Latest news with #JohnMichaelOsbourne
TimesLIVE
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
Top 5 Ozzy Osbourne memorable moments
The legendary frontman of heavy metal group Black Sabbath, John Michael Osbourne, popularly known as 'Ozzy', died on Tuesday at the age of 76 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease, his family said — just weeks after he gave an epic farewell concert. As the world pays tribute to the legend, we take you down memory lane, revisiting the craziest and most memorable moments of Osbourne: 1. Biting the head off a bat In January 1982, Osbourne shocked, disgusted and terrified the world when he bit a bat's head off during a concert. According to a report by International Business T imes, the rocker said he thought the bat was fake and later called the moment a mistake that haunted him for life. 2. Getting drunk at the White House In 2002, at the height of their reality TV fame, the Osbournes were invited to the White House as guests of President George W Bush. Unsurprisingly, the visit was a disaster. Woman's Day reported Osbourne made the most of the free bar and caused enough chaos that Bush was reportedly heard muttering, 'This might have been a mistake'. 3. Best Rock Album award Osbourne's Patient Number 9 earned him his second Grammy award, winning Best Rock Album at the 2023 Grammy Awards. It was a milestone achieved 30 years after his first Grammy win for best metal performance in 1993. 4. Proud dad Osbourne's recent concert in Birmingham, England, ended on a heartwarming note when he took a moment to celebrate a special family milestone — his daughter Kelly Osbourne's engagement. The emotional moment showcased the softer side of the rock legend. 5. His final concert His last concert was held on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, England. The event was not only a farewell for Osbourne but also a reunion of the original Black Sabbath group line-up, performing together for the first time in 20 years after announcing their retirement in 2017.
Fox News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne: Inside their epic love story and what's next for her
Ozzy Osbourne and Sharon Osbourne's love story spanned four decades before the rock star passed away on Tuesday, July 22 — just two weeks after the couple celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary. Ozzy, who was born John Michael Osbourne on Dec. 3, 1948, and later earned the nickname "The Prince of Darkness" from his shadowy heavy metal persona, was 76 at the time of his death. The Black Sabbath frontman was known as much for his indelible mark on the music industry as he was for his larger-than-life personality, be it on stage or in front of a camera while filming the massively successful reality show, "The Osbournes." Following his death, the Osbournes shared a statement with Fox News Digital. "It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family's privacy at this time." "It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family's privacy at this time." Although Sharon and Ozzy's marriage was full of happy moments, the couple endured the rocker's substance-abuse issues, infidelity and an incident in which Ozzy attempted to strangle Sharon. Below is a look at the timeline of the couple's relationship. Ozzy and Sharon first met in 1970 when Sharon's father, Don Arden, began working with Black Sabbath and eventually became the manager of the heavy metal band. It wasn't until years later that their relationship turned romantic. In 1979, Ozzy was fired from Black Sabbath due to his substance abuse issues. According to People, Ozzy then spent the next three months in a hotel room, drinking alcohol and using drugs. Sharon was the one who encouraged him to get back on his feet and became his manager. Sharon also motivated Ozzy to pursue a solo career. Ozzy and his first wife, Thelma Riley, divorced in 1982, and Sharon and Ozzy tied the knot that same year. On July 4, 1982, Ozzy and Sharon said "I do" in Hawaii. In 2022, Sharon took to Instagram to celebrate her wedding anniversary with Ozzy. "2022 is a special year for me. It marks 40 years of marriage to my darling Ozzy. We first met when I was 18, over 52 years we have been friends, lovers, husband & wife, grandparents and soulmates. Always at each other's side. I love you Ozzy ~ Sharrrrrrron x," her caption read. Ozzy already had three children, daughter Jessica and sons Elliot and Louis from his first marriage, when Sharon and the musician decided to start a family. Sharon and Ozzy welcomed three children together: their oldest daughter Aimee, daughter Kelly and son, Jack. Jack and Kelly appeared in the reality TV show, "The Osbournes." Aimee opted out of filming the show with her family because she "really valued" her privacy within her family. "It definitely worked great for the rest of my family, but for me, and who I am, I just knew it was never something that I would have been able to consider realistically," she told New York's Q1043 radio station in 2020. In 1989, Ozzy attempted to strangle Sharon. During an interview with The Standard, Ozzy admitted that even though he was intoxicated during the violent incident, that didn't persuade him to stop drinking. WATCH: Inside Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne's tumultuous relationship, unconventional family life "One of my daughters — Kelly — is 22, and she was just born when I first wanted to get help, so it's taken me all this time to finally do it. I mean, you can guarantee one of three things if you drink like I did: death, if you're lucky, insanity or jail. "I used to black out a lot. And my biggest fear was waking up in a police cell and having an old lady say to a police officer, yes, that's the guy who ran my husband down, or that's the guy who hit my son over the head with an axe. It used to terrify me ... And then it happened - that day when I woke up in this little single cell with human sh-- up the walls - and I thought, what the f--- have I done now? Has one of my practical jokes backfired? So I asked a police officer. I said: 'What am I here for?' I hadn't got a f---ing clue. It's the most horrific feeling. He read me a piece of paper, and said, 'You're charged with attempting to murder Mrs Sharon Osbourne.' I can't tell you how I felt. I just went numb. "But even that didn't stop me. It was only when I got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired that I finally got my sh-- together," he said. Sharon had her own violent incident in the past. In the early 2000s, Sharon was the host of the TV program "Rock of Love: Charm School" when she got into an argument with contestant Megan Hauserman. Sharon could be seen dumping a drink on the contestant before a brawl ensued. Hauserman later sued Sharon, accusing her of battery. Sharon countersued Hauserman before the pair were able to reach a settlement, Reuters reported in 2011. In 2013, Ozzy and Sharon faced divorce rumors after years of the "Dreamer" vocalist battling addiction. In April of that year, Ozzy shared a statement to Facebook to address the rumors. "For the last year and a half I have been drinking and taking drugs. I was in a very dark place and was an a--hole to the people I love most, my family. However, I am happy to say that I am now 44 days sober. "Just to set the record straight, Sharon and I are not divorcing. I'm just trying to be a better person. I would like to apologize to Sharon, my family, my friends and my band mates for my insane behavior during this period………and my fans. God Bless, Ozzy," his statement read. In May 2016, Ozzy and Sharon briefly split after Ozzy's infidelity surfaced. During an interview with "Good Morning America" in July of that year, Ozzy clarified that his marriage to Sharon was "back on track." While Ozzy was sitting down with GMA, Sharon publicly forgave her husband during an episode of "The Talk." "I forgive. It's going to take a long time to trust, but we've been together 36 years, 34 of marriage. I just can't think of my life without him," she said at the time. Ozzy's former hairstylist, Michelle Pugh, told People that she had a four-year affair with the rocker that began in 2012. "I can't deny that I fell in love with a married man that pursued me," she told the outlets weeks after Sharon forgave Ozzy publicly. A representative for Ozzy told the outlet at the time that he was in "intense therapy" for sex addiction and "would like to apologize to the other women he has been having sexual relationships with." Ozzy mentioned his cheating during an interview with British GQ in 2020. "I've done some pretty outrageous things in my life. I regret cheating on my wife. I don't do it anymore. "I got my reality check and I'm lucky she didn't leave me. I'm not proud of that. I was pissed off with myself. But I broke her heart," he said at the time. Sharon and Ozzy renewed their vows in May 2017. At the time, Ozzy told Hello! that saying "I do" for the second time meant more to him than their first go around. "For me, this was actually our real wedding day. This is the one that I will remember. Sharon and I have been through so much, and this honestly feels like a new beginning," he said. Ozzy addressed his past infidelity and said, "I made a huge mistake. Without Sharon, I am nothing. I love her. I can honestly say that I have never loved anybody other than my wife." Sharon mentioned her vow renewal shortly after on an episode of "The Talk." "35 years with someone is a hell of a long time. And I think I fell out of love with my husband and then fell back again," she said. Sharon has a number of projects that have been in the works prior to her husband's death. In 2021, news broke that Sharon and Ozzy were preparing to put their love story on the big screen for a biopic. "Our relationship at times was often wild, insane and dangerous but it was our undying love that kept us together. We're thrilled to partner with Sony Pictures and Polygram to bring our story to the screen," Sharon told Variety at the time. The film still does not have a title or a release date. A reality TV show on the BBC called "Home to Roost" was reportedly in the works and starred Sharon and Ozzy. Paramount+ announced in February a feature-length documentary all about the musician, titled, "Ozzy Osbourne: No Escape From Now."
Time of India
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Ozzy Osbourne's Raw Confession Resurfaces; Regrets Take New Meaning After Rock Legend's Death
/ Jul 24, 2025, 12:37PM IST Born John Michael Osbourne, the world came to know him as simply Ozzy, a rebel from Aston who transformed raw grit into rock royalty. From the shadows of Birmingham, he helped forge Black Sabbath into a global music powerhouse. Fittingly, his final live performance took place in his hometown, closing the circle where it all began. In a 2008 interview, Ozzy admitted he never expected to live past 60, recalling a life marked by chaos, regret, and constant intoxication. But he took ownership of every misstep, proudly saying that without that journey, he'd never have earned a Lifetime Achievement Award. On Tuesday, the heavy metal legend passed away at age 76, surrounded by love, family, and the echoes of a legacy that will never fade.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Ozzy Osbourne, the people's Prince of Darkness, took heavy metal into the light
As he would doubtless have admitted, the teenage John Michael 'Ozzy' Osbourne did not seem much like someone with a glittering future ahead of them. His childhood had been troubled – he struggled at school, partly as a result of dyslexia, and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of two older bullies – and his prospects after leaving school aged 15 seemed non-existent. Even his attempts to become a criminal ended in farce. He was, he later noted, 'fucking useless' as a burglar: a television he was attempting to steal fell on top of him; operating in the dark, he inadvertently stole a selection of baby clothes rather than the adult garments he had intended to sell around the pubs of his native Aston in Birmingham. Finally, he was caught and sent to prison for six weeks. 'OZZY ZIG NEEDS A GIG' read the card he left in the window of a local music shop, and 'need' seems to have been the operative word: by the time he joined a heavy blues rock band called Earth as vocalist, he was out of other options. It wasn't even as if Earth, or Black Sabbath as they became, offered an obvious ticket to fame and fortune: their big idea to advance their career involved loading their van up with equipment, then driving it to other artists' gigs uninvited, sitting outside on the off-chance that one of the bands performing pulled out and they could fill in. And when Osbourne opened his mouth to sing, you didn't need to know about his dismal CV to realise life hadn't dealt him a great hand. His voice was a desolate, unschooled wail, best suited to delivering songs that fitted the definition of rock'n'roll once offered by Dr Feelgood's late frontman Lee Brilleaux: 'Music about sod's law and bad luck.' The creation myth of Black Sabbath – and therefore of heavy metal, the genre they more or less invented singlehanded – is that it was a brilliantly canny piece of branding on the part of drummer Bill Ward: if people queued up to see horror films, why not create a rock equivalent? Black Sabbath certainly arrived fully formed – every one of the musical elements that made them legendary is perfectly in place on the eponymous opening track of their eponymous 1970 debut album – but the music they came up with in response to Ward's idea felt organic, not calculated. Black Sabbath sounded like a product of their environment: a grim, provincial, industrial world, where the drugs associated with the hippy counterculture had arrived, but not the freedoms or opportunities enjoyed by London's bohemian elite. And they sounded like a product of their era. If one response to the end of the 60s party was to be found in the wistful, delicate morning-after melancholy of 1970's biggest-selling album, Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, then Black Sabbath provided another: music that seemed as if it was lumbering angrily around with the kind of monstrous hangover that feels more like a nervous breakdown, suffused with dark thoughts, alienation, self-hatred and paranoia. Their debut still carried hints of the heavy blues band they had been – side two in particular sounds like a kind of curdled Cream – but by the time of 1970's Paranoid, they had honed their style into something entirely unique. It was hugely successful – quadruple platinum in the US – but, as with every early Black Sabbath album, critically reviled in a way that now seems scarcely believable: 'The worst of the counterculture on a plastic platter … bullshit … dull and decadent … dim-witted, amoral exploitation,' opined American writer Robert Christgau of the band. Their reception set the tone for the way heavy metal as a genre would be dismissed by 'serious' rock critics for decades to come, but there was a curious sense in which it worked in Sabbath's favour, turning them into the people's band, who connected with a vast audience of disaffected teenagers ('the kid down the block … slumped in his bedroom gorged on Tuinal … finding justification for his cancerous apathy,' as one contemporary writer characterised their fans) without the aid of the media. Osbourne bolstered that image himself. For all the dark mythology that surrounded the band – they seem to have spent a significant portion of the early 70s explaining to journalists that they weren't actually satanists – he cut a curiously unstudied figure on stage. Watch the YouTube footage of the band performing at the California Jam festival in April 1974 and what's striking is the disparity between the way they sound – monstrously heavy and dark – and the way Osbourne looks. No moody scowling or sullen posturing: he strips his shirt off, jumps up and down excitedly, claps along, raises his hands to the sky and waves his arms in delight. He behaves remarkably like a member of the audience who's been allowed on stage and can't quite believe his luck: in an era of rarefied rock gods preening, here was a rock star whose every move suggested he was just like you. The California Jam footage arguably captures Black Sabbath at their peak. The following year, Sabotage brought to an end a run of virtually flawless albums: Paranoid, Master of Reality, Vol 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Osbourne considered leaving the band during the recording of 1976's Technical Ecstasy, a confused attempt to expand their sound in the face of a changing musical climate – he toyed with starting a new band called Blizzard of Ozz – but instead found himself fired after the release of its underwhelming follow-up Never Say Die! His bandmates blamed drink and drug-related unreliability, Osbourne insisted that he was no more indulgent than the others. Whatever the truth, even Osbourne himself seemed to regard his sacking as the end of his musical career: he holed up in an LA hotel room, apparently intent on spending his severance pay on alcohol and drugs in the belief that 'after this I'm going back to Birmingham and the dole'. He reckoned without the intervention of the formidable Sharon Levy, sent to LA by her father, Black Sabbath's manager Don, to keep an eye on the singer. The pair not only became romantically involved, marrying in 1982, they proceeded to pull off a dramatic reinvention of Osbourne's career, hinging on a happy accident and an inspired idea. The happy accident was Osbourne stumbling across a virtually unknown guitarist called Randy Rhoads. In Rhoads' retelling of the story, Osbourne was so drunk at his audition that he hired him after only hearing him tune up. The inspired idea was to embrace the kind of negative attention that Black Sabbath had always attempted to dismiss. By the early 80s, heavy metal was a hugely successful musical genre. As its stock rose, so did the attention paid to the kind of lyrical themes that Black Sabbath had once specialised in. In the US in particular, rightwing conservatives and Christian fundamentalists created a mini-industry in taking self-evidently preposterous metal lyrics at face value and detecting inferences that were clearly completely unintentional. If heavy metal was now deemed an authentic threat to public morality rather than escapist entertainment, was Osbourne and Arden's thinking, then the genre's co-creator should be an embodiment of outrage. Out went the excitable frontman who was just like you. In came Ozzy Osbourne, cartoonish Prince of Darkness, who bit the head off a dove during a record company sales convention, then repeated the trick on stage in Des Moines, Iowa, this time with a live bat; took all his clothes off and dipped his testicles in a glass of wine at a dinner with his German label bosses; and urinated on the Alamo Cenotaph. It wasn't entirely clear whether Osbourne himself was working to some brilliant self-publicising masterplan or just a raging alcoholic doing ridiculous things because he was pissed, but either way, the attendant controversy sent his popularity skyward, helped by the fact that his first two solo albums, 1980's Blizzard of Ozz and 1981's Diary of a Madman, were infinitely better records than anyone who had encountered Osbourne towards the end of his tenure with Sabbath would have believed he was capable of making. His voice was apparently unaffected by the abuse he visited upon his body. Rhoads was a lavishly gifted guitarist, his classical training – most obvious on Diary of a Madman's title track – shifting his playing away from the blues-based style that had dominated hard rock in the 70s, presaging the way heavy metal would move in the 80s. The songs they came up with were more varied than the cartoon imagery would suggest: the most obvious influence on Goodbye to Romance was Osbourne's beloved Beatles in their psychedelic prime. The albums and the outrage made Osbourne so famous as a solo star, he seemed weirdly impregnable. Nothing, it appeared, could dent his success. Not the death of Rhoads in a 1982 plane crash, nor the noticeable decline in quality of Osbourne's albums – 1982's pointless collection of re-recorded Black Sabbath songs Speak of the Devil, the full-bore glam metal of 1983's Bark at the Moon – nor his increasing addiction problems. He sounded rejuvenated by the arrival of guitarist Zakk Wylde on 1988's No Rest for the Wicked and 1991's No More Tears, but in between was arrested for attempted murder after strangling his wife, Sharon, during a drink and drug binge. He subsequently emerged from rehab – his marriage, incredibly, still intact – but remained an uneven recording artist for the rest of his life. Genuinely great albums – including 2001's underrated Down to Earth, reunited with Wylde and with a pre-Metallica Robert Trujillo on bass – shared space in his discography with wan efforts such as 1995's hopelessly overproduced Ozzmosis, and stuff that lurked somewhere inbetween, a category in which you might reasonably place Black Sabbath's Rick Rubin-produced reunion album 13. You could never have accused Osbourne of shying away from the unexpected, whether it was experimenting with Auto-Tune on 2022's Patient Number 9, or offering up a remarkably faithful version of John Lennon's distinctly soppy Woman on 2005's Under Cover. Again, the mixed quality of his output did nothing to affect his standing. His celebrity was boosted by reality show The Osbournes, which elevated him to national treasure status, something it was hard to imagine happening in the years when his audience was held to be Tuinal-gorged losers scarred by the cancer of apathy. And perhaps more importantly, under Sharon Osbourne's aegis, he fully embraced his Godfather of Metal tag, presiding over the scores of younger artists who appeared at his annual Ozzfest tours – and, finally, his poignant farewell with the all-star Back to the Beginning concert, just three weeks ago. The sheer number of artists who turned out to pay homage in Villa Park was astonishing: it said everything about the regard in which the band and its frontman were held by the metal community. However much heavy metal has changed and developed over the last 56 years, it's very difficult to imagine how it might have turned out had Black Sabbath not existed. Every artist who chose to work in the genre thereafter – and indeed umpteen artists that didn't – carries something of Black Sabbath in their DNA, and one suspects they always will. It's equally hard to imagine Black Sabbath making anything like the impact they did without Ozzy Osbourne. 'I always thought that whatever I had was temporary,' he wrote in his autobiography I Am Ozzy, a line that perhaps harks back to his desperate pre-Sabbath early years. The exact opposite proved to be true.
France 24
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
Ozzy Osbourne: key dates
- December 3, 1948: Born John Michael Osbourne into a working-class family in Birmingham, England. Gains his nickname Ozzy in primary school. Leaves school at the age of 15 before working in manual jobs, including as a plumber and at an abattoir. - 1968: With little experience in music, becomes singer of a Birmingham-based band which will become Black Sabbath. - 1970: Black Sabbath releases its second and most successful album, "Paranoid", which includes three of its signature songs. - 1979: Sacked from Black Sabbath for drug and alcohol abuse. - 1980: Releases his debut solo album, "Blizzard of Ozz". - 1982: In one of the many unusual episodes for which he becomes infamous, bites the head off a live bat during a concert in the US city of Des Moines, Iowa. - 1997: Rejoins Black Sabbath. - 2002-2005: Appears as the doting grandfather in MTV's hit reality show "The Osbournes", about him and his family. - 2003: Records "13", his first studio album with Black Sabbath after a 35-year absence. - January 2020: Reveals he has Parkinson's Disease. - July 5, 2025: Gives a farewell concert with Black Sabbath in his hometown, telling the sold-out crowd: "Thank you from the bottom of our hearts." - July 22, 2025: Dies at the age of 76. © 2025 AFP
