46 Fun Facts About Ozzy Osbourne

What nickname was Ozzy Osbourne widely known by?

Prince of Darkness. When religious groups branded him a devil worshipper, he folded the charge into his stage act instead of fighting it.

Which English city did Osbourne grow up in?

Birmingham. He grew up in a terraced house on Lodge Road, Aston, and after his death tens of thousands lined Broad Street as his cortege paused at the Black Sabbath Bridge.

What was Osbourne's real first name?

John. Classmates at primary school turned his surname into Ozzy and it stuck for life; his father, a night-shift factory worker who was also John Osbourne, went by Jack.

Black Sabbath took its name from a 1963 horror film starring which actor?

Boris Karloff. The band had noticed how much audiences enjoyed being frightened, and Osbourne later said scaring people was the only thing they set out to do, so the chiller's title gave them a name to match.

Who replaced Osbourne as Black Sabbath's singer in 1979?

Ronnie James Dio. Not wanting to copy Osbourne's peace signs, he saluted crowds with a gesture he said his Italian grandmother used against the evil eye, and the 'devil horns' became heavy metal's sign.

What was the title of Osbourne's 1980 debut solo album?

Blizzard of Ozz. It was meant to be the band's name, with the record credited to the group, until the sleeve appeared with Ozzy Osbourne's name in the big print and the phrase became the album title.

Which guitarist, formerly of Quiet Riot, co-wrote Osbourne's first two solo albums?

Randy Rhoads. He had learned classical guitar at his mother's music school, and at the height of his metal fame he was planning to come off the road to take a degree in the instrument.

How did Osbourne's guitarist die in March 1982, a week before a Madison Square Garden date?

A light aircraft crash. The band's bus driver, who was also a pilot, took him up in a small plane and buzzed the tour bus; a wing clipped it and the plane hit a nearby house, killing all three people aboard.

Which Night Ranger guitarist stepped in to finish Osbourne's 1982 tour after his own guitarist died?

Brad Gillis. Osbourne picked him at a hotel-room audition after a first stand-in went home within weeks; he saw out the tour, played on the live album that followed, then returned to Night Ranger.

What animal did Osbourne bite the head off on stage in Des Moines in January 1982?

A bat. A fan threw it on stage and Osbourne, taking it for a rubber toy, bit off its head; he had to have rabies shots afterwards.

In 1981, Osbourne bit the head off which bird at a meeting with CBS Records executives?

A dove. The birds were meant to be released as a peace offering to the label's staff, but Osbourne, drunk, bit the head off one and then a second as he was led out.

Which Texas city banned Osbourne for a decade after his drunken arrest there in 1982?

San Antonio. He had relieved himself at the Alamo, the shrine to the mission's fallen defenders; the ban ended ten years later, after he apologised and gave $10,000 towards the shrine's upkeep.

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne married in 1982 on which date, a public holiday in the United States?

4 July. They married on American Independence Day; Sharon, first sent by her manager father to keep Ozzy in line, had taken over his career by then, and the marriage lasted 43 years, until his death.

Who was Sharon Osbourne's father, the Black Sabbath manager whose Jet Records label released Ozzy's first solo albums?

Don Arden. A manager with a name for strong-arm tactics, he sent Sharon to keep his troubled new solo act in line, and she ended up managing Ozzy herself and then marrying him.

Which of Ozzy's children refused to take part in the MTV series The Osbournes?

Aimee. Planning a music career of her own, she hated the idea and feared the cameras would typecast her, which left Kelly and Jack to become the show's teenage stars.

Osbourne's first UK number one, in 2003, was a duet with daughter Kelly on which Black Sabbath ballad?

Changes. The 1972 piano ballad went to No. 1 while Osbourne lay in hospital after an accident, giving him his first chart-topper 33 years after his first hit single.

Which of Osbourne's solo hits has lyrics about the Cold War and the fear of nuclear annihilation?

Crazy Train. Its words came not from Osbourne but from his bassist Bob Daisley, who says the title was born when a chugging guitar effect sounded to him like a train gone nuts.

What was Osbourne riding in 2003 when a crash broke his collarbone, several ribs and a neck vertebra?

Quad bike. He came close to dying in the crash on his Buckinghamshire estate, and it was from his hospital bed that he scored his first UK number one single.

Which guitarist, then an unknown from New Jersey, made his recording debut on Osbourne's 1988 album No Rest for the Wicked?

Zakk Wylde. He heard on Howard Stern's radio show that Osbourne needed a guitarist, sent in a demo tape and won the audition, then kept coming back to the band until the singer's final years.

Osbourne's 1988 duet "Close My Eyes Forever" reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 with which singer?

Lita Ford. The former Runaways guitarist was being managed by Sharon Osbourne at the time, and she and Ozzy wrote the ballad together while drunk; it became the biggest hit of her career.

Osbourne's 2019 feature on which Post Malone song gave him his first US top ten in 30 years?

Take What You Want. Its producer, Andrew Watt, hit it off with Osbourne, and within months the pair had made Ordinary Man, the singer's first solo album in ten years.

What was the title of Osbourne's 1991 album featuring "Mama, I'm Coming Home"?

No More Tears. He announced that the tour behind it would be his last and billed it No More Tours, but the retirement did not hold: he was back within a few years on what he called the Retirement Sucks tour.

Which fellow metal frontman wrote the lyrics to Osbourne's ballad "Mama, I'm Coming Home"?

Lemmy Kilmister. The Motörhead frontman wrote the words for four songs on the album, among them this tender ballad addressed to Sharon, which became Osbourne's only solo Top 40 single in the US.

Which future bandmate had been at school with Osbourne, in the year above him?

Tony Iommi. Years later he answered a singer's advert, saw who came to the door and told his drummer to forget it, he knew this one from school; they still ended up in Black Sabbath together.

What name did Black Sabbath use just before settling on Black Sabbath in 1969?

Earth. Another band was already using the name, and after they were booked for a show in its place by mistake they went looking for a name nobody else could claim.

Which bassist formed Rare Breed in 1967 and recruited Osbourne as singer?

Geezer Butler. Rare Breed fell apart after two shows, but the partnership lasted: in Black Sabbath, Butler wrote most of the words that Osbourne sang.

What did the ad the young Osbourne pinned up in a local music shop say he needed?

A gig. The card announced that 'Ozzy Zig' was after a gig and had his own PA; the guitarist and drummer who came knocking at his door went on to form Black Sabbath with him.

What conviction led to the teenage Osbourne spending six weeks in Winson Green prison?

Burglary. A bungled break-in brought a fine he could not pay, so he served six weeks instead; once he was out, he turned to singing in local bands.

Which band's 1963 hit made the 14-year-old Osbourne decide to become a musician?

The Beatles. Hearing "She Loves You", he said, sent his world up like a shooting star; until then the future metal singer had wanted to be a plumber.

Osbourne's final concert, "Back to the Beginning", was held at which stadium on 5 July 2025?

Villa Park. Aston Villa's ground lies close to the Aston terrace where he grew up; unable to stand by then, he sang his last songs seated on a black throne.

Osbourne's farewell concert raised money to fight which disease he had?

Parkinson's. He went public with the diagnosis in 2020 and could no longer stand by the night of the show, which also raised money for two children's charities; he died 17 days later.

Which actor inducted Osbourne into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2024?

Jack Black. Osbourne, too ill to perform, watched from a throne-like chair while other singers played his songs; it was his second induction, after the one with Black Sabbath in 2006.

Which band, on its first world tour, opened for Black Sabbath in 1978 and upstaged the headliners?

Van Halen. They had only just released their debut album, yet after the first night, by Osbourne's account, Sabbath sat stunned in their dressing room; every night of that tour, he wrote, the openers slaughtered them.

Which Black Sabbath album, recorded in Toronto, was the last with Osbourne before his firing?

Never Say Die! The title did not hold: Osbourne had already walked out once before the sessions, the band was often too stoned to finish a take, and within months of the tour he was sacked.

Which 1982 live album did Osbourne fill entirely with Black Sabbath songs?

Speak of the Devil. He was under contract to deliver a live album, but the concert tapes made with his late guitarist did not come out until 1987; the record he handed over revisited his old band instead.

Which former Ratt guitarist played on Osbourne's albums Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin?

Jake E. Lee. Every song on Bark at the Moon is credited to Osbourne alone, though Lee has long maintained that he wrote much of its music.

Fan objections made Osbourne drop the working title Soul Sucka for which 2010 album?

Scream. It was also his only album with guitarist Gus G, brought in because Osbourne felt his songs had started to sound like his old guitarist's own band and he fancied a change.

Which character did Osbourne voice in Trolls World Tour (2020)?

King Thrash. He is the retired old king of the Hard Rock Trolls, whose daughter Queen Barb sets out to overthrow every other kind of music and unite the trolls under rock.

Before music, the teenage Osbourne had a factory job tuning what?

Car horns. He tuned them at the Lucas factory where his mother worked, one of a run of dead-end jobs, a slaughterhouse among them, that he left behind when he began singing in local bands.

What is the title of Osbourne's first autobiography, written with Chris Ayres?

I Am Ozzy. In it he picks Diary of a Madman as the favourite of his own albums; a second memoir, Last Rites, was announced days after his farewell concert and came out a few months after his death.

Sharon Osbourne launched Ozzfest in 1996 after organisers of which festival refused to book Ozzy?

Lollapalooza. Its bookers laughed at the idea and thought Ozzy uncool, Sharon recalled, so she organised a festival of her own; a two-show trial that autumn grew into a yearly tour.

With which Muppet did Osbourne record a duet of "Born to Be Wild"?

Miss Piggy. They cut it for a 1994 Muppets album in which the gang get lost in a recording studio and bump into stars, and Osbourne later put the track on a box set of his own.

At the Queen's Golden Jubilee concert in 2002, which star played drums for Osbourne's Black Sabbath number?

Phil Collins. He was the house drummer for the whole Party at the Palace, staged in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, so the Genesis star backed the metal veterans as he did most of the night's acts.

Which former Metallica bassist briefly played with Osbourne in 2003?

Jason Newsted. He had quit Metallica two years before, and the move was a straight swap: the bassist he replaced in Osbourne's band, Robert Trujillo, took his old job in Metallica.

Which Black Sabbath album, their first studio record with Osbourne since 1978, topped both the US and UK charts?

13. Rage Against the Machine's Brad Wilk played the drums after Bill Ward pulled out in a dispute over his contract, and the record gave the band their first number one in America.

Which piano-playing star shares the vocals with Osbourne on the title track of his 2020 album Ordinary Man?

Elton John. While writing the ballad, Osbourne thought it sounded like one of his old friend's songs and wondered aloud to Sharon whether he might sing on it; they asked, and he agreed.