{"id":445291,"date":"2026-05-26T02:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T02:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/445291\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T02:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T02:38:07","slug":"ozzy-osbourne-ai-avatar-will-be-so-tasteful-jack-osbourne-says-after-fan-backlash-ozzy-osbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/445291\/","title":{"rendered":"Ozzy Osbourne AI avatar will be \u2018so tasteful\u2019, Jack Osbourne says after fan backlash | Ozzy Osbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year after his death, Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> is set to be recreated as a lifesized AI-powered avatar, his family have announced \u2013 but fans aren\u2019t entirely happy.<\/p>\n

The late rocker\u2019s son Jack and his wife, Sharon, announced on 20 May<\/a> at Licensing Expo, an event for brands in Las Vegas, that the family had partnered with tech companies Hyperreal and Proto Hologram to create an Ozzy Osbourne avatar.<\/p>\n

The Black Sabbath frontman died in July 2025<\/a> at the age of 76.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of scary how it\u2019s really very accurate,\u201d Jack Osbourne told the audience at Licensing Expo<\/a>. \u201cHe will exist digitally as himself for as long as we have computers. Technology has come such a long way to where it\u2019s almost drag and drop. You could shoot a template for a commercial \u2026 literally prompt what you want Digital Ozzy to do in that commercial and you just drop it in. It\u2019s that simple now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharon Osbourne added: \u201cWe\u2019re going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back.<\/p>\n

\u201cElvis died 50 years ago and everybody knows Elvis. I just want that for Ozzy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hyperreal claims the lifesized avatar will be able \u201chave conversations with fans and move, speak, and respond as Ozzy would\u201d and will begin appearing on interactive touchscreens that will be placed in yet-to-be disclosed locations in the US and UK later this year.<\/p>\n

The Hyperreal chief executive, Remington Scott, told Billboard<\/a> that the avatar \u201cwas built exclusively from authenticated, approved source material: curated, consented, and controlled by the people who love him most\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a living performance, not a rendering; and it draws from nothing that wasn\u2019t given willingly,\u201d Scott said. \u201cWe have the enthusiastic participation of Ozzy\u2019s family, and that changes everything about what this can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the announcement has attracted criticism from fans of Osbourne and Black Sabbath, who have criticised the deal as disrespectful and distasteful<\/a> and speculated that using Osbourne\u2019s image in advertising would be against his wishes.<\/p>\n

Jack Osbourne, who recently named his newborn daughter Ozzy<\/a> in honour of his father, responded to the criticism during a YouTube livestream<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the thing, it\u2019s gonna be so tasteful what we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s not gonna be fucking lame,\u201d Jack said. \u201cIt\u2019s really complex what we\u2019re doing. This isn\u2019t just like hooking up an image of my dad to ChatGPT. This is some high-level technology that we\u2019re gonna be working with, and it\u2019s gonna feel very real, and it\u2019s kind of wild how it will be utilised.\u201d<\/p>\n

He claimed he had discussed similar ideas with his father before his death.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool and it\u2019s something that I think my dad would be into,\u201d he said. \u201cWe actually talked about it before he passed, about doing something like this \u2026 I know he would be into this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osbourne will not be the first musician to receive the hologram treatment after death, following the likes of Tupac Shakur<\/a>, Roy Orbison<\/a>, Maria Callas<\/a> and Michael Jackson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A touring Amy Winehouse hologram<\/a> announced in 2018, seven years after her death<\/a> from alcohol poisoning, attracted criticism from those who argued that an artist who disliked touring should be allowed to rest \u2013 but the project was later canned due to \u201cunique challenges and sensitivities\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year after his death, Ozzy Osbourne is set to be recreated as a lifesized AI-powered avatar, his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-445291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}