Ozzy Osbourne
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46 free Ozzy Osbourne trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ozzy Osbourne went from a two-bedroom house in Aston to a throne on the Villa Park stage, and the 57 years in between contain more trivia than almost any other rock life. He co-founded Black Sabbath, got fired from it, built a bigger solo career with Randy Rhoads and Zakk Wylde, became a reality television star with his family, and played his last show in his home city 17 days before he died in July 2025. These 46 questions run the whole way. The easy tier covers the nickname, the band, the wife and manager who rescued his career, the MTV show and the bat. The middle asks about Blizzard of Ozz, the guitarists who followed Rhoads, Ozzfest, the quad bike, the Post Malone single and the duet with his daughter that finally gave him a UK number one. The hard end digs into the early bands before Sabbath, the prison in Birmingham, the Alamo, the Grammy, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dates and what was carved into his knuckles as a teenager. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation. Play it solo or print it for a metal night.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What nickname was Ozzy Osbourne widely known by?
Prince of Darkness
Prince of Darkness. When religious groups branded him a devil worshipper, he folded the charge into his stage act instead of fighting it.
Q 02Which English city did Osbourne grow up in?
Birmingham
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.
Q 03What was Osbourne's real first name?
John
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.
Q 04Black Sabbath took its name from a 1963 horror film starring which actor?
Boris Karloff
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.
Q 05Who replaced Osbourne as Black Sabbath's singer in 1979?
Ronnie James Dio
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.
Q 06What was the title of Osbourne's 1980 debut solo album?
Blizzard of Ozz
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.
Q 07Which guitarist, formerly of Quiet Riot, co-wrote Osbourne's first two solo albums?
Randy Rhoads
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.
Q 08How did Osbourne's guitarist die in March 1982, a week before a Madison Square Garden date?
A light aircraft crash
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.
Q 09Which Night Ranger guitarist stepped in to finish Osbourne's 1982 tour after his own guitarist died?
Brad Gillis
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.
Q 10What animal did Osbourne bite the head off on stage in Des Moines in January 1982?
A bat
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.
Q 11In 1981, Osbourne bit the head off which bird at a meeting with CBS Records executives?
A dove
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.
Q 12Which Texas city banned Osbourne for a decade after his drunken arrest there in 1982?
San Antonio
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.
Q 13Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne married in 1982 on which date, a public holiday in the United States?
4 July
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.
Q 21Osbourne's 2019 feature on which Post Malone song gave him his first US top ten in 30 years?
Take What You Want
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.
Q 22What was the title of Osbourne's 1991 album featuring "Mama, I'm Coming Home"?
No More Tears
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.
Q 23Which fellow metal frontman wrote the lyrics to Osbourne's ballad "Mama, I'm Coming Home"?
Lemmy Kilmister
Q 14Who was Sharon Osbourne's father, the Black Sabbath manager whose Jet Records label released Ozzy's first solo albums?
Don Arden
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.
Q 15Which of Ozzy's children refused to take part in the MTV series The Osbournes?
Aimee
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.
Q 16Osbourne's first UK number one, in 2003, was a duet with daughter Kelly on which Black Sabbath ballad?
Changes
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.
Q 17Which of Osbourne's solo hits has lyrics about the Cold War and the fear of nuclear annihilation?
Crazy Train
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.
Q 18What was Osbourne riding in 2003 when a crash broke his collarbone, several ribs and a neck vertebra?
Quad bike
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.
Q 19Which guitarist, then an unknown from New Jersey, made his recording debut on Osbourne's 1988 album No Rest for the Wicked?
Zakk Wylde
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.
Q 20Osbourne's 1988 duet "Close My Eyes Forever" reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 with which singer?
Lita Ford
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.
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.
Q 24Which future bandmate had been at school with Osbourne, in the year above him?
Tony Iommi
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.
Q 25What name did Black Sabbath use just before settling on Black Sabbath in 1969?
Earth
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.
Q 26Which bassist formed Rare Breed in 1967 and recruited Osbourne as singer?
Geezer Butler
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.
Q 27What did the ad the young Osbourne pinned up in a local music shop say he needed?
A gig
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.
Q 28What conviction led to the teenage Osbourne spending six weeks in Winson Green prison?
Burglary
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.
Q 29Which band's 1963 hit made the 14-year-old Osbourne decide to become a musician?
The Beatles
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.
Q 30Osbourne's final concert, "Back to the Beginning", was held at which stadium on 5 July 2025?
Villa Park
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.