Before his death, rock legend Ozzy Osbourne opened up about his thoughts on the afterlife, as well as what he believed to be his unavoidable epitaph when the time came
The late, great Ozzy Osbourne wasn’t one to shy away from the darker topics in life – and this included the subject of death.
As you might expect from a rockstar nicknamed The Prince of Darkness, Ozzy, who died at the age of 76, appeared to have an interest in what would happen after he died, and even predicted what would be written on his tombstone when the time came.
Of course, the Birmingham-born rocker had more than a fair few brushes with the Grim Reaper over the years, most famously after a horror quad bike accident in 2003, after which his heart even stopped beating. In a previous interview with the Mirror, devoted wife Sharon Osbourne, 72, shared how her husband “stopped breathing for a minute and a half”, before a security guard thankfully resuscitated him.
The Black Sabbath frontman, who lived with Parkinson’s Disease, also suffered an agonising fall at his LA home, as well as a series of botched surgeries which left him in agony.
Ozzy himself even expressed surprise that he’d lived as long as he did, when so many of his friends had passed on. However, there was one thing he was sure of – how he’d be remembered.
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In a 2004 interview with Esquire, Ozzy remarked: “I know what’s going to be on my tombstone, and there’s no getting around it: ‘Here lies Ozzy Osbourne, the ex-Black Sabbath singer who bit the head off a bat’.”
Ozzy was, of course, referring to a now notorious incident which unfolded back in the winter of 1982, back when he was promoting Diary of a Madman. While on tour, the former abattoir worker got into the grisly habit of chucking raw pieces of meat into the audience, and it wasn’t long before they started to retaliate with their own grim offerings.
On the night of January 20, a fan threw what Ozzy initially believed was a rubber toy bat onto the stage. It wasn’t until he ripped the head off with his own teeth that he realised the toy was bloody and twitching.
Recalling this historic moment in his 2010 autobiography, I Am Ozzy, the Brummie star wrote: “Immediately, though, something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid. Then the head in my mouth twitched.
“Somebody threw a bat. I just thought it was a rubber bat. And I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I bit into it.”
By the time Ozzy realised he’d been chomping into a “real live bat”, it was far too late. Of course, with his myriad of professional and personal accomplishments, Ozzy will no doubt be remembered for far more than this gory incident.
However, that infamous gig did help to solidify Ozzy’s ‘satanic’ image in the eyes of music fans, who reacted with a mix of horror and morbid fascination.
Ozzy also had a few thoughts on what was waiting on the other side of the grave. In a 2009 interview with The Telegraph’s Celia Walden, Ozzy grumbled: “Hell. Even if I do make it to Heaven, you can bet your life that the toilet will stink.”
As he navigated serious health issues, Ozzy didn’t appear to fear death. In 2023, during an interview with Rolling Stone, he admitted: “I said to Sharon that I’d smoked a joint recently and she said, ‘What are you doing that for? It’ll f*****g kill you’.’ I said: ‘How long do you want me to f*****g live for?!’ At best, I’ve got 10 years left, and when you’re older, time picks up speed!”
Ozzy went on to clarify that while he didn’t “fear dying,” he didn’t “want to have a long, painful and miserable existence.” He also reflected on how many of his pals had already passed on, remarking: “Sometimes I look in the mirror and go, ‘Why the f*** did you make it?!’ I’m not boasting about any of it because I should have been dead a thousand times. I’ve had my stomach pumped God knows how many times.”
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