Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne was an English singer, songwriter, and media personality. Dubbed the "Prince of Darkness", he is widely credited as a pioneer of heavy metal music. He co-founded the band Black Sabbath in 1968, and rose to prominence in the 1970s as their lead vocalist. He performed on the band's first eight studio albums, including Black Sabbath, Paranoid and Master of Reality, before he was fired in 1979 due to his problems with alcohol and other drugs.
After being replaced by Ronnie James Dio, Osbourne began a solo career in the 1980s and formed his band with Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley, with whom he recorded the albums Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman. Throughout the decade, he drew controversy for his antics both onstage and offstage, and was accused of promoting Satanism by the Christian right. Overall, Osbourne released thirteen solo studio albums, the first seven of which were certified multi-platinum in the United States. He reunited with Black Sabbath on several occasions. He rejoined from 1997 to 2005, and again in 2012; during this second reunion, he sang on the band's last studio album, 13, before they embarked on a farewell tour that ended in 2017. On 5 July 2025, Osbourne performed his final show at the Back to the Beginning concert in Birmingham, having announced that it would be his last due to health issues. Although he intended to continue recording music as a solo artist, he died 17 days later.
Osbourne sold more than 100 million albums, including his solo work and Black Sabbath releases. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Black Sabbath in 2006 and as a solo artist in 2024. He was also inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame both solo and with Black Sabbath in 2005. He was honoured with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 12 April 2002 and Birmingham Walk of Stars on 6 July 2007. At the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards, he received the Global Icon Award. In 2015, he received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
Osbourne's wife and manager Sharon founded the heavy metal touring festival Ozzfest, which was held yearly from 1996 to 2010. In the early 2000s, he became a reality television star when he appeared in the MTV reality show The Osbournes alongside Sharon and two of their children, Kelly and Jack. He co-starred with some of his family in the television series Ozzy & Jack's World Detour as well as The Osbournes Want to Believe.
Early life
John Michael Osbourne was born on 3 December 1948 at the maternity hospital in Marston Green, which was then in its historic county Warwickshire. Osbourne grew up in the Aston area of North-Central Birmingham. His mother, Lilian, was a non-observant Catholic who worked at a Lucas factory. His father, John Thomas "Jack" Osbourne, worked night shifts as a toolmaker at the General Electric Company. Osbourne had three older sisters named Jean, Iris and Gillian, and two younger brothers named Paul and Tony. The family lived in a small two-bedroom home at 14 Lodge Road in Aston. Osbourne gained the nickname "Ozzy" as a child. He dealt with dyslexia at school. His accent was described as "hesitant Brummie".At the age of 11, Osbourne suffered sexual abuse from school bullies. He said he attempted suicide multiple times as a teenager. He participated in school plays, including Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore. Upon hearing the first hit single of the Beatles at age 14, he became a fan of the band and credited their 1963 song "She Loves You" with inspiring him to become a musician. In the 2011 documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, Osbourne said that the Beatles made him realize that " was going to be a rock star the rest of life".
Osbourne left school at the age of 15 and was employed as a construction site laborer, trainee plumber, apprentice toolmaker, car factory horn-tuner and slaughterhouse worker. At the age of 17, he was convicted of robbing a clothes shop, but was unable to pay the fine; his father also refused to pay it to teach him a lesson, resulting in Osbourne spending six weeks in Winson Green Prison.
Musical career
Black Sabbath
In late 1967, Geezer Butler formed his first band, Rare Breed, and recruited Osbourne to be the singer. The band played two shows and broke up. Osbourne and Butler reunited in another band, Polka Tulk Blues, which included guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, whose band Mythology had recently broken up. They renamed the band Earth, but after being accidentally booked for a show instead of a different band with the same name, they decided to change the band's name again, settling on the name Black Sabbath in August 1969. The band's name was inspired by the film of the same title. Black Sabbath noticed how people enjoyed being frightened during their appearances, which inspired their decision to play a heavy blues style of music laced with gloomy sounds and lyrics. While recording their first album, Butler read an occult book and woke up seeing a dark figure at the end of his bed. Butler told Osbourne about it, and together they wrote the lyrics to "Black Sabbath", their first song in a darker vein.The band's US record label, Warner Bros. Records, invested only modestly in it, but Black Sabbath achieved swift and enduring success. Built around Tony Iommi's guitar riffs, Geezer Butler's lyrics, Bill Ward's dark tempo drumbeats, and topped by Osbourne's eerie vocals, their debut album, Black Sabbath, and second, Paranoid, were commercially successful and also gained considerable radio airplay. Osbourne recalled, however, that, "in those days, the band wasn't very popular with the women". At about this time, Osbourne first met his future wife, Sharon Arden. After the unexpected success of their first album, Black Sabbath were considering her father, Don Arden, as their new manager, and Sharon was at that time working as Don's receptionist. Osbourne admitted he was attracted to her immediately but assumed that "she probably thought I was a lunatic". Osbourne later recalled that the best thing about eventually choosing Don Arden as manager was that he got to see Sharon regularly, though their relationship was strictly professional at that point.
File:Ozzy Osbourne at California Jam, 1974.jpg|thumb|right|upright=.7|Osbourne performing at California Jam in Ontario, California, 1974
Five months after the release of Paranoid, the band released Master of Reality. The album reached the top ten in both the United States and UK, and was certified gold in less than two months. In the 1980s, it received platinum certification and went Double Platinum in the early 21st century. Reviews of the album were unfavourable. Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone famously dismissed Master of Reality as "naïve, simplistic, repetitive, absolute doggerel", although the very same magazine would later place the album at number 298 on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, compiled in 2003.
In September 1972, Black Sabbath released Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Critics were dismissive of the album; however, it reached gold status in less than a month and was the band's fourth consecutive album to sell more than one million copies in the United States. In November 1973, Black Sabbath released the critically acclaimed Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. For the first time, the band received favourable reviews in the mainstream press. Gordon Fletcher of Rolling Stone called the album "an extraordinarily gripping affair" and "nothing less than a complete success". Decades later, AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia called the album a "masterpiece, essential to any heavy metal collection", while also claiming the band displayed "a newfound sense of finesse and maturity". The album marked the band's fifth consecutive platinum selling album in the United States. Sabotage was released in July 1975. Again, there were favourable reviews. Rolling Stone stated, "Sabotage is not only Black Sabbath's best record since Paranoid, it might be their best ever." In a retrospective review, AllMusic was less favourable, noting that "the magical chemistry that made such albums as Paranoid and Volume 4 so special was beginning to disintegrate". Technical Ecstasy, released on 25 September 1976, was also met with mixed reviews. AllMusic gives the album two stars, and notes that the band was "unravelling at an alarming rate".
Dismissal
Between late 1977 and early 1978, Osbourne left the band for three months to pursue a solo project called Blizzard of Ozz, a title which had been suggested by his father. Three members of the band Necromandus, who had supported Sabbath in Birmingham when they were called Earth, backed Osbourne in the studio and briefly became the first incarnation of his solo band.At the request of the other band members, Osbourne rejoined Sabbath. The band spent five months at Sounds Interchange Studios in Toronto, where they wrote and recorded their next album, Never Say Die! "It took quite a long time", Iommi said of Never Say Die! "We were getting really drugged out, doing a lot of dope. We'd go down to the sessions, and have to pack up because we were too stoned; we'd have to stop. Nobody could get anything right; we were all over the place, and everybody was playing a different thing. We'd go back and sleep it off, and try again the next day."
In May 1978, Black Sabbath began the Never Say Die! Tour with Van Halen as an opening act. Reviewers called Sabbath's performance "tired and uninspired" in stark contrast to the "youthful" performance of Van Halen, who were touring the world for the first time. The band recorded their concert at Hammersmith Odeon in June 1978, which was released on video as Never Say Die. The final show of the tour and Osbourne's last appearance with Black Sabbath for another seven years, until 1985, was in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 11 December.
In 1979, Black Sabbath returned to the studio, but tension and conflict arose between band members. Osbourne recalled being asked to record his vocals over and over, and tracks were manipulated endlessly by Iommi. The relationship between Osbourne and Iommi became contentious. On 27 April 1979, at Iommi's insistence but with the support of Butler and Ward, Osbourne was ejected from Black Sabbath. The reasons provided to him were that he was unreliable and had excessive substance abuse issues compared to the other members. Osbourne maintained that his use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs at that time was similar to that of the other members.
The band replaced Osbourne with former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio. In a 21 August 1987 interview with Tommy Vance on BBC Radio 1's Friday Rock Show, Dio said, "I was not, and never will be, Ozzy Osbourne. He was the vocalist and songwriter in that era who helped create that band and make it what it was, and what it is in its classic form."
The conflict between Iommi and Osbourne commenced almost immediately in their working collaboration. Responding to a flyer that read, "Ozzy Zig Needs Gig- has own PA", which was posted by Osbourne in a record store, Iommi and Ward arrived at the listed address to speak with Ozzy Zig, as he then called himself. When Iommi saw Osbourne emerge from another room of the house, he recalled that he knew him as a "pest" from their school days. Iommi recalls one incident in the early 1970s in which Osbourne and Butler were fighting in a hotel room. Iommi pulled Osbourne off Butler in an attempt to break up the drunken fight, and the vocalist proceeded to turn around and take a wild swing at him. Iommi responded by knocking Osbourne unconscious with one punch to the jaw.