Ozzy Osbourne, leader of Black Sabbath and legend of heavy metal, dies at 76 years

Ozzy Osbourne, the legend of heavy metal that jumped to fame in the Pioneer Black Sabbath group, has died, his family said in a statement to News themezone. He was 76 years old.

“It is more sad that the simple words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has died this morning,” said the family in the statement. “He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect the privacy of our family at this time.”

Whether covered in black or black chest, the singer was often the objective of the parents of parents for their images and once caused a fuss for biting the head of a bat. Later, he revealed himself as a modification and sweet father in the reality show “The Osbournes.”

The great explosion of heavy metal

Black Sabbath’s homonymous debut in 1969 LP has been compared to the Big Bang of Heavy Metal. He arrived during the apogee of the Vietnam War and crashed the hippie party, dripping the threat and feeling. The cover of the record was of a spooky figure against a marked landscape. The music was strong, dense and angry, and marked a change in rock ‘n’ roll.

The second album of the band, “Paranoid”, included classic metal songs such as “War Pigs”, “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots”. The song “Paranoid” only reached number 61 in Billboard Hot 100, but became many ways in the characteristic song of the band. Both albums were voted among the 10 best Heavy Metal albums of all time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine.

“Black Sabbath are the heatles of Heavy Metal. Anyone who takes the metal seriously will tell you that everything is reduced to Sabbath,” Dave Navarro wrote from the Jane’s Addiction band in a 2010 tribute in Rolling Stone. “There is a direct line that you can go back to today’s metal, through eighty bands such as Iron Maiden, back to Sabbath.”

Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979 for his legendary excesses, such as appearing late for the missing trials and concerts. “We knew that we really had no choice but to say goodbye because it was very out of control. But we were all very depressed for the situation,” Bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler wrote in his memoirs, “in a vacuum.”

Osbourne re -emerged the following year as a solo artist with “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman” of the following year, both hard rock classics who became multiglatinum and lasting favorites and “Crazy Train”, “Goodbye to romance”, “flying again” and “You cannot kill Rock and Roll.” Osbourne was induced twice to the Rock & Roll Hall, once with Sabbath in 2006 and Again in 2024 As a solo artist.

Sabbath’s original alignment met for the first time in 20 years in July 2025 in the United Kingdom so Osborne said it would be his final concert. “Let the madness begin!” He told 42,000 fans.

Metallica, Guns N Roses, Slayer, Tool, Panther, Gojira, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon made sets. Tom Morello, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Billy Corgan, Ronnie Wood, Travis Barker, Sammy Hagar, Andrew Watt, Yungblud, Jonathan Davis by Korn, Nuno Bettencourt, Chad Smith and Vernon Reid appeared. Actor Jason Momoa was the host of the festivities.

“Black Sabbath: we would all be different people without them, that’s the truth,” said Panther singer Phil Anselmo. “I know I wouldn’t be here with a microphone in my hand without Black Sabbath.”

Extravagant exploits and a classic appearance

Osbourne embodied the excesses of metal. His extravagant exploits included relieving in the Alamo, inhaling a line of ants of a sidewalk and, most memorable, biting the head of a live bat that a fanatic threw on stage during a 1981 concert. (He said he thought it was rubber).

Osbourne was sued in 1987 by the parents of a 19 -year -old teenager who died for suicide while listening to his song “Solution solution.” The demand was dismissed. Osbourne said the song was really about the dangers of alcohol, which caused the death of his friend Bon Scott, main singer of AC/DC.

The then Cardinal John J. O’Connor in New York said in 1990 that Osbourne’s songs led to demonic possession and even suicide. “You are ignorant about the true meaning of my songs,” the singer wrote. “You have also insulted the intelligence of rock fans worldwide.”

The public in Osbourne’s shows could be a moon or spit for the singer. They often went to shout along with the song, but the Osbourne who invites Satan generally sent the crowds home with their ears sounding and a cordial “God bless you!”

An annual tour began, Ozzfest, in 1996 after he was rejected from the alignment of what was then the best tour of tour, Lollapalooza. Ozzfest has presented bands such as Slipknot, Tool, Megadeth, Rob Zombie, System of a Down, Clez Bizkit and Linkin Park.

Osbourne’s appearance changed little about his life. He wore his long flat hair, heavy black -eyed makeup and round glasses, often with a cross around his neck. In 2013, he met with Black Sabbath for the Dour, RAW “13”, which reached number 1 on the United Kingdom album list and reached its maximum point at number 86 in the Billboard 200 of the United States. In 2019, he had a success among the 10 best when he appeared in “Take You You Want” by Post Malone, Osbourne’s first song in the Top 10 since 1989.

In 2020, he released the album “Ordinary Man”, which had as a title song a duo with Elton John. “I have been a bad guy, I have been higher than the blue sky/and the truth is that I don’t want to die of a common man,” he sang. In 2022, he got his first issue to the Rock Radio Singles number 1 of his album “Patient number 9”, which presented collaborations with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Mike McCready, Chad Smith, Robert Trujillo and Duff McKagan. He obtained four Grammy nominations.

At the induction ceremony of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024, Jack Black called him “the best leader in the history of rock and roll” and “The Jack Nicholson de Rock”. Osbourne thanked his fans, his guitarist Randy Rhoads and his former wife, Sharon.

The beginnings of Black Sabbath

John Michael Osbourne grew up in the sandy city of Birmingham, England. The children at school nicknamed Ozzy, abbreviation for their last name. When he was a child, he loved the four stations, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. The Beatles caused a great impression.

“They came from Liverpool, which was approximately 60 miles north where I come,” he told Billboard. “So suddenly I was in my reach, but I never thought it would be as successful as it became.”

At the end of the 1960s, Osbourne had associated with Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward as the Tulk Blues Blues band in Polka. They decided to change the name of the Earth band, but discovered that there was another band with that name. Then they changed the name to the American title of the classic Italian horror film “I tre volti della paura”, starring Boris Karloff: Black Sabbath.

Once they found their rank of luditos and claims, the band was productive, taking out their homonym and “paranoid” debut in 1970, “Master of reality” in 1971, “Vol. 4” in 1972 and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” in 1973.

Music were industrial guitar riffs and disorienting changes in time firms, along with lyrics that spoke of alienation and fatality. “People think I’m crazy because I’m frowning all the time,” Osbourne sang in a song. “I think about things all day, but nothing seems to satisfy/think that I will lose my head if I don’t find something to pacify.”

The Guardian newspaper in 2009 said the band “introduced the anger of the working class, the sludge grooves of Stoner and the Roca of Witch horror to the power of the flowers. Black Sabbath faced the empty topics of the 1960s and, together with Altamont and Charles Manson, almost surely helped kill the hippy basin.”

After Sabbath, Osbourne had a strange ability to call some of the most creative guitarists by his side. When he was alone, he hired the brilliant innovative Rhoads, who played in two of the best solo albums of Osbourne, “Blizzard of Ozzz” and “Diary of a Madman.” Rhoads was killed in a strange plane accident in 1982; Osbourne released the live album “Tribute” in 1987 in his memory.

Osbourne then signed Jake E. Lee, who lent his talents to Platinum albums “Bark at the Moon” and “The Ultimate without”. Hotshot Zakk Wylde joined the Osbourne band to “No Rest for The Wicked” and the multiplatin “No More Tears”.

“They come, sprout wings, flourish and fly,” Osbourne said about his players in 1995 to The News. “But I have to move on. To get a new player from time to time he drives me.”

Courting controversy and health

With whom he was playing, Osbourne was not likely to go back to the controversy. He laughed for the last time when the television evangelist The Reverend Jimmy Swaggart in 1986 criticized several rock groups and rock magazines such as “the new pornography”, which led some retailers to pull Osbourne’s album.

When Swaggart later was caught with a sex worker in 1988, Osbourne took the song “Miracle Man” about his enemy: “Miracle Man was arrested/Miracle Man was arrested,” he sang. “Today I saw a miraculous man, on television crying/such a hypocritical man, born again, dying.”

Much later, a new Osbourne would reveal himself when “The Osbournes”, which was executed in MTV from 2002 to 2005, showed this self -proclaimed self -proclaimed cokes of drink diet to drink while fighting to find the history channel on their new satellite television or warning their children not to smoke or drink before they embark on a night in the city.

Later, he and his son Jack toured the United States in the travel program “Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour”, where the couple visited places like Mount Rushmore and the Houston Space Center. Osbourne was honored in 2014 with the appointment of a bat frig in the Amazon that makes acute calls and similar to bats. It was called DendropSophus ozzyi.

He also met Queen Elizabeth II during his weekend in the golden jubilee. He was standing next to the singer-actor Cliff Richard. “She looked at both of us, said ‘Oh, so this is what Variety calls, right?’ Then he laughed.

Thelma Riley and Osbourne married in 1971; Osbourne adopted his son Elliot Kingsley, and had two more children, Jessica and Louis. Later, Osbourne met Sharon, who became his own famous personality, when he directed his father’s office in Los Angeles. His father was Don Arden, a main concert promoter and artist manager. She went to the Osbourne hotel in Los Angeles to collect money, that Osbourne had spent on drugs.

“She says she will return in three days and she will be better for him to have it. I had always imagined her and thought: ‘Ah, she will return! Maybe I have a chance.” I had pizza hanging from my hair, cigarette ashes in my shirt, “he told Los Angeles Times in 2000. They married in 1982, they had three children, Kelly, Aimee and Jack, and suffered periodic separations and reconciliations.

Sharon and his children survive.

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