- 7/24/2025
From bat-biting to reality TV stardom, the Prince of Darkness has lived a life worthy of legend! Join us as we count down the most defining moments in Ozzy Osbourne's wild career. From his early days with Black Sabbath to solo superstardom, health battles and memorable reunions, these are the events that shaped rock's ultimate survivor.
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking down the life and times of the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne.
00:18Joining Black Sabbath.
00:19What is this that's dead before me?
00:27In 1968, a 20-year-old John Ozzy Osbourne joined forces with guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward to form Earth, the blues rock band that would soon rebrand as Black Sabbath.
00:42Osbourne, fresh out of prison for petty theft and working odd jobs in Birmingham, brought a distinctive haunted wail that perfectly matched the group's brooding, downtuned sound.
00:57With songs steeped in occult imagery and real-world dread, the band tapped into the counter-cultural undercurrent of late 60s Britain.
01:05Their self-titled 1970 debut, recorded in a single day, is widely considered the birth of heavy metal.
01:11For Osbourne, it was the beginning of a long, twisted, and above all, legendary career.
01:16As he lost his mind, can he see or is he blind?
01:23Being fired from Black Sabbath.
01:25But the coke comes in and the weed comes in.
01:27And the chicks come in, the marriages and the divorce.
01:30And so you're less than focused now, right?
01:33We were fighting the world.
01:37Our music was paying.
01:39We hadn't paid tax.
01:40We didn't know anything about what you've got to do.
01:44By 1979, Ozzy's substance use disorder had become impossible for Black Sabbath to ignore, even by their own decadent standards.
01:52After years of internal tension, missed rehearsals, and erratic behavior, the band made the brutal decision to fire their frontmen.
01:59While Ozzy claimed that substance use ran rampant in the band, he was nevertheless ousted and encouraged to pursue a solo career by his manager, Don Arden.
02:07So in the end of the day, I must confess, Tony was right when he said, I wasn't into it anymore.
02:12Right.
02:14Because I would say things like, I want to do a solo album.
02:18And they'd say, well, if you've got any of the ideas, put it to the band.
02:22And I couldn't talk on a musical term, so I don't play an instrument.
02:27Right.
02:27It marked the end of an era.
02:28The voice that had defined Sabbath's groundbreaking run was gone, but it also forced a turning point.
02:34All alone at rock bottom, Ozzy would soon be rescued, both personally and professionally, by Don's daughter, Sharon, setting the stage for one of Rock's most improbable and iconic solo comebacks.
02:44I'm in there one day, and Sharon knocks the door, and she goes, f*** me.
02:48She goes, no, she don't go f*** away.
02:50She just said, if you clean your act up, I want to manage that.
02:54Embarking on his solo career with Blizzard of Oz.
02:57After being fired from Black Sabbath, Ozzy was adrift until Sharon Arden pushed him back into the studio.
03:07Teaming up with virtuoso guitarist Randy Rhoades, Osborne recorded Blizzard of Oz, released in 1980.
03:13It was a seismic statement, not simply a comeback, but a reinvention.
03:17Blending heavy metal theatrics with polished songwriting and Rhoades' neoclassical flair, the album spawned signature songs like Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley.
03:27Crowley, what went on in your head?
03:33Blizzard went multi-platinum and re-established Osborne as a solo force to be reckoned with.
03:38It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his success hadn't been a byproduct of Sabbath, but a reflection of his own star power.
03:46Unhinged, unapologetic, and perfectly in tune with a new generation of metalheads.
03:51I'm going up the rails, I'm a crazy train.
03:55The death of Randy Rhoades.
03:57At that point in my life, I'm sure he was sent from somewhere else because if it wasn't for Randy Rhoades, I know I wouldn't be here.
04:04As you'll soon see, 1982 was an intensely consequential year for Ozzy.
04:08On March 19th, tragedy struck when Randy Rhoades was killed in a freak plane crash while on tour in Florida.
04:15Just 25, Rhoades had already cemented himself as one of metal's most important guitarists, and his loss was both a personal and professional devastation for Ozzy.
04:23While some members of the Ozzy Osborne band slept in their tour bus parked next to the house, the other three buzzed overhead, circling the bus three times.
04:32On the fourth time, they didn't make it.
04:34Shaken and reportedly considering taking his own life, Osborne nearly quit music altogether.
04:39Rhoades wasn't only his creative partner, he was arguably the anchor of Ozzy's post-Sabbath resurrection.
04:44Though the solo project continued, something fundamental had shifted.
04:48For all of Ozzy's darkness, Rhoades had been a rare source of light, and losing him left a scar that never fully healed.
04:54Later, it was revealed that the pilot had traces of cocaine in his system, but Randy only had nicotine in his.
05:01He wasn't that kind of a guy, he wasn't playing tricks or goofball in a bat, he was a serious guy, you know.
05:06The guy was a beautiful man.
05:08Bat-biting incident.
05:09Wait a minute, before you start explaining it, let's tell them what you did.
05:12Bit the head off a bat, there I said it.
05:15It wasn't Batman, it was like a bat, a real bat, you know.
05:20Okay, now, you were about to explain that.
05:23I was just about to explain it.
05:25On January 20th, 1982, during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa, Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off what he thought was a rubber bat, only to realize, too late, that it was real.
05:35The stunt wasn't planned.
05:36A fan had thrown the dazed bat on stage, and Ozzy, already infamous for his onstage theatrics, acted on impulse.
05:43He was rushed to the hospital for rabies shots, but the damage, at least culturally speaking, was done.
05:48What actually happened was, I got a lot of weird people at my concerts, like, you know, it's kind of rock and roll, you know.
05:56And, um, somebody threw a bat on stage, and I thought it was one of these toy bats.
06:02So I picked it up, bite the thing's head off, and suddenly everybody's freaking out because it's a real bat, because, like, on the stage set, like, the bat goes, like, asleep when the lights go on.
06:11The moment was instantly canonized as rock mythology, cementing Ozzy's image as the wild-eyed Prince of Darkness.
06:17Though he's since called it one of his dumbest decisions, the bat incident remains the defining spectacle of a career built on pushing boundaries and freaking people out.
06:25So it was, for all practical purposes, a toy bat.
06:29Yeah, but the, but, uh, can I assure you the, uh, rabies shots that I went through afterwards aren't fun.
06:35No, no, they're painful, I understand.
06:39Very painful.
06:40Marriage to Sharon Arden.
06:41I met Ozzy when I was around 18, and he came into my father's office for management with Black Sabbath.
06:49So I was 18 when I first met him.
06:52Love at first sight?
06:53No.
06:54No, not at all.
06:56I was like, oh, lord, look at them.
06:58As we alluded to a little earlier, Osbourne met Sharon Arden in the late 1970s, while she was working for her father, music mogul Don, who at one point managed Black Sabbath.
07:07After Ozzy was fired from the band in 1979, Sharon took over his management and quickly became far more than a business partner.
07:15Their volatile, codependent relationship was marked by equal parts chaos and loyalty, fueled by substance use, ambition, and a shared instinct for survival.
07:24What is it that kept you so attached to him?
07:26He was so funny.
07:28So funny and quick-witted and yet very vulnerable.
07:33Despite constant turmoil, the pair got engaged and married in 1982.
07:38Sharon wasn't just Ozzy's wife.
07:40She was his lifeline, orchestrating his solo comeback and keeping his career afloat through sheer force of will.
07:46Their union was messy, but undeniably formative for both.
07:49They performed at this club in London, and I was so in awe of what I was seeing.
07:54Again, I hadn't seen anything like that, because all the artists that we had dealt with were very slick and a different category of music, different genre of music, just totally different.
08:06The Osbournes.
08:07Weather in Afghanistan, 2,000 degrees in clarity.
08:11What the f*** are you gonna do?
08:16I'm stuck on the weather channel.
08:20What the f*** is that?
08:24Ozzy Osbourne inadvertently changed television in 2002 with The Osbournes, MTV's fly-on-the-wall reality series that pulled back the curtain on his profanity-laden domestic life.
08:33Far from the satanic caricature of his stage persona, Ozzy appeared as a well-meaning, if bewildered, dad, navigating a chaotic household, led by the sharp-tongued Sharon and their eccentric children.
08:44This has got to be the 24th house that my kids have lived in.
08:49We've got crosses going everywhere, there's crucifixes, I'm having them painted on the walls, we've got crucifix door handles, we'll never be able to sell it.
09:00The show was an instant sensation, shattering ratings records, and reshaping how society conceived of the notion of celebrity.
09:07The Osbournes paved the way for reality TV as we know it, from keeping up with the Kardashians, to countless others.
09:13Once again, Ozzy stood at the center of a cultural shift, this time without even meaning to.
09:18We didn't give the owners any written instructions, we gave them the remote controls, and then the owners figured out by themselves how to work it, so that's how easy it is.
09:30Weak signal, that's about, oh no, what's that, oh f**k, that weak signal.
09:36Jeff!
09:37Creating Ozfest.
09:38My wife tried to get me on Lollapalooza.
09:40I called up for Ozzy to go on Lollapalooza, and it was like, excuse me, you must be joking.
09:48And it was like, no, I'm not joking, and they were like, well, he doesn't fit.
09:53After being snubbed by mainstream festivals like Lollapalooza, Ozzy and Sharon launched Ozfest, a defiant alternative that quickly became a juggernaut.
10:02Founded with the intention of spotlighting heavy metal and hard rock acts, the touring festival featured legends and newcomers alike, from Slayer and Pantera, to Slipknot and System of a Down.
10:12Thanks, Sharon, before you go blazing and try, let's just test the waters.
10:16It was a big risk, a big financial risk, and also more than the finances, it was like, okay, if this doesn't work, how am I going to get the egg off my face?
10:25For Ozzy, it was a savvy business move that helped revitalize the metal scene in the late 90s and early 2000s.
10:32Ozfest proved that the genre's outsider status was its greatest asset, and solidified the Osbournes as unlikely but undeniable powerplayers in music entrepreneurship.
10:42You want to help as many new bands as you can, but, you know, you have to be selective.
10:47It's kind of like a tradition throughout my career that most bands that I've ever played with have gone on to do greatest things.
10:55To come back in 2001 and be asked to, like, kind of co-headline, I mean, it was a dream come true, it was really cool.
11:01Health scares and Parkinson's diagnosis.
11:03What made you realize you needed to get surgery again?
11:07Like, what was the point where you said, we got to go again?
11:12I'm not f***ing done yet, and it's like, I've got things to do, I've got people to see, I've got shows to do.
11:19Ozzy Osbourne's body long bore the weight of his excesses, from decades of substance use to countless stage injuries.
11:25But in recent years, his health battles intensified.
11:28Multiple surgeries, a serious staph infection, and a traumatic fall in 2019 forced him to cancel tours and confront the physical toll of his lifestyle.
11:37In 2020, Ozzy publicly revealed he'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological disorder he'd quietly been managing since 2003.
11:46I mean, I haven't got Parkinson's, the main one, I've got P2 or something, which is a genetic thing.
11:54Can I move?
11:54I don't know.
11:56I don't get up in the morning and go, I'm somebody, you know, I don't gripe on you.
12:02Get on with it.
12:03If you're still moving, you ain't gonna be dead.
12:07The admission marked a rare moment of vulnerability from the so-called Prince of Darkness.
12:12Nevertheless, Ozzy continued recording and engaging with fans, defying expectations with the same stubborn, unkillable energy that defined his entire career.
12:21How do you feel about him going back on tour?
12:24I'd just do anything, you know, sell my soul to the devil, if I haven't already, to get him back on the road.
12:34It's where he belongs, that's his life.
12:36You know, his fans, his band, his, it's what he's always done, he's not, not done it.
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12:58Reuniting with Black Sabbath one last time.
13:00On July 5th, 2025, Ozzy Osbourne took the stage in Birmingham, England, for Back to the Beginning, a charity concert that reunited him with the OG Black Sabbath lineup.
13:20Billed as his final live performance, the show was a raw, emotional farewell.
13:30Ozzy delivered Sabbath staples like Paranoid and Iron Man with a steely resolve.
13:39The event raised tens of millions of pounds for local health charities, but more than that, it served as a living tribute to a hometown legend.
13:46Just over two weeks later, on July 22nd, Ozzy passed away at 76.
13:51That night in Birmingham became not just his last concert, but his chance to tell mama he was coming home.
14:00What's your favorite Ozzy Osbourne song?
14:07Are there any Ozzy moments we missed?
14:09Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
14:10But I can't stand to say goodbye.
14:16Mama, I'm coming home.
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