Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne’s final moments before death
Music legend Ozzy Osbourne, the wild man of heavy metal, died surrounded by his family, just weeks after he took to the stage for a star-studded farewell show.
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Music legend Ozzy Osbourne, the frontman of Black Sabbath who became a reality TV star, spent his final moments surrounded by his wife Sharon and their children before his death aged 76.
The wild man of heavy metal died at his mansion in England’s Buckinghamshire after a battle with Parkinson’s, just weeks after performing at his star-studded farewell concert in his home city of Birmingham.
The heavy metal icon had long spoken of his desire to return to his native England after two decades of living in the US.
Sources close to the family told the Mail Online that Osbourne’s death was “unexpected to be this soon”, but that his children were thankful that they could be with him.
Daughters Kelly and Aimee had flown in from Los Angeles to care for him, while son Jack had flown from his home in Idaho to watch his father’s final concert at Villa Park on July 5.
The legendary Prince of Darkness, a father of six and grandfather of ten, died “surrounded by love,” his family said in a statement to The Sun.
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning.
“He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time. Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis.”
Osbourne was photographed publicly for the last time at his Black Sabbath farewell concert in Birmingham just weeks ago.
The rocker took the stage in front of the 42,000-person crowd at Villa Park for what turned out to be his last performance.
“Are you ready?” Osbourne asked the audience. “Let the madness begin!”
The Back to the Beginning concert, which was hosted by Jason Momoa, also featured performances by Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, Halestorm, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Mastodon and Rival Sons.
His daughter Kelly also get engaged to her boyfriend Sid Wilson backstage at the farewell concert. Ozzy jokingly interjected, “F*** off, you’re not marrying my daughter,” in the middle of the proposal.
The day before his death, Osbourne shared his final Instagram post which was a touching tribute to Black Sabbath.
The post featured an image of a poster that was hanging outside of Osbourne’s dressing room door from the band’s final show.
The poster showed Osbourne and his three bandmates with the words, “Back to the Beginning.”
News of Osbourne’s death comes more than five years after he announced his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in January 2020.
MUSIC ICON’S EARLY DAYS
Born John Michael Osbourne in Birmingham, on December 3, 1948, he was first nicknamed “Ozzy” in primary school.
He had a challenging childhood, but music provided him with an outlet.
Learning was difficult for him due to dyslexia, and the future Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee claimed to have been sexually abused by bullies when he was 11. He also recalled attempting suicide as a teen.
Osbourne credited The Beatles and their 1964 song She Loves You for inspiring him to pursue a music career.
When he was 15, Osbourne dropped out of school and worked several trade jobs.
Two years later, he spent six weeks in the Winson Green prison because he was unable to pay a fine after stealing from a clothing store.
Once released, Osbourne and his friend, Geezer Butler, formed their first band, Rare Breed, with Ozzy on vocals.
He became a founding member of Black Sabbath in 1967. The band is highly regarded as a major influence in the development of heavy metal music, with hits like Paranoid, War Pigs and Iron Man.
The group, as well as Ozzy himself, would often be criticised by critics for their music’s dark and sometimes “satanic” themes.
“When we started gigging way back when, as soon as we started playing this song’s opening chords, young girls in the audience would f***ing freak out,” Osbourne told NME in 2016. “They thought we were Satan’s f***ing friends or something.”
“That’s when the whole ‘Prince of Darkness’ s*** started,” he explained about the origin of his nickname. “When people get excited about Halloween coming around each year, all I think is, ‘Well, we used to have Halloween every f***ing night.”
Ozzy was fired from the band in 1979 for alcohol and drug abuse, which he later revealed felt hypocritical at the time.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel betrayed by what happened with Black Sabbath,” he wrote in his 2009 memoir I Am Ozzy.
“We were four blokes who’d grown up together a few streets apart. We were like family, like brothers. And firing me for being f***ed up was hypocritical bulls***. We were all f***ed up.”
“If you’re stoned, and I’m stoned, and you’re telling me that I’m fired because I’m stoned, how can that be? Because I’m slightly more stoned than you are?” he added.
WHEN OZZY MET SHARON
But that’s when Sharon Arden, daughter of Black Sabbath’s manager, Don Arden, decided to manage Ozzy as a solo act.
He would go on to make 12 solo albums with hits like Crazy Train, Mama, I’m Coming Home and No More Tears.
Ozzy sold over 100 million albums worldwide as a solo artist and a member of Black Sabbath.
Both the band and Ozzy as a solo act were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. He joined the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Black Sabbath in 2006.
Ozzy also made headlines for his outlandish behaviour.
He infamously bit the head off of a bat during a concert in January 1982. The next month, Ozzy was arrested in Texas for drunkenly peeing on a cenotaph made to honour people who died at the Battle of the Alamo.
He and Sharon, 72, married that same year. The couple had three kids: Aimee, 41, Kelly, 40, and Jack, 39. The family would go on to reach a new level of fame on a first-of-its-kind reality TV show.
HOW OZZY WON NEW FANS WITH REALITY SHOW
Aside from Aimee, who refused to take part in the MTV series, The Osbournes invited cameras into their home to chronicle the raw rock-and-roll domestic life of Ozzy and his family.
The show premiered in March 2002 and ran for three years. Its first season was the most-viewed series in MTV history at the time.
Jack later alleged his father “hated” filming the wildly successful show.
“I don’t know how the Kardashians have done it for so long — it sent us crazy at the end,” Ozzy recounted in January 2023.
“I am not sorry I did it, but after three or four years I said, ‘Do you know what, we’re going to lose somebody because it is getting too crazy,‘” he continued, adding that the show traumatised him and his family.
“There is rock-and-roll fame, which is pretty intense, but that Osbourne level was just unbelievable. The kids paid for it. They all ended up doing drugs. Jack got clean and sober on that show, Kelly messed up on that show, I was messed up, and Sharon got cancer.” (In 2002, Sharon was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy.)
Ozzy reunited with Black Sabbath on several occasions and rejoined the group in 2013 to record their final album, “13.” He also joined the band on their farewell tour from 2016 to 2017.
STRUGGLES WITH DRUGS, BOOZE
Ozzy struggled with heavy drug and alcohol addiction throughout his life. He was introduced to cocaine in 1971 and later claimed he took LSD every day for two years while in Black Sabbath.
At the end of his time with the band, the musician said he “got very drunk and very stoned every single day.”
In September 1989, Ozzy’s challenges got him into legal trouble when he allegedly tried to kill Sharon.
He was too intoxicated to remember the incident, and Sharon ended up dropping the criminal charges against him. But a judge still ordered Ozzy to complete six months in rehab.
“We’ve come to a decision that you’ve got to die,” Sharon recalled Ozzy saying before he allegedly strangled her.
“He was calm – very, very calm,” she said in the A&E series Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne.
“I felt the stuff on the table, and felt the panic button, and just pressed it. Next thing I know, the cops were there.”
“It’s not exactly one of my greatest f***ing achievements,” Ozzy added.
He was sober for many years until Ozzy announced on Facebook in April 2013 that he had been drinking and doing drugs for the past year and a half.
In February 2021, he told Variety that he had been sober for seven years.
Then, in August 2022, Ozzy stated that he was “fed up” with the staggering amount of gun violence in America and that he and Sharon would be moving to the UK.
However, he later walked back his statement and said he would rather stay in the States.
“I’m American now. To be honest with you, I don’t want to go back (to England),” he reiterated. “F*** that.”
BATTLE WITH PARKINSON’S
The rocker cancelled his 2023 tour three months before it was scheduled to kick off in Finland in May and declared that his touring career was officially over forever.
“This is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to share with my loyal fans …” he captioned the announcement on social media.
He thanked and apologised to fans who bought tickets to his postponed 2019 shows, saying he was “honestly humbled by the way you’ve all patiently held onto your tickets for all this time.”
“My one and only purpose during this time has been to get back on stage,” he explained at the time. “My singing voice is fine.”
“However, after three operations, stem cell treatments, endless physical therapy, and most recently, groundbreaking Cybernics (HAL) Treatment, my body is still physically weak,” he added.
Despite the announcement that he was quitting touring in 2023, Ozzy later returned to the stage one last time in July 2025 to perform with Black Sabbath for the band’s final-ever concert in his hometown of Birmingham.
“I’d love to say ‘never say never’, but after the last six years or so … it is time,” he told The Guardian two months before the concert. “I lived on the road for 50-odd years, and I’ve kind of got used to not picking up my bags and getting on the bus again.”
Ozzy also opened up about his battle with Parkinson’s shortly before his death.
“You wake up the next morning and find that something else has gone wrong,” he said in May 2025. “You begin to think this is never going to end.”
Ozzy and Sharon’s daughter Kelly took to social media shortly before the rock star’s death to dispel rumours that her famous father was dying.
She posted to her Instagram Stories in July after an AI video of Ozzy went viral.
“So, there’s this video going around on social media, and it’s supposed to be my dad, but it’s AI,” the TV personality told her fans at the time.
“And it starts out saying, ‘I don’t need a doctor to tell me that I’m going to die. I know I’m going to die,‘” she continued. “What the f – k is wrong with you people? Why would you spend your time making a video like this?”
The former “Fashion Police” host — who got engaged at her famous dad’s final Black Sabbath show — then clarified that Ozzy is “not dying.”
“Yes, he has Parkinson’s, and yes, his mobility is completely different than it used to be, but he’s not dying,” she said. “What is wrong with you?”
Kelly also took a moment to slam the rumours that her parents had a “suicide pact” after Sharon suggested as much back in 2007.
“That was bulls – t my mum said to get attention one time,” Kelly concluded. “And my dad’s not dying. Stop.”
Ozzy is survived by his wife, Sharon, and their children: Aimee, Kelly, and Jack, as well as his children, Jessica, 45, and Louis, 50, from his first marriage to Thelma Riley, 71.
Ozzy also adopted Riley’s son from a previous relationship with Elliot Kingsley, now 59, during their marriage, which lasted from 1971 to 1982.
This story was originally published in the New York Post.
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