Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76

The Guardian

5 days ago

Ozzy Osbourne, whose gleeful 'Prince of Darkness' image made him one of the most iconic rock frontmen of all time, has died aged 76.
A statement from the Osbourne family reads: '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. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.' No cause of death was given, though Osbourne had experienced various forms of ill health in recent years.
Osbourne was one of the most notorious figures in rock: an innovator whose eerie wail helped usher in heavy metal, a showman who once bit the head off a bat on stage, an addict whose substance abuse led him to attempt to murder his wife, and latterly, a reality TV star much loved for his bemusement at family life on The Osbournes.
His death comes less than three weeks after his retirement from performance. On 5 July, Osbourne reunited with his original bandmates in the pioneering group Black Sabbath for the first time since 2005, for Back to the Beginning: an all-star farewell concert featuring some of the biggest names in metal. 'I've been laid up for six years, and you've got no idea how I feel,' he told the crowd that night, referring to extensive health issues including a form of Parkinson's and numerous surgeries on his spine. 'Thank you from the bottom of my heart.'
He was born John Michael Osbourne in Aston, Birmingham, in 1948, the son of a pair of factory workers. He had a tough upbringing. As well as living in relative poverty, aged 11 he was repeatedly sexually abused by two boys: 'It was terrible … It seemed to go on for ever,' he told the Mirror in 2003. He was also jailed for burglary: 'I was no good at that. Fucking useless,' he admitted in 2014.
This industrial working-class environment fed into the sound of Osbourne's defining musical project, Black Sabbath, whose heavy sound revolutionised British rock music. 'We wanted to put how we thought about the world at the time,' the band's bassist, Geezer Butler, said in 2017. 'We didn't want to write happy pop songs. We gave that industrial feeling to it.'
Named after a Boris Karloff horror movie, the band, also featuring Tony Iommi on guitar and Bill Ward on drums, released their self-titled debut in 1970, followed by further albums regarded as foundation stones of the heavy-metal genre. Paranoid (1970) featured the strutting anthems Iron Man and War Pigs and topped the UK album chart, while the cacophonous, psychedelic sound of Master of Reality (1971) remains a huge influence on the slower sound of doom metal.
Osbourne recorded a further five acclaimed albums with the group, but became so dependent on alcohol and drugs that he was fired in 1979, and replaced by Ronnie James Dio. Osbourne eventually returned to the band for the 2013 album 13, which topped the charts in the US and UK. Black Sabbath also went on tour, playing their final concert in Birmingham on 4 February 2017.
Osbourne went solo shortly after leaving Black Sabbath, and beginning with Blizzard of Ozz – which went five times platinum in the US – released 11 studio albums, the most recent being 2020's Ordinary Man. It featured collaborations with young rap artists Post Malone and Travis Scott, as well as a guest spot from Elton John.
The most notorious incident involving Osbourne happened in 1982, when he bit off the head of a dead bat he believed to be a stage prop while performing in Des Moines, Iowa. He later went to hospital to receive a precautionary rabies inoculation. He also claimed – and this was corroborated by his one-time publicist Mick Wall – to have bitten the heads off two doves during a 1981 record label meeting that went sour, having originally intended to release the birds as a sign of peace.
In the 80s and 90s, he had occasional UK Top 40 hits, including Bark at the Moon (1983) and Perry Mason (1995). He eventually hit No 1 in 2003 with Changes, a duet with his daughter Kelly, 40.
Osbourne has two other children with wife Sharon – Jack, 39, and Aimee, 41 – and two with first wife, Thelma – Jessica and Louis. His marriage to Thelma had deteriorated because of his alcoholism, and he later admitted he couldn't remember Jessica and Louis being born.
In 1982, he married Sharon, who had begun managing his solo career after the pair met three years earlier. Her business acumen paired with his enduring popularity helped them accrue huge wealth. Ozzfest, the metal music festival founded by Sharon in 1996, toured the US most years and also had outings in the UK and Japan.
In 1989, he was arrested for attempting to murder Sharon by strangling her while drunk. He recounted the incident in a 2007 interview: 'I woke up in this little single cell with human shit up the walls – and I thought, 'What the fuck have I done now?' … [A police officer] read me a piece of paper, and said, 'You're charged with attempting to murder Mrs Sharon Osbourne.' I can't tell you how I felt. I just went numb.' The couple later reconciled, though briefly split again in 2016 after Ozzy was unfaithful with a hair stylist.
Ozzy and Sharon, along with Kelly and Jack, appeared in the reality TV series The Osbournes from 2002 to 2005. A fly-on-the-wall documentary series that followed the family's domestic life – complete with dog therapists, 'vagina doctors' and an endless stream of imaginative bad language from everyone – it became a ratings hit, and, in 2002, the second ever winner of the Emmy award for outstanding reality programme.
Ozzy broke his neck, collarbone and ribs in a quad biking accident at his Buckinghamshire home in 2003. Sharon later said he had stopped breathing for a minute and a half 'and there was no pulse'; he was also told he was almost paralysed by the accident. In 2005, he was diagnosed with Parkin syndrome, which causes bodily tremors.
In 2013, following years of sobriety, he admitted he had been drinking and taking drugs for a year and a half, but was committed to becoming sober again, saying: 'I was in a very dark place and was an asshole to the people I love most, my family.'
In 2019, Osbourne performed what was billed as his final world tour, entitled No More Tours 2. (He first announced his retirement in 1992 with the No More Tours tour, but later reversed his decision.) Illness forced him to postpone the European dates in 2020. 'It just seems that since October, everything I touch has turned to shit,' he said in an apologetic statement – he had also spent time in hospital to receive treatment for an infection in his hand.
In 2020 he announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's, and in 2022 had surgery on his spine, having suffered a fall in 2019 that exacerbated the earlier quad biking injuries. In 2023, he cancelled a UK and Europe tour due to being 'physically weak', describing 'three operations, stem cell treatments, endless physical therapy sessions, and most recently groundbreaking Cybernics (HAL) treatment.'
Osbourne became depressed amid the extensive treatment, as he described in a May 2025 interview with the Guardian. 'You wake up the next morning and find that something else has gone wrong. You begin to think this is never going to end,' he said. 'Sharon could see that I was in Doom Town, and she says to me, 'I've got an idea.' It was something to give me a reason to get up in the morning.'
This was the Back to the Beginning concert held at Villa Park in Birmingham, which saw Osbourne reunite with Butler, Iommi and Ward for a four-song set, following a five-song solo set. Osbourne performed seated in a bat-adorned throne, but put in a spirited performance, telling the audience at one point: 'I am Iron Man: go fucking crazy!' The concert also featured performances by legends including Metallica, Slayer and Guns N' Roses.
Elton John was among those paying tribute to Osbourne, writing: 'He was a dear friend and a huge trailblazer who secured his place in the pantheon of rock gods – a true legend. He was also one of the funniest people I've ever met. I will miss him dearly.'