THE LIFE AND DEATH OF OZZY OSBOURNE

   On July 22, 2025, just three weeks after his farewell show in his hometown, Ozzy Osbourne passed away at age 76. Despite this tragic news, fans of “The Prince of Darkness” celebrate his life and the influence he had on music and culture. Not only was Ozzy a pioneer in the early development of metal, but he also lived quite an interesting and eventful life. 

   Born in Birmingham in 1948, Jack Osbourne, Ozzy’s father, was a toolmaker and his mother worked at a car component factory. He picked up the nickname Ozzy when he was in elementary school, which proved to be a challenging and miserable experience for him. Dropping out at just the age of 15, Ozzy wandered the streets of his town attempting to pick up odd jobs, such as a slaughterhouse where he played jokes like putting cow eyeballs in people’s drinks when he visited a pub. He even made an attempt at a life of crime via burglaries, though unsuccessful. Once, a TV fell on him while he was trying to steal it, and another time he accidentally stole baby clothes instead of adult garments due to navigating in the dark. Eventually he was caught and spent some time in his local county jail, ceasing his stealing thereafter.

   It was hearing the Beatles on the radio that first turned his focus towards music. “It was such an incredible explosion of happiness and hope” he told writer Bryan Appleyard. With the help of a friend, he formed his first band called “Rare Breed” which only made it to two performances. The pair then became part of a blues group named the “Polka Tulk Blues”, later renamed “Earth”. This band focused heavily on making what they considered “Scary music”, the industrial working class environment that surrounded them shaping the way the band sounded.

   Eventually the group was renamed to Black Sabbath after a 1963 horror film of the same name. This band would eventually go on to revolutionize metal music across the globe, especially in Britain. They would release their self-titled album in 1970, followed by several other albums regarded as pillars for heavy metal as a genre. Ozzy by himself also had a successful solo career, releasing 13 studio albums, the first one being 1980s “Blizzard of Oz”.

   Early into his career, Ozzy Osbourne became hooked on drinking and drugs, causing his bandmates to fire him after an especially bad tour. Due to his heavy use of narcotics he had also become famous for his erratic and strange behavior. The most known incident is when performing onstage in Iowa 1982, he bit the head off of a live bat. He had been throwing raw meat into the audience as part of his show, and in return members of the crowd threw things back. Claiming he thought the bat was fake, Ozzy decided to up his stage performance by taking a bite. He however apparently did this again with two doves during a record label meeting the previous year, his reasons for this unknown.

   In 1989, Ozzy was arrested for apparently strangling his wife, Sharon, while drunk, though she later dropped the charges.Ozzy has also been arrested for urinating on a Texas war monument while wearing one of his wife’s dresses, as well as getting thrown out of a concentration camp for being drunk and disorderly while visiting on a German tour. He has also himself reported pulling a gun on the band’s drummer while tripping acid, blacking out and waking up in the middle of a 12 lane highway, and massacring all of his pet chickens with a gun, sword, and fire while wearing a dressing gown. 

   Osbourne toured constantly throughout the 80s and 90s, gaining huge commercial success through a series of tours called Ozzfest, which featured many bands across countless genres of metal. He and his wife and children also appeared on a reality TV series called “Meet The Osbournes” from 2002-2005. The show followed the domestic lifestyle of the family and the bizarre way they interacted with each other daily. The show went on to become the second ever winner of the Emmy for outstanding reality programmes.

   In 2018, Ozzy claimed to have quit the drugs and booze and would be resuming his touring lifestyle. “I have grandchildren now and I’m 70 years old and I don’t want to be found dead in a hotel room somewhere” he told a journalist while promoting that year’s Ozzfest. However, at the same time he had other health issues to keep under control. In 2019 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a disorder that causes uncontrollable shaking. That same year he suffered a spinal damage injury due to a fall, worsening a previous injury from a bike crash.

   Despite his many health and substance battles, Ozzy was determined to go down swinging. On July 5, 2025 he got together with his wife and Black Sabbath’s old members to perform a final concert a block away from his childhood home. “I’m proud of what I’ve

 achieved in my life,” he told an interviewer, “you couldn’t have written my life story if you’d been the best writer in the world”.