lot of memories of him being drunk... It's not good for family life, really.' Jessica made a brief appearance in the documentary, saying: 'I don't remember being put to bed or having a bath by Dad or anything like that. I wouldn't say he was there for us.' Asked if Ozzy was a good dad, she replied: 'No.' Ozzy's divorce with Thelma was agonisingly drawn out – Sharon, his manager's daughter, was already on the scene, but there was a last-ditch holiday with Thelma and the children to Barbados in 1981. Ozzy said: 'We got there at five o'clock and I was legless by six.' The marriage ended the same year. Ozzy would later declare Thelma got the house and 'every last penny I had in the bank'. He also paid for the kids' private school. But he left scars. His relationship with Elliot, who moved from Scotland to New Zealand around five years ago, appears to have always been strained. Ozzy wrote: 'I spent the whole time when I was home screaming at him or whacking him around the ear hole. And it's not like he ever did anything bad to deserve it. I wish I could have been better with him.' The year after the divorce he married Sharon. Their first child Aimee was born in 1983, followed by Kelly in 1984 and Jack in 1985. Kelly and Jack along with their mother were catapulted into the public consciousness, courtesy of MTV's The Osbournes which aired from 2002 to 2005. Aimee chose to remain away from the cameras. Louis once had an apartment in the garden of his father's Beverly Hills home and has always spoken with pride of his dad. He followed, to an extent, in his father's footsteps. He dropped out of university to take a job in a record shop, before getting his big break as a DJ in Ibiza in 1998. Even while a fledgling artist, he was determined to make it on his own, prohibiting use of his father's name, and is now a respected DJ, producer and broadcaster. As Ozzy told the Mail in 2014. 'I was a bad father, an abusive husband and I had an ego the size of India. I spent decades of my life being an absolute idiot. I've got so many regrets I can't even remember half of them. But wives and kids are right at the top.' After so many years of Ozzy's chaotic neglect, how many of his 'first' family will attend any memorials to the late rock star remains to be seen.
