TRANSCRIPT
Either clad in black or bare-chested, Ozzy Osbourne was often the target of parents’ groups for his imagery and once caused an uproar for biting the head off a bat.
Later, he would reveal himself to be a doddering and sweet father on the reality TV show “The Osbournes.”
His career as the front man for Black Sabbath started in 1967 with an advert in a shop window - "Ozzy Zig Needs a Gig".
The band that replied became Black Sabbath, and Ozzy Osbourne began his career - to his own surprise - as the 'Prince of Darkness'.
"When Black Sabbath first formed forty odd years ago we used to rehearse across the road from a picture house and Tony Iommi said wasn't it funny how people liked to go watch horror films and get scared and why didn't we start writing scary music? And that's really the way it started. We weren't practicing witchcraft. We didn't realise it was for real."
Born John Michael Osbourne, he dropped out of school aged 15, holding several low-paid jobs and spending a short spell in prison for burglary before embarking on his musical career.
Osbourne was always proud of his roots in the UK Midlands and the fact the band came from the streets - and not some record company executive.
"The thing what I like about Black Sabbath was the fact that we weren't a creation by some mogul who said, 'oh we'll get a guy from Glasgow, this guy and whatever'. We were 4 guys, local guys from Aston in Birmingham who had go and we got successful and that's something you can't buy, especially nowadays you know."
Black Sabbath’s first LP in 1969 - titled simply 'Black Sabbath' is seen by many as the 'Big Bang' of heavy metal.
It came during the height of the Vietnam War and crashed the hippie 'summer of love' party, dripping menace and foreboding.
The cover of the record was of a spooky figure against a stark landscape.
The music was loud, dense and angry, and marked a shift in rock ’n’ roll.
But the band's first manager, Jim Simpson, says Osbourne was exactly the opposite.
"He was one of nature's good guys, one of the real innocents of this world. Totally trusting. The world has lost a better soul than they probably imagine they had in their company until Ozzy's passing."
His stage presence was unhinged at times, with many pointing to the possibly apocryphal story that he bit the head off a bat live on stage, later claiming he thought it was a rubber toy thrown on stage by a fan.
Drink and drugs, and a habit of showing up late for rehearsals and missing gigs, led to him being fired by the band in 1979.
Osbourne reemerged the next year with a solo album “Blizzard of Ozz” and the following year’s “Diary of a Madman,” both hard rock classics that went multi-platinum.
In the 1990s, the MTV reality show The Osbournes became a worldwide hit, portraying the star as a well-meaning, often befuddled patriarch of an unruly household.
He told the New York Times that was the real Ozzy Osbourne - 'I am not the Antichrist', he said, 'I'm a family man'.
The original Sabbath lineup reunited for the first time in 20 years in July 2025 in the U.K. for what Osborne said would be his final concert.
The concert lineup included the royalty of rock, including Metallica, Guns N Roses, Slayer, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, and many others.
"I've met some amazing people, I've experienced so much good, bad... it's just been phenomenal. And I'm a Brummie!"
Just two weeks after that last concert, Ozzy Osbourne died, according to his family, surrounded by love.
Online, Sir Rod Stewart said: "Sleep well, my friend. I'll see you up there - later rather than sooner."
Queen's guitarist Sir Brian May said "the world will miss Ozzy's unique presence and fearless talent".
