Ozzy Osbourne, heavy metal icon and cultural figure, has passed away at 76, weeks following his poignant last concert with Black Sabbath at Villa Park in the U.K.
The devastating news was verified by his family in a public release signed by wife Sharon and children Kelly, Jack, Aimee, and Louis, Ozzy’s son from his first marriage. “He was with his family and loved ones,” the release stated. “We ask everyone to respect our family’s privacy during this time.
Ozzy, whose real name was John Michael Osbourne, was a musician, but more than that, he was the Prince of Darkness, one of the founding fathers of heavy metal who defined the sound and attitude of the genre. Ozzy co-founded Black Sabbath in 1968 with iconic hits such as “Iron Man,” “War Pigs,” and “Paranoid,” forever changing the face of rock music. After he left the band in 1979 because of his continued abuse problems, he released an epic solo comeback in 1980 with Blizzard of Ozz and the now-famous “Crazy Train.” Ozzy was off and running from then on, releasing 13 solo records, all while building a rep as being as crazy offstage as on it, like the time he bit a bat head off during a live show in 1982? (Yep, he received a rabies shot for it.)
But Ozzy was more than a metal icon. He was also pop culture icon. Between 2002 and 2005, MTV’s The Osbournes showed the world up close and personal into his crazy, funny, and sometimes tearful life at home. It was the first reality TV family show on television and provided fans with an inside look into his constant struggles with addiction and health problems.
In 2020, Ozzy went public about living with Parkinson’s disease, a battle he’d privately faced since 2003. “I’m not dying from Parkinson’s. I’ve been working with it most of my life,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Still, the toll was real. In addition to Parkinson’s, Ozzy endured multiple spinal surgeries, a serious staph infection in 2018, and complications from a nasty fall that re-aggravated old injuries. As he explained to The Guardian in May, “You wake up the next morning and discover that something else has gone wrong. You start to think this is never going to stop.”
Through the scares for his health, Ozzy never ceased to be Ozzy. In January of 2024, he was inducted once again into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, this time for his solo career. Earlier this month, fans wept watching as he took his “final bow” at home in Birmingham, sitting on a throne but still dominating the stage that he was a legend on.
Ozzy Osbourne leaves behind a gigantic legacy. If it weren’t for pioneering metal as a member of Black Sabbath, revamping reality TV, or just being unapologetically himself, he did it all by straddling the balance between madness and charisma. The world lost one of its great icons, but his voice, his madness, and his music will never die.
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