John Osbourne was born in 1948, in Aston, Birmingham. He left school, aged
15, worked in a glue factory, a car horn tuning factory, an abattoir, went
to prison, and slogged away in the bands Polka Tulk Blues and Earth — before
hitting the big-time, aged 22, with the heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath.
On Friday the 13th of February, 1970, Black Sabbath went on sale.
I felt like I’d just been born.
But the critics f***ing hated it.
Of all the bad reviews of Black Sabbath, the worst was probably written
by Lester Bangs at Rolling Stone. But y’know what? Being trashed by Rolling
Stone was kind of cool, because they were the Establishment. Those music
magazines were all staffed by college kids who thought they were clever —
which, to be fair, they probably were.
Meanwhile, we’d been kicked out of school at 15 and had worked in factories
for a living, but then we’d made something of ourselves. So how upset could
we be? The important thing was someone thought we were good, ’cos Black
Sabbath went straight to No 8 in Britain and No 23 in America.
My old man wasn’t too impressed with our first album, either. I’ll always
remember the day I took it home and said: “Look, dad! I got my voice on a
record!”
I can picture him now, fiddling with his reading specs and holding the cover
in front of his face. Then he opened the sleeve, went, “Hmm” and said: “Are
you sure they didn’t make a mistake, son?”
“What d’you mean?”
“This cross is upside down.”
“It’s supposed to be like that.”
“Oh. Well, don’t just stand there. Put it on. Let’s have a bit of a singalong,
eh?”
With the first clap of thunder, my dad flinched.
I grinned nervously at him.
Then: Bong! Bong! Bong!
“Son, when does . . .”
BLAM! Dow! Dowwwwwww!!!
Dooooowwwwww!!!!!
My poor old man turned white. I think he’d been expecting something along the
lines of Knees up Mother Brown.
“What d’you think, Dad?”
“John,” he said, “are you absolutely sure you’ve only been drinking the
occasional beer?” I went bright red and said something like “Oh, er, yeah,
dad, whatever.”
Bless him, he just didn’t get it at all. I think deep down, though, he was
proud of me, in his own way. He once made me this awesome metal cross during
one of his tea breaks at the factory.
When I turned up to rehearsals with it, all the other guys wanted one, so I
got dad to make three more.
Eventually, after selling tens of millions of records, Ozzy was fired from
Black Sabbath in 1979. Down on his luck, he met Sharon Arden, who
masterminded his return. His solo comeback, Blizzard of Ozz, was a hit
in England, but he was short of money and badly needed success in the US. A
meeting with CBS Records in Los Angeles was arranged.
Don’t ask me who bought the doves. All I know is that Sharon showed them to me
when we were in the limo on the way over to the headquarters of CBS Records.
“Don’t you remember, Ozzy? They’re for the meeting. When we get in there,
you’re going to throw the doves in the air so they fly around the room. And
then you’re going to say ‘rock’n’roll’ and give them the peace sign.”
I couldn’t remember any of it. It was only 11 o’clock in the morning, but I
was already on Planet Booze.
The meeting was bulls***. I got pissed off waiting for Sharon to give me the
cue to throw the doves in the air. In the end I just pulled one of them out
of my pocket.
“Oh, cute,” a PR chick said, giving me another fake smile.
That’s it, I thought. I opened my mouth wide. Across the room, I saw Sharon
flinch.
Then I went chomp, spit. The dove’s head landed on the PR chick’s lap in a
splatter of blood. To be honest with you, I was so pissed, it just tasted of
Cointreau. Well, Cointreau and feathers. And a bit of beak.
For a split second, all you could hear was everyone taking a breath at the
same time and the photographer in the corner going click-click-click.
Then pandemonium.
1982. Ozzy’s Diary of a Madman show involved the hanging of
midgets, a giant mechanical arm, and a catapult that fired raw meat into the
audience. But on this occasion it was a prop supplied by the audience that
stole the show.
On January 20, 1982, we played the Veterans Auditorium in Des Moines.
The gig was going great. The God-like hand was working without any hitches.
We’d already hung the midget.
Then, from out of the audience came this bat. Obviously a toy, I thought.
So I held it up to the lights and bared my teeth while Randy played one of his
solos. The crowd went mental.
Then I did what I always did when we got a rubber toy on stage.
CHOMP.
Immediately, though, something felt wrong. Very wrong.
For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid, with the
worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth
and running down my chin.
Then the head in my mouth twitched.
Oh, f*** me I thought. I didn’t just go and eat a f***ing bat, did I?
So I spat out the head, looked over into the wings, and saw Sharon with her
eyes bulging, waving her hands, screaming: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IT’S REAL, OZZY, IT’S REAL!”
Next thing I knew I was in a wheelchair, being rushed into an emergency room.
Every night for the rest of the tour I had to find a doctor and get rabies
shots: one in each arse cheek, one in each thigh, one in each arm. I had
more holes in me than a lump of f***ing Swiss cheese.
1982. A few weeks after Ozzy and Sharon survived a freak accident in which
a plane carrying his guitarist and assistant crashed into the tour bus they
were sleeping on, Ozzy proposed.
Shortly after Randy died, I asked Sharon to marry me. She said yes. So I put a
ring on her finger, and we set a date.
Then the booze wore off and I changed my mind.
It went on like that for months. We had more engagements than most people have
wedding guests. I proposed to her 17 times in the end.
In the end we got married in Hawaii on the way to a gig in Japan. There was a
lot of drinking at that wedding, not to mention seven bottles of Hennessy in
the wedding cake. The stag night was a joke. I got so f***ed up in the
hotel, I missed it. The wedding night was even worse. I didn’t even make it
back to the room to spend the night with my new wife. At five in the
morning, the hotel manager had to call her room and say: “Will you please
come and get your husband. He’s asleep in the corridor and blocking the
maids.”
1986. A fan commits suicide listening to Ozzy’s hit Suicide
Solution and his bandmates sue him — his biggest problem, however, is
himself.
One morning Sharon asked me: “Did you have a good night last night, Ozzy?”
All I could remember was playing with the kids in the garden, making Jack
laugh by tickling his tummy, telling a few funny jokes, and eating one too
many slices of Kelly’s birthday cake. “You should have seen yourself,”
Sharon said.
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean you should have seen yourself .”
“I don’t understand, Sharon. I was a bit tipsy, yes, but it was a birthday
party. Everyone was a bit tipsy.”
“No, honestly, Ozzy, you should have seen yourself. Actually, would you like
to see yourself? I have a video.”
Oh crap, I thought.
Sharon had filmed the whole thing. I couldn’t believe my eyes. In my mind, I’d
been the fun dad that everyone wants to have around. Then I saw the reality.
Jack was terrified and in tears. Kelly and Aimee were hiding in the shed,
also in tears. All the other parents were leaving and muttering under their
breath. The clown had a bloody nose. And there was me, in the middle of it
all, fat, pissed, cake all over my face, dripping wet from something or
other, raving, screaming drunk.
I was a beast. Absolutely terrifying.
Deep down, I knew that all the booze and drugs had turned sour on me; that I’d
stopped being funny and zany and had started to become sad. So I went back
to rehab.
1989. Despite stints in rehab, things only get worse for Ozzy.
I woke up groaning. F*** me, I thought, as my eyes began to focus: must have
been another good one last night. I was lying on a concrete floor in a
square room. It had bars on the window, a bucket in the corner. For a second
I thought I was in a public toilet.
One of these days, I thought, I really need to stop waking up in jail
cells.The only thing left in my pockets was a scrunched-up receipt from my
local Chinese restaurant, the Dynasty. I pictured the inside of the place —
red, like hell — and saw myself sitting in one of the leather booths,
arguing with Sharon, and crushing powder and pills in one of those . . .
what d’you call them? A pestle and mortar. What the f*** had I been doing?
Coke? Sleeping pills? Amphetamines? All that and more, knowing me.
I felt disgusting. “HELLO?” I shouted through the bars. “ANYBODY THERE?”
No reply.
I was getting nervous now. Where was everybody?
Finally, this copper showed up: big bloke, my age — maybe older — with a right
old pissed-off look on his face.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Will someone please tell me what I’m doing in this
place?”
He just stood there, looking at me like I was a cockroach in his dinner. “You
really want to know?” he said.
“Yeah.”
Then he clears his throat and starts to read: John Michael Osbourne, you are
hereby charged with the attempted murder by strangulation of your wife,
Sharon Osbourne, during a domestic disturbance that took place in the early
hours of Sunday, September 3, 1989, at Beel House, Little Chalfont, in the
county of Buckinghamshire.
It was like someone had hit me over the head with a shovel.
Attempted murder?
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything.
“It says here that after returning home from a Chinese restaurant — you’d gone
there after celebrating your daughter Aimee’s sixth birthday, during which
time you became heavily intoxicated on Russian vodka — you walked into the
bedroom naked and said, I quote, ‘We’ve had a little talk and it’s clear
that you have to die’. ”
“I said what?”
“Apparently, you’d spent the entire night complaining about being overworked,
because you’d just come back from the Moscow Festival of Peace — fitting
that, ain’t it?”
“It can’t be true,” I said.
But of course it could be true. Sharon had been saying for years that she
never knew which version of me was going to walk through the front door: Bad
Ozzy or Good Ozzy. Usually it was Bad Ozzy.
The coppers in Amersham jail didn’t take much of a shine to me. My little
dance, my little ego, it didn’t do me any favours in there. I wasn’t the
bat-biting, Alamopissing, Crazy Train-singing rock’n’roll hero. All that
celebrity s*** counts for nothing with the Thames Valley Police. They kept
me in the cell for about 36 hours in the end. Then I had to go to
Beaconsfield Magistrates’ Court. “John Michael Osbourne,” said the judge,
“I’m granting you bail on three conditions: that you immediately enter a
certified rehabilitation programme; that you do not attempt to make contact
with your wife; and that you do not attempt to go back to Beel House.
Understand?”
“Yes, Your Honour. Thank you.”
I had already been booked into a rehab place: Huntercombe Manor, about 20
minutes away. On the way we passed a newsagent’s. “DEATH THREAT OZZY SENT TO
BOOZE CLINIC,” said the sandwich board outside. Eventually, Sharon came to
visit.
I wanted to keep our family together. But I knew it was useless.
“Ozzy,” she said, in this low voice, “I’ve got some important news ... I’m
going to drop the charges.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t believe you’re capable of attempted murder. It’s not in you. You’re a
sweet, gentle man. But when you get drunk, Ozzy Osbourne disappears and
someone else takes over. I want that other person to go away, Ozzy. I don’t
want to see him again. Ever.”
“I’m gonna stop,” I said. “I promise, I’m gonna stop.”
1997. The Osbournes allow TV cameras into their home for a documentary; its
success leads to the MTV series The Osbournes.
I don’t think anyone could get over the fact that we had to deal with the same
boring, day-to-day bulls*** as any other family. I mean, yes, I’m the crazy
rock’n’roller, but I also have a son who likes to mess around with the
settings on my telly, so when I make myself a nice pot of tea, put my feet
up, and try to watch a programme on the History Channel, I can’t get the
thing to work. That kind of stuff blew people’s minds. I’m like Coco the
Clown, me: at the end of the day, I come home, take off my greasepaint and
my big red nose, and become Dad.
The MTV show was broadcast for the first time on March 5, 2002 — a Tuesday
night. By Wednesday morning, it was like I’d moved to another planet. One
minute I was a dinosaur who’d been told to f*** off by the Lollapalooza
music festival; the next I was strapped to a rocket and being blasted
through the stratosphere at warp factor ten.When you’ve got a hit TV show in
America, that’s as big as it gets, fame-wise. Bigger than being a movie
star. Bigger than being a politician. And a lot bigger than being the
ex-lead singer of Black Sabbath.
It was terrifying, man. The whole thing felt like Beatlemania on LSD. I was no
longer famous for being a singer. I was famous for being that swearing bloke
on the telly.
There are things that happened on The Osbournes that I still can’t get my head
around. Like when Sharon got a call from one of the anchors at Fox News. “I
was wondering if you and Ozzy wanted to have dinner next week with the
President of the United States,” she said.
I couldn’t believe it. I always thought I’d be on a “Wanted” poster on the
Oval Office wall, not invited over for tea.
So off we went to Washington. When the dinner started, I started to have this
horrendous panic attack. There I was, this half-baked rock star, in a room
with all these Great Brains and the Leader of the Free World. What the f***
was I doing there? What did all these people want from me?
In the end, I just snapped. So I grabbed a bottle of vino from one of the
waiters, filled my wine glass, downed it, refilled it, downed it, refilled
it, and carried on until the bottle was empty. Then I got another.
Then the First Lady walked into the room, with George W. Bush following her.
And the first thing he said when he reached the podium was: “Laura and I are
honoured to be here tonight. What a fantastic audience we have tonight:
Washington power-brokers, celebrities, Hollywood stars . . . and Ossie
Ozz-Burn!”
By that time I was well and truly blasted, so as soon as I heard my name, I
jumped up on the table like a drunken arsehole and screamed:
“Yeeeeeehhaaaaaa!!” It brought the house down. But I was f***ed, so I didn’t
know when to stop.
I just stayed up there, going, ‘Yeeeeeeeehhaaaaaa!!’ until the whole room of
1,800 people went silent.
Bush looked at me.
“Yeeeeeeehhaaaaaa!!” I screamed again.
Silence.
“OK, Ozzy,” snapped Bush. On the tape, you can even hear him say: “This might
have been a mistake.”
I finally climbed down from the table — actually, I think I might have been
pulled down. Then Bush started to tell this joke about me: “The thing about
Ozzy is he’s made a lot of big hit recordings: Party with the Animals, Face
in Hell, Bloodbath in Paradise . . .”
I was about to get back up on the table and tell him that none of those were
big hits, but then he delivered the punchline.
“Ozzy,” he said, “Mom loves your stuff.”
The whole room went crazy.
I don’t remember much after that.
By the summer of 2002, the success of the show was killing me. After falling
off the wagon at the Correspondents’ Dinner, I’d been getting pissed every
day. And I was still necking as much prescription medication as I could get
my hands on. At one point I was on 42 different pills a day: sedatives,
sleeping medication, anti-depressants, amphetamines, anti-seizure
medication, anti-psychotics. You name it.
“Dad,” said Jack one day. “When you’re on the telly, d’you think people are
laughing with you or at you?”
The question had obviously been bothering him for a while.
“Y’know what,” I said to him, “as long as they’re laughing, I don’t care.”
“But why, dad? Why would you want to be a clown?”
“Because I’ve always been able to laugh at myself, Jack. Humour has kept me
alive over all these years.”
But I felt bad for Jack.
It couldn’t have been easy for him, especially during those first two years of
the show, when I was this shaking, mumbling, f***ed-up wreck. Same goes for
Kelly. It broke my heart when Jack started to get f***ed up, too. He took
Sharon’s cancer as hard as I did, to the point where he ended up on
OxyContin, which they call “hillbilly heroin” in LA. I remember we had this
huge row about it, and I said: “What the f***, Jack? Why are you going
around getting pissed all the time? You’ve never wanted for a thing! What
have you ever wanted for?”
He just looked at me and said: “A father.”
I won’t forget that moment in a hurry. It was the first time I’d really had to
face the cost of how I’d been living all those years — the cost to my son,
who I loved so much, who I was so proud of, but who I’d never been there
for. It was a terrible feeling. All I could say was: “Jack, I’m so sorry.”
Jack got sober after that. But I didn’t.
© Ozzy Osbourne 2009
Extracted from I Am Ozzy by Ozzy Osbourne with Chris Ayres, published by
Sphere on October 1 at £20. To pre-order it for £18 inc p&p call 0845
2712134 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
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