{"id":198855,"date":"2025-10-09T00:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T00:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198855\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T00:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T00:51:09","slug":"ozzy-osbourne-wasnt-ready-to-go-but-he-was-ready-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198855\/","title":{"rendered":"Ozzy Osbourne wasn’t ready to go, but he was ready to die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> died on July 22 at the age of 76. His cause of death: a long life as Ozzy Osbourne.<\/p>\n

Officially, it was a heart attack<\/a>. But if there\u2019s one thread running through from the beginning to the end of his just-released memoir, \u201cLast Rites,\u201d it\u2019s that the man born John Osbourne in 1948 was perpetually surprised that despite a legendary appetite for drink, drugs and reckless living, his number was not yet up. Part medical travelogue and part memory storm, \u201cLast Rites<\/a>\u201d \u2014 Ozzy\u2019s third memoir, following 2009\u2019s \u201cI Am Ozzy\u201d and 2011\u2019s \u201cTrust Me, I\u2019m Dr. Ozzy\u201d (and, like them, co-written with Chris Ayres) \u2014 finds metal\u2019s premier madman sidelined by injury and suddenly feeling the full weight of his own mortality. With self-effacement and a fair amount of excruciating clinical detail, \u201cLast Rites\u201d toggles between grateful yarn-spinning and hope for one last redemption. It\u2019s a fitting final encore for a life lived at extremes; if you\u2019re not a rock legend with a bank account to match, it\u2019s also a tale that might leave you hoping to die before you get old.<\/p>\n

With self-effacement and a fair amount of excruciating clinical detail, \u201cLast Rites\u201d toggles between grateful yarn-spinning and hope for one last redemption.<\/p>\n

No one was more surprised than Ozzy to find himself alive at the age of 70. Like many in his profession, he\u2019d seen heroes and mates like Keith Moon, John Bonham and Bon Scott check out too early; he\u2019d also outlived compatriots who seemed immortal \u2014 most notably Mot\u00f6rhead\u2019s Lemmy Kilmister, who penned the lyrics for Ozzy\u2019s 1991 power ballad \u201cMama, I\u2019m Coming Home.\u201d<\/a> But \u201cLast Rites\u201d suggests that once the health problems that derailed his 2018 farewell tour began to snowball, Ozzy beckoned death with one hand and held it back with the other, desperate to achieve closure before his final bow. It\u2019s a story shot through with survivor\u2019s guilt, countless conversational passages ending abruptly in wonderment at his own inexplicable insistence on continuing to live.<\/p>\n

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(Alex Pantling\/Getty Images) Ozzy Osbourne performs during the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony<\/p>\n

Anyone who watched \u201cThe Osbournes,\u201d<\/a> the MTV reality series that ran from 2002 to 2005, might have been surprised to find out that Ozzy was a mere 53 when he became America\u2019s favorite doddering old dad. The show, which prefigured \u201cKeeping Up with the Kardashians\u201d and the rest of the celebrity-reality genre, was conceived as a lark \u2014 a peek at Satan\u2019s favorite son<\/a> as he shuffled through his house sporting tinted glasses and an armful of small, fluffy dogs, the least dramatic member of his own household. As wife\/manager Sharon and bratty teens Kelly and Jack fussed and fought and chewed the scenery (the couple\u2019s oldest child, Aimee, refused to participate in the spectacle), Ozzy\u2019s slurred, heavily bleeped commentary became the show\u2019s uneasy comic relief.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Osbournes\u201d kicked off the era of reality TV\u2013as\u2013redemption narrative, a way for celebrities with dwindling star power and\/or lengthening rap sheets to resuscitate foundering careers. Ozzy famously hated the show<\/a>, and his obvious disinterest in being on camera fueled concern that he was an addled dementia patient whose family was exploiting him. But his combination of pathos and comic timing endeared him to viewers while, behind the scenes, he continued to battle old demons like depression and guilt while concealing newer ones, like a diagnosis of Parkinson\u2019s disease. Cuddly, out to lunch, and newly addicted to Chipotle burritos was fine. Shambling, out to lunch and still addicted to beer, weed and pills: not so much.<\/p>\n

The events that in 2019 began a slow unwinding of Ozzy\u2019s mortal coil are so vividly told that the producers of \u201cThe Osbournes\u201d would surely have loved to broadcast them in much lighter form. During a break in his tour necessitated by a nasty staph infection, Ozzy\u2019s habitual nod to youth (stage-diving into bed every night) collides with an indignity of aging (stumbling half-asleep and full-bladdered out of bed in the wee hours) and ends in a disoriented plummet straight to the floor. The fall exacerbates injuries from an ATV accident<\/a> years earlier, knocking loose the hardware holding Ozzy\u2019s road-weary frame together. (\u201cI didn\u2019t need a doctor so much as I needed a mechanic.\u201d) And the spinal surgery he\u2019s told can fix it sets off a mounting series of complications that force Ozzy off the road indefinitely.<\/p>\n

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Weeks stretch into months and, once COVID arrives, months turn into years; each medical setback sends Ozzy to new lows of physical agony and psychic isolation. \u201cLast Rites\u201d takes on the expectant rhythm of a quest as Ozzy gets better and worse, much worse and a little better. Meanwhile, the projects that flower in his healthier intervals \u2014 collaborations with Post Malone<\/a> and Busta Rhymes, recording a new album with a dynamic young producer \u2014 make him more determined to reckon with his past and find closure that will let him rest in peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Rites\u201d is the redemption narrative that \u201cThe Osbournes\u201d couldn\u2019t be \u2014\u00a0 genuinely big-hearted rather than contrivedly quirky, refusing to overwrite past ugliness but still brimming with gratitude.<\/p>\n

Regrets? He\u2019s had a few. Despite regular acknowledgments of a life well lived, the man\u2019s not too proud to admit that \u201cThis is Spinal Tap<\/a>\u201d was a bit too real for him (\u201cI remember thinking to myself, wow, this is the most interesting and relatable documentary I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d). His memory is still burdened by the alcohol and drug benders that got him booted from Black Sabbath, the alcohol and drug benders that dogged his solo career, the alcohol and drug benders that couldn\u2019t numb his sorrow and guilt about 1982 accident that killed his guitarist, Randy Rhoads, and his makeup\/wardrobe mistress, Rachel Youngblood \u2014 \u201cthe two most sensible people on the entire tour,\u201d who were nevertheless talked into a small plane by a coked-up amateur pilot.<\/p>\n

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( Mike Maloney\/Mirrorpix via Getty Images) Ozzy Osbourne with baby Jack, 1985<\/p>\n

Ozzy is also still haunted by the realization that he never thanked his old man for scraping together money for the equipment that let him start a band, and by the incident in 1989 when he blacked out, tried to murder Sharon, and woke up in prison. He mourns the falling-out with Black Sabbath bandmate<\/a> Bill Ward that he didn\u2019t try hard enough to rectify. The book\u2019s final chapter chronicles Ozzy and Sharon\u2019s efforts to pull off a 2025 reunion show and charity event in Ozzy\u2019s UK hometown of Birmingham. They do it: it\u2019s called \u201cBack to the Beginning,\u201d and it\u2019s a resounding trump. Seventeen days later.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Rites\u201d is the redemption narrative that \u201cThe Osbournes\u201d couldn\u2019t be \u2014\u00a0 genuinely big-hearted rather than contrivedly quirky, refusing to overwrite past ugliness but still brimming with gratitude. By book\u2019s end, Ozzy\u2019s in the grip of one last addiction, this time to Pink Lady apples (\u201cNone of that Granny Smith bullsh*t\u201d) procured for him from L.A.\u2019s spendy Erewhon market. It\u2019s an inadvertent reminder that money, access, a staff and loving family couldn\u2019t keep Ozzy from spending so much of his last years navigating emergency rooms and smooth-talking surgeons, battling for hope and paralyzed by pain. He doesn\u2019t take any of it for granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople ask me what I think\u2019s gonna happen in the afterlife,\u201d he writes in the book\u2019s closing pages. \u201cI say to \u2018em, I\u2019ve no idea, but it won\u2019t be long now, so if you hang around a bit, maybe I can haunt you and give you the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more<\/p>\n

about heavy-metal history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ozzy Osbourne died on July 22 at the age of 76. His cause of death: a long life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-198855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}