Black Sabbath Drummer Reveals How Ozzy Osbourne Felt About the Singer Who Replaced Him
It has been an emotional month for Black Sabbath fans. If seeing the four members reunite to play one farewell show wasn't emotional enough, then they had their hearts broken by the shocking death of just a few weeks later. With emotions flying, metalheads dove into their discography and soon remembered that, oh yeah, Ozzy wasn't Sabbath's only singer.
Yes, Black Sabbath (Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward) fired Osbourne in 1979 over his substance abuse and an overall disinterest in doing anything with the band. They replace Ozzy with Ronnie James Dio, ushering in the "Heaven and Hell" era—and the longstanding rumor that Ozzy held a grudge against Dio. But is that true?
"Ozzy would always tell me how he loved Ronnie," said Vinny Appice in a new interview with Truck Nation With Eddie Trunk, per Metal Hammer. Appice, 67, played drums for Rick Derringer in the 1970s. Black Sabbath asked him to replace Ward during the Heaven and Hell tour in 1980, after Ward's personal issues led him to take a break from the band.
Appice would play with the Dio-era Sabbath, the spin-off band Heaven and Hell, and on the albums Mob Rules and Live Evil. He would also follow Ronnie James when he started his solo band, Dio.
"Everybody created this thing that they hate each other, but Ozzy used to talk about it all the time. Things get blown up on the internet, and you don't know the truth, really, what's going on," said Appice. "He used to sit down and tell me about Ronnie, too. You know, he really liked Ronnie and this and that."
In 2022, Osbourne said on his SiriusXM show, Ozzy Speaks, that he thought Dio "did a good job" fronting Black Sabbath. He also admitted he felt sad over getting sacked at the time, since Sabbath was "the only thing that ever really happened to me."
And he did admit that he still hadn't listened to the Dio-era Sabbath albums. "It's like my ex-wife," he said. "You leave a band like that, it's just like getting divorced."Black Sabbath Drummer Reveals How Ozzy Osbourne Felt About the Singer Who Replaced Him first appeared on Parade on Jul 28, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 28, 2025, where it first appeared.
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