Ozzy Osbourne (1948–2025)

Ozzy Osbourne was one of the most notorious figures in rock: an innovator whose eerie wail helped usher in heavy metal, a showman who once bit the head off a bat on stage, an addict whose substance abuse led him to attempt to murder his wife, and latterly, a reality TV star much loved for his bemusement at family life on The Osbournes.

His death came less than three weeks after his retirement from performance. On 5 July, Osbourne reunited with his original bandmates in the pioneering group Black Sabbath for the first time since 2005, for Back to the Beginning: an all-star farewell concert featuring some of the biggest names in metal.

He was born John Michael Osbourne in Aston, Birmingham, in 1948, the son of a pair of factory workers. He had a tough upbringing. This industrial working-class environment fed into the sound of Osbourne’s defining musical project, Black Sabbath, whose heavy sound revolutionised British rock music.

Named after a Boris Karloff horror movie, the band, also featuring Tony Iommi on guitar and Bill Ward on drums, released their self-titled debut in 1970, followed by further albums regarded as foundation stones of the heavy-metal genre. Paranoid (1970) featured the strutting anthems Iron Man and War Pigs and topped the UK album chart, while the cacophonous, psychedelic sound of Master of Reality (1971) remains a huge influence on the slower sound of doom metal.

Osbourne recorded a further five acclaimed albums with the group, but became so dependent on alcohol and drugs that he was fired in 1979, and replaced by Ronnie James Dio. He eventually returned to the band for the 2013 album 13, which topped the charts in the US and UK. Black Sabbath also went on tour, playing what was billed as their final concert in Birmingham on 4 February 2017, prior to their 2025 reunion gig.

Osbourne went solo shortly after leaving Black Sabbath, and beginning with 1980’s Blizzard of Ozz – which went five times platinum in the US – released 13 studio albums, the most recent being 2022’s Patient Number 9.

The most notorious incident involving Osbourne happened in 1982, when he bit off the head of a dead bat he believed to be a stage prop while performing in Des Moines, Iowa. He later went to hospital to receive a precautionary rabies inoculation. He also claimed – and this was corroborated by his one-time publicist Mick Wall – to have bitten the heads off two doves during a 1981 record label meeting that went sour, having originally intended to release the birds as a sign of peace.