Ozzy Osbourne, the groundbreaking frontman of Black Sabbath and a hugely influential figure in heavy metal, has died. “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,” a statement from his family reads, per The Guardian. “He was with his family and surrounded by love.” Osbourne was 76.
The musician’s family did not provide a cause of death, but Osbourne has been struggling with a variety of health complications over the past few years, largely stemming from Parkinson’s disease, which he was diagnosed with in 2019. While he announced his retirement from the road several times over the course of his career—going so far as to launch a tour titled “No More Tours” in 1992 and another called “No More Tours II” in 2018—the legendary rocker actually played his final show just weeks before he died in a sold-out farewell event titled “Back To The Beginning” in his native Birmingham. Osbourne sat on stage in a black throne for his last show with Black Sabbath’s original lineup, the first time they’d shared the stage in 20 years. The band only got through a handful of songs, but those songs “contained some of the most bludgeoning, earth-rending guitar riffs ever conceived,” NBC News wrote of the show. “You’ve got no idea how I feel,” Osbourne told the rapturous crowd midway through the set. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
It’s not surprising that so many fans—not to mention the elite roster of other metal artists that performed that day, including Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, and more—would show up to send Osbourne on his way. A two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee with over a dozen platinum records under his belt, Osbourne, a.k.a. the “Prince of Darkness,” was integral to the rise of heavy metal. “Without Black Sabbath, there would be no Metallica,” Metallica’s frontman James Hetfield said during his set at Osbourne’s farewell show. “Thank you, boys, for giving us a purpose in life.”
Osbourne was born in Birmingham, England in 1948. He spent his early years working a series of odd jobs before finding his way into a band containing three other young Birmingham musicians—Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, and Tony Iommi—in 1968. The group took a few unsuccessful stabs at different genres before stumbling on the logic that people paid to be scared at horror movies, per The New York Times. Thinking it might be the same for them, the group chose the name Black Sabbath from a Boris Karloff film, and a new legend was born.
The quartet released their self-titled debut, which already gestured at the extremely loud, incredibly fast style the band would become known for, in 1970. They would go on to release seven more albums over the next eight years. While NYT notes that the band was generally “reviled by critics and snubbed by radio stations,” many of the those albums were still certified platinum and introduced the world to songs like “Paranoid,” “Iron Man,” and “War Pigs,” which still drew raucous reactions from the crowd at the farewell show several decades later.
As Osbourne’s star grew, however, so did his struggles with drugs and alcohol. “Over the past 40 years I’ve been loaded on booze, coke, acid, quaaludes, glue, cough mixture, heroin, Rohypnol, Klonopin, Vicodin, and too many other heavy-duty substances to list,” he wrote in his 2009 memoir, I Am Ozzy (via NYT). While his antics kept him in the limelight, they caused trouble with the band, who fired him in 1979 after he fell asleep in the wrong hotel room and missed a show. It was during this period that he met and married Sharon Osbourne (née Arden) on July 4, a date he said he chose so he wouldn’t forget his anniversary.
It was also during this time that Osbourne launched his incredibly successful solo career, which kicked off in 1980 with the release of Blizzard Of Ozz, the album featuring his mega-hit “Crazy Train.” Over the following years, the artist would descend deeper into his crazy rock star persona. In a series of infamous incidents, the singer bit the head off of a live dove at a conference, and then a live bat at a concert in Des Moines. He snorted a line of live ants in front of Tommy Lee and urinated on the Alamo, which resulted in a years-long ban from performing in San Antonio, per NYT.
Behind the scenes, however, Osbourne’s personality was a bit different. “All the stuff onstage, the craziness, it’s all just a role that I play, my work,” the artist told NYT in a 1992 interview. “I am not the Antichrist. I am a family man.” He showed that persona to the world in The Osbournes, a MTV reality series documenting his home life with Sharon and their children that exploded in popularity after its launch in 2002. It aired its final episode in 2005.
Osbourne continued to tour and release live music over the next decade, although he occasionally canceled shows for health-related setbacks. He announced his Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2020 after being diagnosed in 2019. Three years later, he shared that he would be leaving the road for good as his condition worsened, writing at the time that “the thought of disappointing my fans really FUCKS ME UP, more than you will ever know.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone UK ahead of his final bow earlier this month, the rock star against expressed his deep gratitude for the fans who have “been loyal to me for fucking years.” “I just want to be well enough to do one show where I can say, ‘Hi guys, thanks so much for my life,'” he added. “If I drop down dead at the end of it, I’ll die a happy man.”
