Latest news with #DiaryofaMadmanTour
Perth Now
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Animal rights group PETA pay unexpected tribute to bat-biter Ozzy Osbourne
PETA has paid an unlikely tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. The Black Sabbath rocker, who died aged 76 on Tuesday (22.07.25), notoriously bit the head off of a bat during a concert in Iowa in 1982 but has been remembered fondly by animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for the "gentle side" he showed to creatures after teaming up with organisation to campaign against the declawing of cats. PETA posted on its website and social media channels: "Ozzy Osbourne was a legend and a provocateur, but PETA will remember the 'Prince of Darkness' most fondly for the gentle side he showed to animals - most recently cats, by using his fame to decry painful, crippling declawing mutilations. "Ozzy may have been the singer, but his wife, Sharon, and their daughter, Kelly, were of one voice when it meant protecting animals. "Ozzy will be missed by animal advocates the world over." The Crazy Train artist joined forces with PETA in 2020 to speak out on the declawing of felines and featured in an advertising campaign feature his bloodied hands with the tagline: "It's an amputation. Not a manicure." Ozzy said at the time: "Amputating a cat's toes is twisted and wrong. If your couch is more important to you than your cat's health and happiness, you don't deserve to have an animal! Get cats a scratching post - don't mutilate them for life." The rocker claimed in his 2010 autobiography I Am Ozzy that he chomped down on the bat's head as he was convinced that it was just a rubber toy throw on stage by a rowdy audience during his Diary of a Madman Tour. Osbourne wrote: "Immediately, though, something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid. Then the head in my mouth twitched. "Somebody threw a bat. I just thought it was a rubber bat. And I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I bit into it. "Oh no, it's real. It was a real live bat." However, Ozzy told the BBC in 2006 that the bat wasn't alive when it was thrown on stage. He recalled: "This bat comes on. I thought it was one of them Halloween joke bats because it had some string around its neck. "I bite into it, and I look to my left and Sharon was going (gesturing no). "And I'm like, what you talking about? She (says), 'It's a real dead bat.' And I'm... I know now!"
Toronto Sun
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Sun
That time Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat
Published Jul 23, 2025 • Last updated 7 minutes ago • 4 minute read Flowers are placed in memory of Ozzy Osbourne next to a mural in Navigation Street on July 23, 2025 in Birmingham, England. Photo by Christopher Furlong / Getty Images Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account On a cold January night in 1982, thousands of heavy metal fans streamed into a Des Moines auditorium for what radio DJs promised would be the concert of the year. Ozzy Osbourne, the former lead singer of British band Black Sabbath, was about to rock. The mood was festively macabre. Posters for the 'Diary of a Madman Tour' showed Osbourne in his 'Prince of Darkness' alter ego – complete with devil horns – and warned attendees that eating before the concert was 'not recommended.' But no one knew just how stomach churning the performance would prove, or how it would become synonymous with the oddball musician, who died July 22 at the age of 76. In the 1980s, Ozzy concerts were often raucous events, with crowds tossing rubber snakes or cockroaches onstage and the then-33-year-old singer firing stuff back, including raw meat from a catapult. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. So when a teenage boy in the Des Moines crowd that evening tossed something small and dark toward the tenor, it wasn't surprising that Osbourne picked it up. It was a bat. 'Obviously a toy,' Osbourne recalled thinking in his memoir. The singer held it up to the lights, bared his teeth to the crowd's delight and did what he usually did with rubber toys thrown onstage: He bit it. 'Immediately though, something felt wrong,' he wrote. 'Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid, with the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth and running down my chin. Then the head in my mouth twitched.' The animal was not, in fact, a toy, but rather a real bat that local 17-year-old Mark Neal had smuggled into the concert in a baggy inside his coat. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'It really freaked me out,' Neal told the Des Moines Register at the time. 'I won't get in any trouble for admitting this, will I?' In his memoir, Osbourne says he spat out the head and looked over to his future wife, Sharon, who screamed that the bat was real. 'Next thing I knew I was in a wheelchair, being rushed into an emergency room,' he wrote. 'Meanwhile, a doctor was saying to Sharon, 'Yes, Miss Arden, the bat was alive. It was probably stunned from being at a rock concert, but it was definitely alive. There's a good chance Mr. Osbourne now has rabies.' The incident made national headlines, with some skepticism over whether it was real or just another one of Osbourne's antics. 'You have to understand this is what's called 'shock rock' and the kids love it,' Rick Freiberg, in charge of bookings at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center and Arena, told the Des Moines Tribune, which later merged with the Register. 'It's all illusion.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Then again, Freiberg had reason to play down the controversy: Osbourne was due to play at his arena a few days later. 'Everyone thought I'd bitten the head of a bat on purpose, instead of it being a simple misunderstanding,' Osbourne wrote. 'For a while, I was worried we might be closed down, and a couple of venues did go ahead and ban us. The fans didn't help, either. After they heard about the bat, they started bringing even crazier stuff to the gigs. Going onstage was like being at a butchers' convention.' Osbourne had previous experience decapitating animals, however. Just a year earlier, the singer – who was using drugs and alcohol heavily at the time – had bitten the head off a dove during a meeting with CBS Records in what he said was a response to the label's tepid attitude toward his album. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. That incident – which, unlike the Des Moines controversy, appears to have been captured on camera – helped spur Neal to toss the bat onstage in the first place, he told the Register. Whether intentional or not, the bat bite became emblematic of Osbourne's growing brand. Decades later, it remains one of the most memorable things about his long and odd career. Osbourne once complained that he would be getting questions about the bat until he died – and beyond, according to the Register. 'And then they'll dig me up and ask me again,' he said. Read More Love concerts, but can't make it to the venue? Stream live shows and events from your couch with VEEPS, a music-first streaming service now operating in Canada. Click here for an introductory offer of 30% off. Explore upcoming concerts and the extensive archive of past performances. Canada Toronto & GTA Ontario Sunshine Girls Relationships
