Hellraiser Ozzy: I’ve got Parkinson’s
Black Sabbath frontman, 71, in tears as he reveals battle with disease
HELLRAISING rock star Ozzy Osbourne, famed for his battles with drink and drugs – and for biting the head off a live bat on stage – has revealed he has Parkinson’s disease.
Days after he released a single about dying, the 71-year- old heavy metal singer told yesterday of his diagnosis, saying he had endured the ‘most painful year of my life’.
Osbourne – who earned the nickname Prince of Darkness as Black Sabbath’s frontman in the 1970s – gave a tearful interview to Good Morning America from his home in Los Angeles.
Joined by his wife Sharon and their children Kelly and Jack, the Birminghamborn singer told how he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a month after a fall in his bathroom last January that left him needing surgery.
Speculation about his health grew after he had to postpone a tour. Osbourne decided to go public because ‘to hide something inside for a while is hard’. He told interviewer Robin Roberts: ‘I’m no good with secrets. I cannot walk around with it any more.’
He will travel to Switzerland in April to ‘seek answers’ and takes medication to control the incurable progressive disorder of the nervous system.
Mrs Osbourne, 67, a judge on The X Factor, wept as her husband discussed his health battle. She said he has the PRKN 2 type of the disease, adding: ‘ There’s so many different types of Parkinson’s. It’s not a death sentence by any stretch of the imagination but it does affect certain nerves. You can have a good day and then a really bad day.’ Their daughter Kelly, 35, a singer and TV star, who this month criticised ‘sickening articles’ that claimed her father was on his deathbed, said: ‘ There are some days... there is absolutely nothing wrong with him. You come back the next day and... it’s like he can’t feel his arm and he can’t get off the couch.
‘The hardest thing is watching somebody that you love suffer.’
Her TV presenter brother Jack, 34 – who has multiple sclerosis – first noticed something was wrong with their father, she said.
Osbourne, who became known to a new generation when he and his family appeared on the US reality TV show The Osbournes between 2002 and 2005, said he hopes his fans will stick by him.
‘I need them. They’re my air,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to get well and be back out on the road again. I need it. That’s what’s killing me. That’s my drug today.
I ain’t going to go anywhere yet.’
Describing 2019, as the ‘worst longest, most painful, miserable year of my life’, he said: ‘When I had the fall it was pitch black and I went to the bathroom and I fell and landed – slam – on the floor and I remember thinking
“Well I’ve done it now”. After that it was all downhill.’ He aggravated injuries sustained in a quadbike accident in 2013, when he fractured a collarbone, eight ribs and a vertebrae in his neck.
Osbourne, the son of a toolmaker, found fame – and notoriety – with Black Sabbath in the early 1970s. The band were known for their excesses involving drink, drugs, groupies and fights, while their image attracted occultists and Satanists but drew criticism from Christians.
He was sacked by the band in 1979 and in 1981, after signing his first solo record deal, he bit the head off a dove during a meeting with CBS executives. The birds were released as a sign of peace but the intoxicated singer grabbed one and bit it.
The following year, while performing in the US, he bit the head off a bat he thought was a rubber toy. Although some claimed the bat was already dead, Osbourne later insisted that it was alive – and bit him. He also allegedly once snorted a line of ants as if they were cocaine.
Osbourne married Sharon, daughter of his manager Don Arden, in 1982. They separated briefly in 2016 after he admitted to an affair with his hairdresser.
His latest single, Ordinary Man, is a duet with Elton John. Yesterday Osbourne tweeted the lyrics, which include the line ‘I don’t want to die an ordinary man’. Other lyrics include: ‘I was unprepared for fame, then everybody knew my name’ and ‘Don’t forget me as the colours fade, when the lights go down it’s just an empty stage’.
‘I ain’t going to go anywhere yet’