From bat-biting antics & drug battles to rollercoaster reality show – how Ozzy truly earned title of Prince of Darkness

The Irish Sun

4 days ago

THERE was never any doubt what would be on his gravestone, according to the rocker himself: 'Here lies Ozzy Osbourne. He bit the head off a bat.'
The singer - dubbed the
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Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne has passed away aged 76
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He was dubbed the 'Prince of Darkness'
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He once famously bit the head off a bat
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The 1982 bat-biting stunt left Ozzy needing a rabies injection
Ozzy - who has died aged 76 following a long battle with Parkinson's disease, just 17 days after playing a farewell gig with his band Black Sabbath - later recalled: 'Immediately, something felt wrong.'
There was a foul taste, and he felt the severed head twitch in his mouth.
Next thing the singer knew he was being rushed to A&E for emergency rabies shots.
The teenage bat-thrower later insisted it was already dead, but Ozzy always maintained he felt it moving.
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Emotional moment
Whatever the truth, the incident grabbed global headlines and overshadowed a career of mind-boggling firsts.
The Brummie - whose full name is John Michael Osbourne - started out as the wild frontman of the band credited with inventing heavy metal.
He went on to help create a whole new genre of TV in 2002 as part of a ground-breaking reality series, The Osbournes, starring him, his manager-wife Sharon, 72, and two of their three children - Kelly, 40, and Jack, 39.
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Their eldest daughter Aimee, 41, refused to take part in the MTV show because she didn't want to 'grow up on camera' and left home aged 16 as a result - something Sharon has since admitted she regrets deeply.
The series, which ran for four years and paved the way for Paris Hilton and the Kardashians, won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program and at its peak, Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly and Jack were earning £3.7million each per season.
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It followed Sharon's battle with colon cancer and Ozzy's near-miss in a quad bike crash, which kicked off years of failing health for the rocker.
Ozzy admitted he was stunned by its success, telling Hot Press in December 2002: "I mean, before we did the TV show, I was Ozzy Osbourne the legendary rock'n'roller, and now I'm this f------ demi-god!" he added.
"I'm on the front of all these f------ magazines ... f--- me, it's mad!"
While Ozzy stepped away from the limelight following the end of the series, it kickstarted Sharon's reality TV career, with her joining the judging panel on The X Factor from 2004 until 2007, followed by America's Got Talent from 2007-2012, The Celebrity Apprentice in 2010 and Celeb Big Brother last year.
Whirlwind romance
Ozzy survived decades of booze and drug addiction which were regularly found to be at 'lethal' levels in his blood - and nearly cost him two marriages.
As he said in March 2023, aged 74: 'I should have been dead a long time ago.'
In 1971, aged 22, Ozzy married nightclub attendant Thelma Riley after a whirlwind romance, but quickly decided it was 'a terrible mistake'.
So he numbed himself with booze and cocaine, which he got sent over from the US via air mail.
Off his head, he would use a semi automatic to shoot mannequins he tied to trees at their cottage in Ranton, Staffs.
And once, when Thelma asked Ozzy to feed her chickens, he instead shot them dead.
He later admitted he also hit her. And he confessed he had been a 'disgusting' father to their two kids, Jessica, 53, and Louis, 50.
When Thelma was in labour with Jessica, Ozzy insisted on driving her to hospital despite being intoxicated and not holding a licence.
Ozzy's volatile behaviour from his drinking and drug abuse eventually saw the couple separate in the late 70s, with their divorce finalised in 1982.
Even Ozzy's fellow bandmates could not stand his behaviour, and he was sacked from Black Sabbath on April 27, 1979.
He thought it was the end, and locked himself in a hotel room for a three-month bender.
Then one day, Sharon Levy turned up at the door.
He later said of the woman who became his second wife: 'If it weren't for her, without a shadow of a doubt, I would be dead.'
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Ozzy with his wife Sharon
Credit: Rex
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Ozzy and Sharon with their son Jack and daughters Kelly and Aimee in 1986
Credit: Getty - Contributor
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The family had this cute snap taken in the USA
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Ozzy was a worldwide rock icon
Credit: Handout
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But he famously had his share of ups and downs during his whirlwind life
Credit: Rex Features
Sharon, then 27, was the daughter of Black Sabbath's manager Don Arden.
They'd first met when she was 18 and working as her dad's receptionist.
The singer wrote in his autobiography I Am Ozzy: 'I fell for Sharon so badly, man.'
Sharon convinced the wreck that he could be a solo star, and that she should be the one to manage him.
Debut solo album Blizzard of Ozz was released in September 1980 and went on to sell more than five million copies.
She also amped up his satanic image, encouraging stage antics such as flinging animal entrails into the audience.
It was during one of these innards-soaked shows that the infamous bat-biting episode took place, in Des Moines, Iowa on January 20, 1982.
Years later Ozzy would moan: 'It's all my f***ing career is about, a f***ing bat.'
'Attempted murder
'
Sharon and Ozzy wed in Hawaii on July 4, 1982, soon after Ozzy's divorce from Thelma, and welcomed daughter Aimee a year later.
While Ozzy's solo career soared, so did his appetite for booze, illegal drugs and prescription pills.
He later said: 'I was a beast. Absolutely terrifying.'
The worst moment came in the early hours of September 3, 1989, when a zonked Ozzy told his wife: 'It's clear that you have to die,' before trying to strangle her.
She fought him off and Ozzy was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, but Sharon later dropped the charges and he spent three months in rehab.
Sharon told the Guardian in 2001: 'He was totally insane from all the drink and drugs he was doing, and well, these things happen.'
Ozzy admitted once killing 17 of his family's cats while high on drugs, admitting: 'We had about 17, and I went crazy and shot them all. My wife found me under the piano in a white suit, a shotgun in one hand and a knife in the other.'
The couple renewed their vows on an episode of The Osbournes, with Ozzy vowing to stay sober after he passed out in the hotel corridor on their original wedding day.
However, true to form, he got so drunk he passed out again.
Shock affair
In 2016, Sharon took an overdose of pills after finding out Ozzy had a four-year affair with hairdresser Michelle Pugh.
She told Loose Women: 'I took an overdose and locked myself in the bedroom. The maid tried to come in to clean the room and saw me.'
Pugh described their relationship as 'life changing', claiming he made her feel like 'the most beautiful and worshipped woman in the world', and it was 'a struggle every day' when it ended.
Sharon decided to end their 34-year marriage but forgave him months later, and has stood by him for the rest of his life.
She explained in her memoir Unbreakable: 'As much as he's addicted to alcohol and drugs, I'm addicted to him.'
The son of factory workers, Ozzy grew up in Aston, Birmingham. His mum was a keen singer and got her six kids to take part in 'family shows' at home.
Ozzy's debut was at one of these gatherings, singing Cliff Richard's hit Living Doll.
But he later admitted: 'I was a very nervous kid. Fear of impending doom ruled my life.'
He struggled at school because of undiagnosed dyslexia, and left aged 15 for short-lived jobs including killing pigs in a slaughterhouse.
Then he tried his hand at burglary, stealing shirts from a local shop. He was quickly nicked and, aged 17, spent six weeks in Birmingham's Winson Green prison.
When released in the winter of 1966, he decided to have a go at the one thing he loved to do: singing.
Ozzy later wrote that his dream had begun when he first heard The Beatles in 1963.
He recalled: 'A light went on … for the first time I felt as though my life had meaning.'
So he put up an inaccurate advert in a Birmingham music shop, which read: 'Ozzy Zig Needs Gig. Experienced frontman, owns own PA system.'
Soon bassist Terry 'Geezer' Butler showed up on his doorstep. And eventually the same advert also drew guitarist and composer Tony Iommi.
Together with drummer Bill Ward, they formed a group that started out under the name The Polka Tulk Blues Band, turned into Earth – and then finally became Black Sabbath.
Ozzy said his main role from the start was to be 'the madman'.
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Ozzy with the other members of Black Sabbath
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The band, pictured in 1970, were a worldwide phenomenon
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Ozzy said his role was to be the 'madman'
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The rock legend made his final appearance at Villa Park
Credit: @RossHalfin
They played standard 12-bar blues at tiny gigs until Iommi noticed people queuing to see gothic Hammer Horror movies.
He then decided to have a go at writing a song that 'sounded evil'.
The result was the 1969 track Black Sabbath that immediately inspired the band to rename itself.
Ominous, dark and doom-laden, with Ozzy's compelling monotone voice, it was unlike anything that had come before it.
Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford later described it as 'probably the most evil song ever written'.
Soon they had a record deal and their self-titled first album was released on Friday the 13th of February, 1970 - now widely considered the day heavy metal was born.
It was a monster hit around the world and charismatic Ozzy was soon christened the Prince of Darkness.
Health battle
Although Ozzy managed a reunion with Black Sabbath, complete with a No1 album in 2011, and several tours, his health declined as he suffered from worsening tremors.
A fall in 2019 left him in chronic pain.
The following year he announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's and in 2023 he cancelled a planned world tour for health reasons.
By that stage, according to Sharon, his main hobby was watching the History Channel.
On July 5 this year, Ozzy played his final show - billed as Back to the Beginning - alongside the original Black Sabbath line up at Villa Park in Aston, Birmingham.
Performing on a black throne a stone's throw from the pokey two-bedroomed home where he'd grown up, he was cheered by a crowd of over 40,000 spectators and nearly six million watching on livestream.
Despite claiming he needed to have his blood pressure taken 15 times a day before his death, Ozzy had always been more concerned about Sharon's health than his own.
Asked in 2022 what he would do if she died before him, he said: 'That's a f***ing no-no for me.'
For his own part, he once told his wife: 'I want to be put in the ground in a nice garden somewhere, with a tree planted over my head.'
He also said: 'It's ridiculous, really. My life should never have happened the way it did. But believe me, I'm grateful."
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Ozzy's health never dampened his rock 'n' roll spirit
Credit: @RossHalfin