Latest news with #Des Moines
BreakingNews.ie
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Ozzy Osbourne's most shocking moments
Ozzy Osbourne was famed as a provocative and powerful performer on stage and a wild hedonist off it. The Black Sabbath singer and successful solo artist was known for his controversial live shows. Advertisement Drug and alcohol use often fuelled manic behaviour in front of his adoring audiences, and also his most crazed moments in between shows. These are some of the most memorable and infamous moments from the hell-raising life of the late heavy metal pioneer. The Alamo In 1982, Osbourne was wearing one of his wife's dresses for a photoshoot close to The Alamo in Texas, the site of a heroic sacrifice by the Texan troops against the invading Mexicans. The rock star drunkenly relieved himself on a cenotaph commemorating the dead, later donating thousands to the group which maintains The Alamo. Advertisement View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ozzy Osbourne (@ozzyosbourne) Cats In the midst of an alcohol and drug haze, Osbourne said that he set about slaughtering 17 cats with a shotgun. The rocker said he was found by his wife under a piano, armed with a knife in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Ants Osbourne toured with Motley Crue in the 1980s, and it was during this time that he is rumoured to have shocked his fellow rockers after 'spotting' a line of ants. Bassist Nikki Sixx claimed that Osbourne took a straw and, as if snorting cocaine, hoovered the line of ants up his nose. Advertisement Bats In 1982, Osbourne was on stage at a gig in Des Moines, Iowa, during a US tour. A fan threw a bat on stage, and in the frenzy of performance Osbourne – believing it to be rubber – bit its head off. There remains debate as to whether the bat was alive or dead when it was thrown on stage. Happy National Bat Day 🦇 — Ozzy Osbourne (@OzzyOsbourne) April 17, 2025 Doves Osbourne had history with the decapitation of winged creatures, beginning with an incident which stunned CBS Records executives. Celebrating a new album in 1981, the Black Country-born rock star was intending to release two doves in a symbolic act at the record label. Instead, he grabbed a dove and bit its head off, before being thrown out of the building. Advertisement
New York Times
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Biting a Bat and 5 Other Wild Moments from Ozzy Osbourne's Life
Wild and memorable moments punctuated — and sometimes overshadowed — the long career of Ozzy Osbourne, the English heavy metal legend who died this week at 76. He earned fame as the lead singer of Black Sabbath, a solo artist, and later through 'The Osbournes,' the reality show about his family. But the rocker known as the 'Prince of Darkness' was also infamous for excess — much of it fueled by alcohol and drugs. Here are some of the more outlandish moments: Jan. 20, 1982: Bat Decapitation It's the first thing many people who aren't metal fans think of when they hear the name Ozzy Osbourne, and maybe the only thing. Yes, Osbourne actually bit the head off a bat onstage in Des Moines. During a solo tour that year, the singer and his fans had taken to throwing animal parts at each other. (Ah, rock 'n' roll.) One night in January, a fan hurled a bat onto the stage. In a moment captured on video, Osbourne, who later said he thought it was a toy, picked it up and bit in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Daily Mail
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Ozzy Osbourne's wildest moments! From 'snorting' ants to biting the head off a bat and talking to a horse while on acid, the Black Sabbath star's most famous hedonistic antics
was known for his wild antics both on and off stage and provided fans with some more than memorable moments over the years. The Black Sabbath frontman's drug–fuelled antics never failed to shock at the height of his fame, and the Prince of Darkness certainly lived up to his name. His most infamous moment was arguably when he bit the head off a bat that had been thrown on stage during a solo performance in 1982. But that wasn't the only time he made headlines for his crazed antics and the metal legend never shied away from openly chatting about his most memorable moments. Despite his wild antics and controversies giving him quite the unruly reputation, Ozzy remained a leading pioneer in heavy metal music and earned his place as a true national treasure. Upon the sad news of his death aged 76, his loyal fans have been fondly looking back on some of his unforgettable and wildest moments during his decades–long career. Biting the head off a bat Arguably one of the most famous and crazed celebrity moments ever was when Ozzy bit the head off a bat live on stage. The metal star became synonymous with the flying animal after the unexpected moment at the Des Moines Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Iowa in January 1982. A concertgoer bizarrely hurled the bat on stage with Ozzy then picking it up and ripping into it with his teeth. His mouth was seen filling with blood as the audience watched on in horror, and he never lived down the shocking incident. He has been repeatedly asked about the moment over the years, but long insisted that he thought the bat was a rubber toy rather than a live animal. Ozzy complained that he had to rush to hospital after the show for a rabies shot and claimed the bat was alive. However, this was disputed by audience member Mark Neal who claimed to have thrown the animal and insisted it was dead. 'For anyone out there who thinks it's ''cool''… and if you want to be a complete d**k, try it,' Ozzy previously said. Now one of the wildest moments in rock n' roll history, it became a symbol of Ozzy's career and he fully embraced this, even selling bat toys with a removable head. ... and biting the head off a DOVE His stomach–churning antics with animals didn't stop there as he also came under fire for biting a dove's head off in 1981. Ozzy famously showed up with some live doves while meeting a group of music executives to celebrate a new CBS Records deal. He had intended to throw them into the air so the group could watch them fly away in a symbolic gesture of peace, but his antics didn't go to plan. After getting 'p**sed off' with one executive, he ended up biting the head off one of the doves and allegedly spat it on the table. 'Then I did it again with the next dove,' he recalled in his 2011 autobiography I Am Ozzy. 'That's when they threw me out. They said I'd never work for CBS again.' Ozzy later told a slightly different story, claiming the doves had died before his planned release, so he 'bit its head off' rather than 'waste it'. 'You should have seen their faces. They all went white. They were speechless,' he told Sounds Magazine. Sharon later revealed a major company boss told him they would 'absolutely destroy' Ozzy if he ever did such a thing again. 'Snorting' ants Another outlandish moment was when Ozzy snorted a trail of ants while on tour with Motley Crue back in 1984. It was wildly rumoured that Ozzy had snorted a trail of live ants that were attracted to a melted ice lolly that had melted on the floor during a wild hotel stay during the tour. Though fans doubted whether the incident actually occurred, Motley Crue's drummer Tommy Lee insisted it happened and Ozzy himself has also set the record straight. He claimed everyone had been trying to 'out–rock star and out–gross' one another when the moment occurred – with Ozzy proving himself to be the wildest of them all. 'I know people ask that all the time. They're, like, ''Dude, really?'' I'm, like, abso–f**king–lutely. You can't make that s**t up,' he said last year on This Past Weekend With Theo Von. Ozzy's wife Sharon cast doubt on whether she thought the story was true, but Ozzy set the record straight on his family podcast back in 2023. Sharon told their son Jack that she didn't think it was true, however Ozzy interrupted and vowed that he had indeed snorted the ants while drunk on tour. 'I did, I was there, I did it,' Ozzy said on The Osbournes podcast. 'It's my nostril [...] I was drunk, and I did it.' Talking to a horse while on acid Though Ozzy was sober from 2013, he was known for his drug–fuelled antics at the height of his fame and openly detailed his antics while experimenting with drugs. He famously gave up taking psychedelic drug LSD, also known as acid, in the 1970s after having an hour–long conversation with a horse while on a trip. He recalled how he frequently took LSD while making music in Los Angeles, but stopped after having a bizarre conversation with a horse after taking 10 tabs of acid. 'At that time in America, people were very fond of lacing your drinks with acid,' he told Classic Rock. 'I didn't care. I used to swallow handfuls of tabs at a time. The end of it came when we got back to England. 'I took 10 tabs of acid then went for a walk in a field. I ended up standing there talking to this horse for about an hour. In the end the horse turned round and told me to f**k off. That was it for me.' Ozzy struggled with drug and alcohol addiction over the years and said he felt he could not 'do a thing creatively sober' at the height of his fame in the 1970s. However, he eventually went sober in 2013, but briefly returned to smoking marijuana last year because of his health woes, including his struggles with Parkinson's. Throwing raw meat at his fans Anything could happen at a Black Sabbath show, and Ozzy took that to a whole new level after the band kicked him out in 1979 due to his substance abuse issues. During his Diary of a Madman solo tour in 1981, Ozzy developed a ritual where he would throw raw meat at concertgoers. In response, they would throw bizarre items that they had managed to sneak into the venues right back at him – which led to the infamous bat moment. Of his decision to start the raw meat ritual, Ozzy shared: 'I always liked old movies that used to have these custard–pie fights. 'It gave me this idea to throw, instead of pie, bits of meat and animal parts into the audience. I thought it was hilarious. '[They'd throw back] sheep testicles, live snakes, dead rats, all kinds of things. Someone once threw a live frog onstage. It was the biggest frog I'd ever seen, and it landed on its back.' However, Ozzy - who reunited with Black Sabbath in 1997 - quickly grew tired of the gag after fans expected him to keep upping the ante. 'It got to the point where people expected me to do crazier and crazier things,' he admitted. Urinating on a US war memorial Ozzy famously caused offence when he urinated on a war memorial during a visit to Texas in 1982. He was banned from San Antonio for a decade after he urinated on The Alamo Cenotaph, also known as The Spirit of Sacrifice. The metal star was arrested for his actions but was released just hours later before taking to the stage to a sold–out crowd at HemisFair Arena that night. In 1992, Ozzy made a public apology and gifted $10,000 to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, before finally returning to Alamo City to perform once again. Following Ozzy's death, the official Alamo account said it was 'deeply' saddened to hear of his passing and acknowledged his 'humility' in making up for his mistake. 'We at the Alamo are saddened to hear of the passing of legendary musician Ozzy Osbourne,' they wrote. 'His relationship with the Alamo was marked initially by a deeply disrespectful incident in 1982. This act profoundly and rightfully upset many who hold this site sacred. 'However, redemption and reconciliation eventually became part of his history as well. 'In 1992, Ozzy personally apologized to then–Mayor Nelson Wolff and expressed genuine remorse for his actions. 'Decades later, in 2015, he revisited the Alamo grounds to learn and appreciate the site's profound history, openly demonstrating humility and understanding. 'At the Alamo, we honor history in all its complexities. Today, we acknowledge Ozzy Osbourne's journey from regret to reconciliation at the historic site, and we extend our condolences to his family, friends, and fans around the world. May he rest in peace.'
Washington Post
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
That time Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat
On a cold January night in 1982, thousands of heavy metal fans streamed into a Des Moines auditorium for what radio DJs promised would be the concert of the year. Ozzy Osbourne, the former lead singer of British band Black Sabbath, was about to rock. The mood was festively macabre. Posters for the 'Diary of a Madman Tour' showed Osbourne in his Prince of Darkness alter ego — complete with devil horns — and warned attendees that eating before the concert was 'not recommended.' But no one knew just how stomach churning the performance would prove, or how it would become synonymous with the oddball musician, who died July 22 at the age of 76. In the 1980s, Ozzy concerts were often raucous events, with crowds tossing rubber snakes or cockroaches onstage and the then-33-year-old singer firing stuff back, including raw meat from a catapult. So when a teenage boy in the Des Moines crowd that evening tossed something small and dark toward the tenor, it wasn't surprising that Osbourne picked it up. It was a bat. 'Obviously a toy,' Osbourne recalled thinking in his memoir. The singer held it up to the lights, bared his teeth to the crowd's delight and did what he usually did with rubber toys thrown onstage: He bit it. 'Immediately though, something felt wrong,' he wrote. 'Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid, with the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth and running down my chin. Then the head in my mouth twitched.' The animal was not, in fact, a toy, but rather a real bat that local 17-year-old Mark Neal had smuggled into the concert in a baggy inside his coat. 'It really freaked me out,' Neal told the Des Moines Register at the time. 'I won't get in any trouble for admitting this, will I?' In his memoir, Osbourne says he spat out the head and looked over to his future wife, Sharon, who screamed that the bat was real. 'Next thing I knew I was in a wheelchair, being rushed into an emergency room,' he wrote. 'Meanwhile, a doctor was saying to Sharon, 'Yes, Miss Arden, the bat was alive. It was probably stunned from being at a rock concert, but it was definitely alive. There's a good chance Mr. Osbourne now has rabies.' The incident made national headlines, with some skepticism over whether it was real or just another one of Osbourne's antics. 'You have to understand this is what's called 'shock rock' and the kids love it,' Rick Freiberg, in charge of bookings at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center and Arena, told the Des Moines Tribune, which later merged with the Register. 'It's all illusion.' Then again, Freiberg had reason to play down the controversy: Osbourne was due to play at his arena a few days later. 'Everyone thought I'd bitten the head of a bat on purpose, instead of it being a simple misunderstanding,' Osbourne wrote. 'For a while, I was worried we might be closed down, and a couple of venues did go ahead and ban us. The fans didn't help, either. After they heard about the bat, they started bringing even crazier stuff to the gigs. Going onstage was like being at a butchers' convention.' Osbourne had previous experience decapitating animals, however. Just a year earlier, the singer — who was using drugs and alcohol heavily at the time — had bitten the head off a dove during a meeting with CBS Records in what he said was a response to the label's tepid attitude toward his album. That incident — which, unlike the Des Moines controversy, appears to have been captured on camera — helped spur Neal to toss the bat onstage in the first place, he told the Register. Whether intentional or not, the bat bite became emblematic of Osbourne's growing brand. Decades later, it remains one of the most memorable things about his long and odd career. Osbourne once complained that he would be getting questions about the bat until he died — and beyond, according to the Register. 'And then they'll dig me up and ask me again,' he said.
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Tornado warnings issued in Des Moines, Ames Saturday morning. Are more storms on the way?
A severe weather front rolled across Iowa early Saturday morning. The system brought heavy rainfall, lightning and thunder to parts of the state as well as a few tornado warnings. A radar indicated tornado warning was issued for Story County, specifically Ames and Huxley, at 5:52 a.m. while another was issued for parts of Polk County, including Des Moines, at 6:22 a.m. Sirens went off in Ames around 6 a.m. and near the Drake neighborhood in Des Moines around 6:30 a.m. No tornadoes were confimred to have actually touched down, although the National Weather Service in Des Moines is investigating reports of possible weak tornadoes in Gilbert and northeast of Polk City. More: Madison petition for special election gets signatures, but county mistakes could derail it Strong wind gusts downed tree limbs in the Nevada and Pilot Mound areas but there are no reports of significant damage, according to the National Weather Service. Pea sized hail was reported in Madrid, according to Boone County Emergency Management. How much rain fell in central Iowa? Des Moines saw 0.66 inches of rain Saturday morning, according to reports from the National Weather Service. significantly higher rainfall, with Bode topping the charts. The cities with the most rain were: Bode: 4.85 inches Garner: 2.86 inches Pilot Mound: 2.5 inches More: A movement for college kids to ditch their smartphones is coming to an Iowa college Swaledale: 2.12 inches Eagle Grove: 2.07 inches Ames: 1.64 inches Boxholm: 1.5 inches Is more severe weather headed for Des Moines? Lingering storms are expected to dissipate by midday Saturday, with the possibility of a return in the evening. A severe weather outlook from the National Weather Service predicts a slight risk for severe weather in central and southeastern parts of the state. The NWS warns residents to be on the lookout for 'damaging winds,' and notes that 'brief' tornadoes are possible. Excessive rain is expected as well. More: RAGBRAI Day 1: A look at what's ahead on the journey from Orange City to Milford Thunderstorms are expected to bring heavy rainfall across the state throughout the weekend. Three to five inches of rainfall could be expected into Sunday. The NWS forecasts at least a half inch to an inch of rain, 'especially south of U.S. 20.' Flash flood watch issued for Polk County, several central Iowa counties A flood watch was issued for Polk County and nine other central Iowa counties at 2:52 p.m. on Saturday. Strong thunderstorms are expected to drop heavy rainfall, according to the National Weather Service, increasing the likelihood of flash flooding. The watch extends across portions of central, northeast, south central, southeast, southwest and west central Iowa. The flood watch goes into effect at 7 p.m. and will remain active until 10 a.m. on Sunday, July 20. More: Attorney General Brenna Bird drops lawsuit against Winneshiek County sheriff The National Weather Service said rain is supposed to sweep through central Iowa starting at 7 p.m. with a chance for strong storms developing after 10 p.m. Damaging winds, up to 70 mph, are likely along with a chance for large hail. The storm will move southeast across the state at 25 mph. The National Weather Service predicts rainfall up to two to five inches, with the potential to exceed five inches in some areas. The NWS said a tornado or two is possible. The highest chances for flash flooding is for communities between U.S. Highway 20 and U.S. Highway 34. More storms expected Sunday The threat of severe weather continues through Sunday, July 20 across much of Iowa. The National Weather Service expects scattered severe storms to develop in the early morning hours, producing damaging winds and heavy rain. More storms are expected to roll through in the late afternoon and early evening. The storms will move across the state to the east at 30 mph. (This story was updated to add new information, a video and a photo gallery.) Norah Judson is a reporter for the Register. Reach her at njudson@ This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How much rain fell in Des Moines? More storms are on the way Saturday
