Ozzy Osbourne, the Black Sabbath singer who died today aged 76, embodied the excesses of metal but later became a loveable household name.
His outlandish exploits included relieving himself on the Alamo, snorting a line of ants off a sidewalk and, most memorably, biting the head off the live bat that a fan threw onstage during a 1981 concert. (He said he thought it was rubber.)
Osbourne was sued in 1987 by parents of a 19-year-old teen who died by suicide while listening to his song “Suicide Solution.” The lawsuit was dismissed. Osbourne said the song was really about the dangers of alcohol, which caused the death of his friend Bon Scott, lead singer of AC/DC.
Then-Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York claimed in 1990 that Osbourne’s songs led to demonic possession and even suicide. “You are ignorant about the true meaning of my songs,” the singer wrote back. “You have also insulted the intelligence of rock fans all over the world.”
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Audiences at Osbourne shows could be mooned or spit on by the singer. They would often be hectored to scream along with the song, but the Satan-invoking Osbourne would usually send the crowds home with their ears ringing and a hearty “God bless!”
Courting controversy — and wholesomeness
Whoever he was playing with, Osbourne wasn’t likely to back down from controversy. He had the last laugh when the TV evangelist the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart in 1986 lambasted various rock groups and rock magazines as “the new pornography,” prompting some retailers to pull Osbourne’s album.
When Swaggart later was caught with a sex worker in 1988, Osbourne put out the song “Miracle Man” about his foe: “Miracle man got busted/miracle man got busted,” he sang. “Today I saw a Miracle Man, on TV cryin’/Such a hypocritical man, born again, dying.”
Much later, a whole new Osbourne would be revealed when “The Osbournes,” which ran on MTV from 2002-2005, showed this one-time self-proclaimed madman drinking Diet Cokes as he struggled to find the History Channel on his new satellite television or warning his kids not to smoke or drink before they embarked on a night on the town.
Later, he and his son Jack toured America on the travel show “Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour,” where the pair visited such places as Mount Rushmore and the Space Center Houston. Osbourne was honoured in 2014 with the naming of a bat frog found in the Amazon that makes high-pitched, batlike calls. It was dubbed Dendropsophus ozzyi.
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He also met Queen Elizabeth II during her Golden Jubilee weekend. He was standing next to singer-actor Cliff Richard. “She took one look at the two of us, said ‘Oh, so this is what they call variety, is it?’ then cracked up laughing. I honestly thought that Sharon had slipped some acid into my cornflakes that morning,” he wrote in “I Am Ozzy”.
Thelma Riley and Osbourne married in 1971. Osbourne adopted her son Elliot Kingsley, and they had two more children, Jessica and Louis. Osbourne later met Sharon, who became her own celebrity persona, when she was running her father’s Los Angeles office. Her father was Don Arden, a top concert promoter and artist manager. She went to Osbourne’s hotel in Los Angeles to collect money, which Osbourne had spent on drugs.
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“She says she’ll come back in three days and I’d better have it. I’d always fancied her and I thought, ‘Ah, she’s coming back! Maybe I have a chance.’ I had pizza hanging from my hair, cigarette ashes on my shirt,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. They married in 1982, had three children — Kelly, Aimee and Jack — and endured periodic separations and reconciliations.
– with 1News.co.nz
