Bloody hell! Wasn’t Ozzy Osbourne supposed to live forever?
The Black Sabbath frontman and self-proclaimed “Prince of Darkness” died Tuesday at 76. Besides a half century of substance abuse, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer battled Parkinsons and emphysema.
Not being much of a Heavy Metal fan, my first exposure to the Warwickshire, England, native was in my role as a TV critic. The Osbournes — featuring wife Sharon and teen kids Jack and Kelly — was a bloody big hit on MTV when it premiered in 2002. Their daffy, dysfunctional yet loveable clan spawned a rehab ward full of celebrity family reality shows featuring everyone from Paris Hilton and Hugh Hefner to KISS frontman Gene Simmons and even Alan Thicke.
I first encountered the family on Television Critics Association press tours and found them to be just as entertaining off-screen as -on. The surprise was how press-savvy and well-mannered they all were. There was always a sort of Father Knows Best meets Satan vibe to the success of their series, making it both relatable and bizarre at the same time.
“I always remember my father. As a young boy, he said to me one time that, in any crisis, people want to be fed, and they want to be entertained. And I’m there to entertain.”
Most memorable for me was getting to interview Ozzy in June of 2003 for a Front Page story in the Toronto Sun. Osbourne was pledging to honour his deal to perform live with his band in Toronto despite an outbreak in that city of SARS, an acute respiratory syndrome that predated COVID-19. In short, rock stars and others were avoiding Toronto that spring and summer like the plague.
Not Ozzy, however, “#@!*?%# SARS” read the June 11 headline, with the added deck: “Ozzy’s got the cure for T.O. blues.”
advertisement
The hardest part about interviewing notorious mumbler Osbourne over the phone was trying to transcribe the interview later. Talk about bloody hell.
Still it was well worth it. Osbourne loved being a rock god on a mission to save a Canadian city. After performing in Edmonton, with Toronto next on the agenda, he gave his band the opportunity to bail on the gig.
“I said, listen guys, it’s your call because you have to be there at five in the morning to load the gear.” To a man they stood by the boss. “They just went, ‘What are you talking about?'” They all bought into his “Show must go on” spirit.
“My feelings are I could walk out of this f-ing hotel room now and get run over by a truck or get a heart attack.” Osbourne thought of his father, who lived through the second world war. “Every night the Germans were trying to bomb England to bits. I always remember my father. As a young boy, he said to me one time that, in any crisis, people want to be fed, and they want to be entertained. And I’m there to entertain.”
Besides, Ozzy added, “Toronto’s a rock and roll city man.” He told me that one of the last Black Sabbath album’s, 1978’s Never Say Die, was “half written in Toronto.” His favorite bar at that time was the Gas Works on Young Street. “I got carried out of that club many a night.”
How much of an impact has The Osbournes’ TV show had on his career? Ozzy told me he never made the cover of Rolling Stone alone or with Black Sabbath until the series came along. A little over a year later, he had been on that cover three times. “That’s the power of TV,” he said. Three years earlier, he figured he’d do a few Oz Fests and Fade into rock and roll history. Instead, in 2002, he was ranked third behind Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones in concert earnings with an estimated US$66 million in ticket sales. His Empire was driven by this wacky reality sitcom that transformed the former Prince of Darkness into an eccentric TV dad.
“Last year, I was in Boston,” Osbourne related, “and this very conservative woman comes up to me. And they all feel they have to say the F-word. So I’m coming out of the hotel, and she says ‘Ozzy-F-ing Osborne.’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ She goes, ‘What are you doing in Boston?’ I said, ‘I’m doing a show.’ She goes. ‘What kind of a show?’ I look at her with a frown on my face and say, ‘A rock and roll show.’ She goes ‘Oh, you do that as well. Do you?'”
Osbourne told me that he never watched the series, then running un-bleeped in Canada on CTV. His view was that it was basically a reality show and he’d already lived it. “Why relive it six months down the road?”
What he had just seen at the time of our interview was “The Ozporns,” a X rated version of the series he caught on an adult channel in his Ottawa hotel room.
“It’s the f-ing funniest thing I ever saw,” said Osbourne, who noted that the porn stud who played him had a cockney accent. “Mind you, he had a bigger dick than me, so I turned it off.”
Speaking of which, The Osbournes stuck it out for one more year. The shock of seeing the odd-ball family wore off quickly and Jack and Kelly tired of all the press scrutiny. Rating slid 50 per cent from the first to the second season.
Ozzy was more focused on his wife’s health at the time of our interview. Sharon had been diagnosed with colon cancer and had undergone chemotherapy. The treatments resulted in a clean bill of health.
“I call her the Unstoppable Sharon because the chemotherapy is not F-ing nice, man,” said Osbourne. “The treatment is worse than the F-ing illness.” Around the same time, their son Jack, then 17, spent five weeks in rehab battling alcohol and substance abuse addictions. Over the next 20 years, Jack seemed to have better luck than his dad when it came to staying sober.
Osbourne leaves behind wife Sharon, 72, a savvy manager credited with reversing Ozzy’s heavy metal career. She became a star in her own right, headlining her own short-lived syndicated talk show and featured on everything from America’s Got Talent, The Apprentice, and The Talk. Condolences as well to their eldest daughter Aimee (who never participated in the series), Kelly, now 40, and Jack, 39, as well as three children from his first marriage.
Despite their marital ups and downs — which Sharon was never shy about publicly sharing — the Osbournes lasted much longer than their TV series and remained married until Ozzy’s death. “We all love each other, no matter what,” the SARS Crusader, role model, and family man told me. Bloody Hell, who am I to deny it.
