Osbourne (at the bottom left) with Black Sabbath in 1972.
Gallery of Ozzy Osbourne
1973
Black Sabbath in 1973.
Gallery of Ozzy Osbourne
1981
Osbourne performing in Cardiff, Wales in 1981.
Gallery of Ozzy Osbourne
1981
Ozzy pictured with another Heavy Metal icon: Lemmy from Motorhead. Port Vale, 1981.
Gallery of Ozzy Osbourne
1984
Shelby County police arrested Ozzy in 1984 for public urination and intoxication after he urinated on the Alamo Cenotaph, a monument commemorating the Texans who lost their lives in the famous battle of 1836.
Gallery of Ozzy Osbourne
1999
Osbourne on tour in Japan in 1999.
Gallery of Ozzy Osbourne
2008
Sharon, Kelly and Ozzy Osbourne arrive at Brit Awards at Earls Court in London in 2008.
Gallery of Ozzy Osbourne
2010
Osbourne, flanked by Philadelphia police officers, leaves Borders in Center City after signing copies of his autobiography, I Am Ozzy on 27 January 2010.
Shelby County police arrested Ozzy in 1984 for public urination and intoxication after he urinated on the Alamo Cenotaph, a monument commemorating the Texans who lost their lives in the famous battle of 1836.
Osbourne, flanked by Philadelphia police officers, leaves Borders in Center City after signing copies of his autobiography, I Am Ozzy on 27 January 2010.
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English singer, songwriter and actor. He rose to prominence during the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath.
Background
Osbourne was born in the Aston area of Birmingham, England. His mother, Lilian, was a non-observant Catholic who worked days at a factory. His father, John Thomas "Jack" Osbourne, worked night shifts as a toolmaker at the General Electric Company.
Education
John Osbourne was a pupil at Birchfield Road Secondary Modern School in Perry Barr. While known as a rebel at school and not well regarded by his teachers, he showed some enthusiasm and talent for acting and singing in the school plays. Unfortunately, this led to teasing by his classmates who called him names like "Ozz-brain" in reference to his last name - this ultimately becoming "Ozzy" by which he is known to this day.
In late 1967, Geezer Butler formed his first band, Rare Breed, and soon recruited Osbourne to serve as vocalist. The band played two shows, then broke up. Osbourne and Butler reunited in Polka Tulk Blues, along with guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, whose band Mythology had recently broken up. They renamed themselves Earth, but after being accidentally booked for a show instead of a different band with the same name, they decided to change their name again. They finally settled on the name Black Sabbath in August 1969, based on the film of the same name. The band had noticed how people enjoyed being frightened; inspired, the band decided to play a heavy blues style of music laced with gloomy sounds and lyrics.
Released by Vertigo Records in 1970, Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album was largely panned by critics but sold well in England and abroad. With standout tracks like the title song, “The Wizard” and “Evil Woman,” Black Sabbath reached the Top 10 in the U.K and No. 23 on the American album charts. The group’s sophomore effort, Paranoid (1971), included the seminal metal anthems "War Pigs," "Iron Man," “Fairies Wear Boots” and "Paranoid," and took Black Sabbath to new heights, topping the charts in the U.K. and reaching No. 12 in the U.S.
The band's use of religious symbolism and mythic themes lent a gothic cast to their public personae. It also earned them constant criticism from right-wing groups, negative publicity that simply fueled the band's popularity with its fan base, mostly young males. As was the case with their first two albums, their subsequent efforts Master of Reality (1971), Vol. 4 (1972) and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) all found chart success, eventually achieving platinum status in the United States on the strength of such metal classics as “Sweet Leaf,” “After Forever,” “Snowblind” and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.”
With the release of 1975’s Sabotage, the band’s fortunes took a turn for the worse; despite the strength of songs such as “Symptom of the Universe” and “Am I Going Insane,” the album failed to achieve the same status as its predecessors. Punctuating this shift, they were also forced to cut their subsequent tour short when Osbourne was injured in a motorcycle accident.
The band’s steady intake of drugs and alcohol - mostly by Osbourne - also added to the strain, along with the loss of fans to the burgeoning punk rock movement. Following the relatively unsuccessful releases Technical Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die (1978), Osbourne and his bandmates parted ways. Though Black Sabbath would carry on with various frontmen in the decades to come - including Ronnie James Dio, Dave Donato, Ian Gilliam, Glenn Hughes and Tony Martin - the group would never reach the same heights achieved during the Ozzy era, when they wrote and recorded some of heavy metal’s most memorable songs.
Unlike some artists, who fade into obscurity after leaving the groups that made them famous, Osbourne in 1980 delivered a solo debut, Blizzard of Ozz, that was a resounding commercial success. Featuring the singles “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley,” the album reached the Top 10 in the U.K. and No. 21 in the U.S., where it would eventually notch multi-platinum status. His 1981 follow-up, Diary of a Madman, performed equally well. The ensuing tour, however, was laden with misfortune, including a plane crash that killed guitar player Randy Rhoads and two other members of their entourage.
Throughout the 1980s, Osbourne continued to cultivate the image of the troubled loner and angry rebel, with his antisocial theatrics contributing to his public notoriety. Among his antics, he showered his audiences with raw meat and bit the head off a live bat onstage. Not everyone found his persona and dark music so appealing, and he was frequently singled out by religious conservatives who hoped to demonstrate the negative impacts of rock music on society. During this period, Osbourne also was named in multiple lawsuits by families who claimed that his music was responsible for their children’s suicides.
Despite these and other challenges - including a 1986 stint in rehab - Osbourne continued to achieve commercial success, with the albums Bark at the Moon (1983), The Ultimate Sin (1986) and No Rest for the Wicked (1988) all going multi-platinum in the U.S. He ushered in the 1990s with his sixth solo offering, No More Tears (1991), which reached the Top 10 in the U.S. and featured the hit single of the same name.
In 1992 Osbourne announced that the No More Tears Tour would be his last. However, the popularity of the subsequently released double-live album, Live & Loud (1993), caused Osbourne to rethink his retirement, and the album’s version of "I Don't Want to Change the World" earned Osbourne his first Grammy Award. He returned to the studio for 1995’s Ozzmosis, and the following year he began to tour as part of a traveling metal festival, Ozzfest.
By the end of the decade, Osbourne's star was on the wane, and he continued to struggle with the substance abuse problems that had plagued him throughout his career. However, he found his way back into the spotlight in 2001 with the release of his eighth studio album, Down to Earth, which reached No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 19 in the U.K.
Osbourne soon boosted his celebrity status even further with his own bizarre brand of reality television: Debuting on MTV in early 2002, The Osbournes centered on the domestic life of Ozzy and his clan and became an instant hit. The comic appeal of the aging headbanger completing such humdrum tasks as taking out the garbage charmed even those conservatives who had once vilified Osbourne. However, it did also take a more serious turn that summer, when Ozzy’s wife, Sharon, was diagnosed with colon cancer. The show lasted until 2005, earning a Primetime Emmy and becoming one of MTV’s all-time highest-rated shows.
In 2005 Osbourne reunited with Black Sabbath for a tour, and the following year the heavy metal legends were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the induction ceremony, Metallica - one of countless groups for whom Black Sabbath was a primary influence - performed “Iron Man” in honor of the band.
Despite the years of abuse to his body, Osbourne displayed impressive staying power by continuing to tour as part of Ozzfest. He returned to the studio to record Black Rain (2007), which topped out at No. 3 on the U.S. charts, and followed with the equally well received Scream (2010). In 2012 Osbourne reunited with his Sabbath bandmates to perform a series of concerts and record a new studio album, 13, which earned its release the following year.
In 2015 the band announced plans for one final tour, fittingly dubbed The End. The following year they also released an album of that name, comprised of unreleased tracks from 13 and several live performances. The tour wrapped up in the band members' hometown of Birmingham in February 2017.
One year later, Osbourne announced the dates for the North American leg of No More Tours 2, the final tour of his career. Although he noted that he wanted to spend more time with his family, the legendary headbanger insisted that he wasn't retiring as a musician, and would continue playing smaller gigs and remaining involved with Ozzfest.
Ozzy is a Christian, specifically a member of the Church of England, a uniquely British form of Protestantism. Ozzy even says a prayer before every show.
Politics
Politically, Ozzy is largely uninvolved, though every major British political party has asked for him and his family’s endorsement. Ozzy and his wife Sharon were both very critical of the U.S. and British involvement in Iraq and the heads of state who lead the invasion (George Bush and Tony Blair respectively) and Ozzy did cause a stir when, during shows, he would sing his song “War Pigs” with a picture of George W. Bush juxtaposed with a picture of Hitler.
Views
Quotations:
"[Black] Sabbath were a hippy band. We were into peace."
"[It] could be worse...I could be Sting."
"Sometimes I think my whole career and life has only been about a bloody Bat!"
"I am a raging alcoholic, but I don't want my kids to do the same."
"I love you all; I love you more than life itself, but you're all fucking mad!"
"I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people."
"Who the fuck is Justin Bieber?"
"We are not going to continue until we hear the fucking roof rattle."
"I like the word fuck. Fucking deal with it and move on to the first fucking question you have."
"I can honestly say, all the bad things that ever happened to me were directly, directly attributed to drugs and alcohol. I mean, I would never piss on a piece of stone at the fucking Alamo at nine o'clock in the morning dressed in a woman's evening dress sober. I mean I know I'm a fucking crazy-ass but still."
"We're the Osbournes, and I love it."
"I hate these fucking stretch bastards junk pimp mobiles!"
"You don't need to hire a dog therapist, you just need to wake up at 7 am and open the fucking door!"
"I've done a lot worse than jump off piers, son. Like throw a television out the window."
"Let me explain something to you - you have not been standing in front of thirty thousand decibals for thirty-five years - write me a note!"
"I'm about caring, I'm about people, and I'm about entertaining people. I'm a family man. A husband. A father. I've been a lot of other things over the years, which we don't really want to talk about. I'm always working on trying to better myself, you know? I think that that is an ongoing thing with me. I think I'll do that for the rest of my life. I'm always thinking of what I can do today to better my life."
"I kept hearing that metal is dead and Ozzy's dead and people that like Ozzy are dead. I have never had an empty seat. I've always sold out, so who's saying it's all over?"
"There is something fucking unbelievable about seeing all of the fans go crazy and chanting 'Ozzy!' I would pay to see them.."
"Being sober on a bus is, like, totally different than being drunk on a bus."
Personality
Osbourne has abused alcohol and other drugs for most of his adult life. He experienced tremors for some years and linked them to his continuous drug abuse. In May 2005, he found out it was actually Parkin syndrome, a genetic condition, the symptoms of which are similar to Parkinson's disease.
Physical Characteristics:
Osbourne has over 15 tattoos, the most famous of which are the letters O-Z-Z-Y across the knuckles of his left hand. This was his first tattoo, created by himself as a teenager with a sewing needle and pencil lead.
Interests
Ozzy is known for his painting hobby. He is crazy about hunting and fishing.
Sport & Clubs
soccer
Music & Bands
The Beatles, Johnny Cash,
AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Judas Priest, Metallica
Connections
In 1971, Osbourne met his first wife Thelma (née Riley) at a nightclub in Birmingham called the Rum Runner, where she worked. They were married in 1971 and children Jessica and Louis were soon born while Osbourne adopted Thelma's son Elliot. Osbourne later referred to his first marriage as "a terrible mistake"; his drug and alcohol abuse, coupled with his frequent absences while touring with Black Sabbath, took their toll on his family life, with his children later lamenting the fact that he was not a good father.
Osbourne married Sharon Arden on 4 July 1982 and had three children with her. He later said that he deliberately married Arden on the US Independence Day so that he would never forget his anniversary. Their children are Aimee (born 2 September 1983), Kelly (born 27 October 1984), and Jack (born 8 November 1985).
Ozzy and his wife are one of the UK's richest couples, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. They ranked at number 458 in 2005, with an estimated £100 million earned from recording, touring, and TV shows.
1994 - "I Don't Want to Change the World" - Best Metal Performance;
2000 - "Iron Man" - Best Metal Performance;
2014 - "God Is Dead? - Best Metal Performance.
1994 - "I Don't Want to Change the World" - Best Metal Performance;