Ozzy Osbourne

On 5 July 2025, in a stadium in Birmingham — his city, where heavy metal had been born more than half a century earlier — Ozzy Osbourne played his last concert.

He was too frail to stand, so he sang seated on a black throne crowned with a bat, in front of forty-five thousand people. On that stage, one after another, played the bands he had inspired: Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice in Chains. The children of metal had come to pay homage to their father.

Seventeen days later, Ozzy died, surrounded by his family.

Where it all came from

To understand why those giants came to bow before him, you have to go back to the beginning.

In 1968, in working-class Birmingham, a lad called John Michael Osbourne founded a band called Black Sabbath with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. And with it they invented something that did not exist.

Heavy riffs, slow, dark; music that sounded like the end of the world. "Paranoid", "Iron Man", "War Pigs". Sabbath's first record is, for many, the big bang of an entire genre: without them, half the heavy music on the planet would not exist.

They gave a voice to those who did not fit in, to the odd ones, to the ones drawn to the dark. That is what half the world's metal scene was thanking him for in 2025.

The Prince of Darkness

Ozzy took the role seriously, all the way to legend.

His wild moments are part of rock's mythology: he bit the head off a live dove in a meeting with executives from his record label, and off a bat a fan threw onto the stage — he said he thought it was rubber, and had to have a course of rabies jabs.

In 1979 he was thrown out of Black Sabbath over his excesses with drink and drugs. He then built an enormous solo career: "Crazy Train", "Mr. Crowley", "Mama I'm Coming Home", with a brilliant guitarist, Randy Rhoads, who died very young in a plane crash.

The shadows

They have to be told honestly, because they are his too.

Ozzy fought addiction to alcohol and drugs his whole life, and sometimes went on stage in pieces. His marriage to Sharon — his manager, his anchor, the woman who held his life together — was stormy and very public: in one episode in 1989, under the influence of drink, he assaulted her and was arrested.

They always made it up. He was no saint, and his story has hard chapters that should not be swept under the carpet.

The good-natured grandad

And here is the great contradiction that made him so loved.

In 2002 television reinvented him. The reality series "The Osbournes" showed the Prince of Darkness at home, and what appeared was the opposite of the devil: a sweet old man, funny, half lost, foul-mouthed, unable to work the remote control, who adored his wife and his children.

It was the most watched programme on MTV at the time, and it showed the world what those close to him had always known: that beneath the bat and the make-up there was a gentle, fragile man.

The world ended up loving him for both things. For having invented the darkest music on Earth, and for being, deep down, a good-natured grandad.

The throne

He was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2019 and the illness gradually wore him down. That is why the farewell concert, which was Sharon's idea, has something of a miracle about it: it gave him a reason to get up in the morning, and a goodbye as it should be.

"Back to the Beginning" ended up being the highest-grossing charity concert in history: around one hundred and ninety million dollars, shared between Parkinson's research, a children's hospital in Birmingham and a children's hospice. Ten hours of music closed by the original line-up of Black Sabbath, with Ozzy on his throne.

He sang for the last time, said thank you, and went home.

A fitting ending

Few people get a farewell like that. Ozzy Osbourne lived to be honoured, at the end, by everyone he had inspired, in the city where it all began, and then went off to die surrounded by love.

The Prince of Darkness who gave birth to the heaviest music in the world was, beneath the myth, a sweet, funny, broken and decent man. We loved him for both.

If you put on "Paranoid", or "Iron Man", or "Crazy Train", or "Mama I'm Coming Home", you will hear the man who gave a voice to the people society looked at strangely. And you will hear, too, a bloke who laughed at himself until the very end.

He climbed onto his throne, gave his last performance and went home. You cannot ask life for a fairer ending than that.

Sources

Ozzy Osbourne (born John Michael Osbourne; Aston, Birmingham, England, 3 December 1948 – 22 July 2025), singer, co-founder and vocalist of Black Sabbath, a band formed in 1968 with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, regarded as the founders of heavy metal ("Paranoid", "Iron Man", "War Pigs"). He was sacked from the band in 1979 over his problems with alcohol and drugs and built a solo career ("Crazy Train", "Mr. Crowley", "Mama I'm Coming Home"), initially with guitarist Randy Rhoads, who died in a plane crash in 1982. Known as the "Prince of Darkness" and for notorious episodes, among them biting the head off a dove in a meeting with his record company (1981) and off a bat thrown onto the stage (1982). He faced addiction throughout his life and a turbulent marriage to Sharon Osbourne, his manager, which included an arrest for assault in 1989. The reality series "The Osbournes" (2002-2005) reinvented him as a family television figure. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2019. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice (with Black Sabbath in 2006 and as a solo artist in 2024). On 5 July 2025 he gave his farewell concert, "Back to the Beginning", at Villa Park, Birmingham, with the original Black Sabbath line-up and numerous guests (Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera and Alice in Chains, among others); according to Billboard it is the highest-grossing charity concert in history, with figures reported at around 190 million dollars going to Cure Parkinson's, Birmingham Children's Hospital and Acorn Children's Hospice, although the final figure was still to be confirmed by his family. He died 17 days later, aged 76. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of his work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Billboard, CNN, Variety, Rolling Stone, Wikipedia and other press coverage.