Inside His Ups and Downs

Ozzy Osbourne experienced peaks and valleys prior to his death at age 76.

Despite his health challenges, Osbourne, who was a legendary rockstar and reality TV star, never stopped playing music. The rock star performed from a throne at the Black Sabbath farewell concert on July 5 in Birmingham, England.

Osbourne rose to fame as the frontman of Black Sabbath, which formed in 1968 and helped pioneer the heavy metal genre, along with members Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. A decade later, he launched a solo career that proved to be equally successful.

From getting fired from Black Sabbath to launching Ozzfest, here are Osbourne’s life and career ups and downs.

Osbourne once worked in a slaughterhouse

Before Osbourne formed Black Sabbath, the rock star worked in a slaughterhouse in Birmingham, England. In 2002, he told Rolling Stone it was “the longest job I ever had.”

When asked what he did there, he said, “Kill — at the end of it.”

He continued, “It was automated, but the guys would let me shoot a cow now and then. My first job there was emptying sheep’s stomachs of the puke. There was a giant mountain of the stuff. The stink was unbelievable. But you get used to it.”

He was fired from Black Sabbath (1979)

In the late 1970s, Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath due to his excessive drug and alcohol use. At the time, his bandmates, especially Iommi, found him difficult to work with.

After his exit, Osbourne was replaced by Ronnie James Dio and he launched a successful solo career. His 1980 album Blizzards of Ozz included iconic tracks like “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley.”

In 2002, he opened up to Rolling Stone about the firing.

“We deserved to fire each other. There was no one worse than anybody else. If the others had been churchgoing Bible punchers and I was f—ing their wives, I could have expected it. But they were doing booze and quaaludes too,” he said.

“In those days, we were well into cocaine. That turns you into a powder-seeking freak. The thing was, get the gig over with so we could get our bump of coke. We had a guy on tour with suitcases full of different strengths of coke,” he added.

Osbourne concluded, “We went head over heels. It made me incredibly afraid. I remember lying in bed at night, feeling my heartbeat, thinking “Please, God, let me sleep for an hour, so I’ll be OK.” Then I’d wake up and [makes sniffing noise] be straight into it again. We did it for years. Eventually it turned everything sour. One minute, we were a rock band doing coke. The next, we were a coke band doing rock.”

The death of Randy Rhoads (1982)

After Osbourne’s bandmate Randy Rhoads died in a plane accident in 1982, it sent the rockstar into a spiral.

“As we speak here, my head instantly goes back to that field where the airplane crashed into the f—ing house. It never leaves me,” he told Rolling Stone in 2002.

Osbourne continued “I said to Sharon, ‘It’s over. I don’t want this kind of life anymore.’ Sharon got really pissed. She says, ‘You’re not quitting, because Randy and Rachel [an assistant who also died in the plane crash] would not want us to quit.’ I vowed to Randy’s mom — by playing the songs we wrote together, it’s going to keep his memory alive. Randy was too young and too nice a guy to die. It’s always the assholes in the world who live to 199.”

He was arrested for attempted murder (1989)

During a drug and alcohol infused blackout in 1989, Osbourne almost choked his wife Sharon Osbourne to death.

In his 2020 documentary Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne, Osbourne and Sharon recalled the incident and said there had been several fights leading up to that moment.

“I felt the calmest I’ve ever felt in my life,” Osbourne recalled of the incident. “It was like serenity. Everything was just peaceful.”

“He just says, ‘We’ve come to a decision that you’ve got to die,'” Sharon said in the documentary, before describing how he began to choke her.

“He was calm, very very calm and he lunged across at me,” she remembered. “I felt the stuff on the table and felt the panic button and just pressed it. Next thing I know the cops were there.”

At the time, Sharon decided to drop the charges against him and he was ordered to compete six months in a treatment facility.

The Osbournes get their own reality show (2002)

In 2002, MTV launched The Osbournes, which made the rockstar a pop culture icon, along with Sharon, 72, and his daughter Kelly and son Jack.

In a 2023 episode of The Osbournes Podcast, Osbourne said the show made him “a bit crazy at times.”

“It’s so intrusive in your house,” he said. “At the time, I said I wanted a safe room where I could go and pick my nose and squeeze a zit if I want to without being on camera, and they had a f—ing camera in there. When you’ve got hidden cameras, you start to freak out.”

He continued, “It won’t happen again. Never in a million years,” Osbourne concluded.

The show ran for four seasons until 2005.

Ozzfest becomes a phenomenon (1996-2018)

In 1996, Osbourne and Sharon created Ozzfest, which was a touring metal festival that helped launch the careers of several bands like Linkin Park, Slipknot, System of a Down and Mötley Crüe.

In October 2023, Osbourne opened up about the festival — which featured an iconic Black Sabbath reunion orchestrated by Sharon in 1997 — during an episode of The Osbournes Podcast.

“It was bloody chaos — but in the best way. Every night was a party, and every band brought their A-game. We just let the music speak for itself,” he said.

Not 1, but 2 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions (2024)

In 2024, Osbourne received his second Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction as a solo artist, following his first in 2006 as a member of Black Sabbath.

In an interview with Billboard following the announcement, Osbourne said he’s “more than honored” to receive his second induction, which “feels big” and “different” from his first, since his solo career has “been a much larger part of my overall music career as a whole.”

While he did not perform, an all-star lineup of musicians came together to honor the Prince of Darkness, including Billy Idol, Jelly Roll, Wolfgang Van Halen and Tool frontman Maynard Keenan.

His final bow (2025)

On July 5, Osbourne took the stage for the last time with Black Sabbath for Back to the Beginning — his farewell show at Villa Park in Birmingham, England, following a series of health-related issues that he’s faced since 2018.

The concert was hosted by Jason Momoa and included additional performances from Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Ronnie Wood, Steven Tyler, Slayer, Pantera, Tool, Yungblud, Papa V/Ghost, Tool’s Danny Carey, Travis Barker and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith.

Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, who served as the concert’s music director, revealed afterward that the show raised $190 million for Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorn Children’s Hospice.

“We set out to not just create the greatest day in the history of heavy metal,” Morello captioned his Instagram post recapping the show’s highlights. The guitarist also gave a shout-out to Osbourne, who performed from a throne during Black Sabbath’s set.

“THANKYOU @ozzyosbourne for trusting me to be the Musical Director of the ‘Back to the Beginning’ show. It was over a year of hard work but heavy metal was the music that made me love music and it was a labor of love.”

“We raised a ton of money for a great cause and so many great musicians & bands & fans all over the world paid tribute to the ALL TIME greats,” added Morello.

On Friday, July 18, Osbourne announced the performance will be released in theaters as a concert film next year.