{"id":15360,"date":"2025-07-23T07:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T07:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/15360\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T07:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T07:01:12","slug":"the-wild-ride-of-ozzy-osbourne-from-snorting-ants-to-performing-in-an-armchair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/15360\/","title":{"rendered":"The wild ride of Ozzy Osbourne, from snorting ants to performing in an armchair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Sabbath reunited for the first time in 20 years in July for what Ozzy Osbourne predicted would be his final concert.<\/p>\n

Addressing the 42,000 fans in Birmingham, and the more than 5 million who streamed the show online, Ozzy said, “Let the madness begin!”<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osbourne dies<\/a><\/p>\n

Described as one of the founders of heavy metal music, John Michael Osbourne was known for his incredible voice and charisma.<\/p>\n

Madness would be a fair word to describe the career of the ‘Prince of Darkness’, a man who pioneered heavy metal music<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wild stories followed wherever he went, the clergy condemned him, parents sued him, and the Sabbath flock idolised him.<\/p>\n

However, from his black throne onstage at Villa Park on July 5, Ozzy presented a different view.<\/p>\n

The rock star, who the world knew as wild, enthusiastic, and outlandish, looked frail and delicate. But true to style, he put on a show.<\/p>\n

At times, he appeared to tear up, and at one point said, “you’ve got no idea how I feel”.<\/p>\n

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”\"Ozzy<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osbourne was emotional during his final show in Birmingham in July. (Reuters: Sachin Ravikumar)<\/p>\n

Tearful last show<\/p>\n

After a day-long metal festival on July 5 featuring the likes of Anthrax, Metallica, and Guns N’ Roses, Ozzy ascended the stage via an elevator platform and was met with adulation.<\/p>\n

Estimated to be the highest-grossing charity concert of all time, the event has donated approximately $290 million of profits to three different charities.<\/p>\n

Ozzy told the crowd that he had been “laid up for, like, six years” before this gig and that he wanted the crowd to “go crazy”.<\/p>\n

Staying seated, the rockstar then performed five songs solo on stage, starting with his 1980 hit I Don’t Know.<\/p>\n

That meant the first lyrics he sang in his final gig were “people look to me and say ‘Is the end near, when is the final day?'”<\/p>\n

During the set, fans saw Ozzy struggle with both his pitch and timing, which at times was painful but endearing.<\/p>\n

He was on the brink of tears as the crowd sang him home during the middle of the set before the legend finished his solo showing with a conquering rendition of Crazy Train.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t the physical performance of long renown, but it was memorable.<\/p>\n

For a man who once said he would “rather see twenty thousand smiling faces than twenty thousand crying people”, perhaps tearing up in front of a crowd of emotional heavy metal fans was the most metal thing he could do.<\/p>\n

The original members of Black Sabbath then joined him on stage for their first appearance together in 20 years.<\/p>\n

Tony Iommi, Terence “Geezer” Butler, Bill Ward, and Ozzy treated the Sabbath faithful to a nostalgic but short set with Paranoid, one of their most famous songs.<\/p>\n

The last lyrics he ever sang on stage were, “I tell you to enjoy life, I wish I could, but it’s too late.”<\/p>\n

The ‘conductor of mayhem’<\/p>\n

The song Paranoid is from Black Sabbath’s second album of the same name, released in September 1970.<\/p>\n

It is consistently ranked among the greatest heavy metal songs of all time \u2014 and even the best.<\/p>\n

In it, Ozzy sings “people think I’m insane” and “[I] think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t find something to pacify”.<\/p>\n

\"ozzy<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osbourne said he was a “conductor of mayhem”. (Reuters: Mario Anzuoni)<\/p>\n

The song is about bassist Geezer Butler and his feelings as a depressed teenager; however, the lyrics lend well to Ozzy Osbourne and his manic life.<\/p>\n

Untrained as a singer, Ozzy had to be insane and wild to stand out as a top-level frontman, by his own admission.<\/p>\n

“I think there’s a wild man in everybody,” he said. “All I am is a conductor of mayhem.”<\/p>\n

Remember when he bit a bat’s head off?<\/p>\n

The most pressing example of that is when he bit the head off a bat.<\/p>\n

At a gig in Des Moines, Iowa, in January 1982, a fan threw a bat on stage, which Ozzy in turn savaged.<\/p>\n

He said afterwards that he assumed it was a rubber toy, not the dead animal it turned out to be.<\/p>\n

The moment is enshrined in rock lore, but not before Ozzy was rushed to the hospital for rabies medication.<\/p>\n

Audiences mooned, spat on, and pelted with raw meat\"Close<\/p>\n

Ozzy was electric on stage. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n

Bats notwithstanding, anything could happen at a Sabbath show.<\/p>\n

Those in the front rows were mooned, spat on, screamed at, and more by the singer at his peak.<\/p>\n

Black Sabbath fired him in 1979 for his legendary excesses, like showing up late for rehearsals and missing gigs (he reunited with the band in 1997).<\/p>\n

However, that just birthed Ozzy, the solo artist \u2014 an even crazier concept.<\/p>\n

During the Diary of a Madman solo tour in 1981, he had a bit where he would hurl raw meat from a catapult at audience members.<\/p>\n

Snorting ants and a weak bladder<\/p>\n

Off stage, Ozzy’s outlandish exploits included indecency, arrests, and much alcohol and drug use.<\/p>\n

He tried everything and got away with most things.<\/p>\n

\"ozzy<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osbourne battled addiction for most of his life. (Getty Images: Frazer Harrison)<\/p>\n

While on tour with US rock band Motley Crue in 1984, he snorted a trail of ants drawn to an ice block left on the ground next to a pool.<\/p>\n

Tommy Lee of Motley Crue said everyone had been trying to “out-rockstar and out-gross” each other, and that Ozzy won.<\/p>\n

Two years earlier, in 1982, Ozzy urinated on a memorial for fallen soldiers in Alamo, Texas, while wearing one of his wife Sharon’s dresses.<\/p>\n

He later apologised and donated thousands of dollars to the group that maintains the site.<\/p>\n

That didn’t stop him from urinating on a police car in Memphis in 1984 \u2014 unintentionally, he claimed.<\/p>\n

Sabbath crew member Graham Wright reckoned “Ozzy had a weak bladder”.<\/p>\n

White House blunder underscored battle with addiction<\/p>\n

It wasn’t a weak bladder that got him in trouble at the White House in 2002.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ozzy<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osburne at the White House in 2002. (Reuters: William Philpott WP\/HK)<\/p>\n

In front of a room of 1,800 people, Ozzy reportedly was jumping on a dining table after having too much to drink, prompting then-US president George Bush to say, “This might have been a mistake”.<\/p>\n

Ozzy battled alcohol and drug addiction throughout his career and, as late as 2013, admitted he was still using.<\/p>\n

He eventually stopped, telling Revolver magazine in 2018 about his sobriety, admitting he regretted his earlier antics. Some of them at least.<\/p>\n

“I was the rock and roll rebel for a long while. But that’s alcohol and drugs,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s not very cool to die young.”<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osbourne died aged 76 on July 22, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black Sabbath reunited for the first time in 20 years in July for what Ozzy Osbourne predicted would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,15579,6814,16897,16899,134,16898,15577,16027,6815,10160,15580,15581,427,16900],"class_list":{"0":"post-15360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-birmingham","11":"tag-black-sabbath","12":"tag-black-throne","13":"tag-british-tour","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-farewell-concert","16":"tag-heavy-metal-music","17":"tag-ozzy","18":"tag-ozzy-osbourne","19":"tag-rock-music","20":"tag-sharon-osbourne","21":"tag-the-osbournes","22":"tag-tv","23":"tag-villa-park"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}