WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.700 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today is Monday, 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:07.559 February 2nd, 2026. And we are settling in today 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:11.220 to talk about an event that even six months later, 00:00:11.480 --> 00:00:14.500 it still feels a little hard to fully process. 00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:16.739 It really does. The world feels a little quieter, 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:20.100 doesn't it? A little less chaotic and definitely 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:22.940 a little less loud. Yeah. It's been just over 00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:26.940 six months. since July 2025, since we lost John 00:00:26.940 --> 00:00:29.140 Michael Osborne. And honestly, when you look 00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:30.920 back at the footage, you know, the funeral procession 00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:33.979 in Birmingham or that surreal moment at Buckingham 00:00:33.979 --> 00:00:36.399 Palace, it still feels like a fever dream. That 00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:38.520 is the image that stuck with me. You have the 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:41.039 cold stream guards. I mean, the literal symbol 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:44.780 of British rigidity and tradition. The red tunics, 00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:47.119 the bearskin hats. Exactly. And they're standing 00:00:47.119 --> 00:00:49.380 there playing paranoid during the changing of 00:00:49.380 --> 00:00:51.219 the guard. I mean, if you had told a, you know, 00:00:51.219 --> 00:00:54.060 a pearl clutching parent in 1980. that the Prince 00:00:54.060 --> 00:00:55.960 of Darkness would get a royal send -off like 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:57.320 that. It would have had you committed. We would 00:00:57.320 --> 00:00:59.039 have thought you were insane. Absolutely. It's 00:00:59.039 --> 00:01:01.740 the ultimate irony, isn't it? It is. But that's 00:01:01.740 --> 00:01:04.099 the story we're here to unpack today. Because 00:01:04.099 --> 00:01:07.939 the headlines, Ozzy Osbourne dead at 76, that 00:01:07.939 --> 00:01:09.799 doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. We 00:01:09.799 --> 00:01:12.019 aren't just here to, like, list the hits. No. 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:15.040 We are here to look at the survival, the pure, 00:01:15.079 --> 00:01:17.819 improbable nature of that survival. We have a 00:01:17.819 --> 00:01:20.700 massive stack of sources here. We've got biographies, 00:01:20.719 --> 00:01:23.359 retrospectives, court transcripts from those 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:26.719 wild lawsuits in the 80s, even the medical papers 00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:29.099 from when they sequenced his genome back in 2010. 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:31.359 Oh, that's fascinating stuff. We have to get 00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:33.200 into that later. We will. And of course, all 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.780 the reports from his final days, that final performance 00:01:35.780 --> 00:01:38.879 at Villa Park. Our mission today is to figure 00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:42.599 out how this kid A dyslexic abused kid from a 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:45.640 factory town went from a slaughterhouse to becoming 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:48.319 the godfather of heavy metal. And a reality TV 00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:51.420 pioneer, a cultural icon. Yeah. And, yeah, the 00:01:51.420 --> 00:01:53.739 guy who bit the heads off bats. All of it. We're 00:01:53.739 --> 00:01:55.599 unpacking the man behind the Prince of Darkness 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:57.640 persona. So let's go back. Let's go all the way 00:01:57.640 --> 00:01:59.620 back to the very beginning. Because usually when 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:01.459 we talk about rock stars, their origin stories 00:02:01.459 --> 00:02:05.340 are, you know, art schools or maybe some kind 00:02:05.340 --> 00:02:07.920 of middle class rebellion. Right. But to understand 00:02:07.920 --> 00:02:10.580 Ozzy, you have to understand Aston Birmingham 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:14.199 in 1948. I was looking at the census data and 00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:16.500 some of the historical records of that area post 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:20.500 -war. It was grim. Grim is absolutely the right 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:22.120 word. You really have to visualize the environment. 00:02:22.889 --> 00:02:26.210 Michael Osborne was born December 3, 1948. And 00:02:26.210 --> 00:02:28.469 Birmingham, Birmingham had just been decimated 00:02:28.469 --> 00:02:30.650 by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz. Because it 00:02:30.650 --> 00:02:32.969 was a major industrial hub, right? All the factories. 00:02:33.210 --> 00:02:35.030 Exactly. That's where they made the planes, the 00:02:35.030 --> 00:02:38.129 tanks. So the city was a target. And what you're 00:02:38.129 --> 00:02:40.930 left with is a landscape of bomb sites, factories 00:02:40.930 --> 00:02:43.569 just belching soot into the air. It wasn't a 00:02:43.569 --> 00:02:46.770 leafy suburb. It was just gray on gray. And the 00:02:46.770 --> 00:02:49.469 Osborne home itself at 14 Lodge Road, I read 00:02:49.469 --> 00:02:51.750 a description of it. It was a two -bedroom terraced 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:53.810 house. Which sounds small, but it wasn't just 00:02:53.810 --> 00:02:56.189 Ozzie and his parents. No, not at all. It was 00:02:56.189 --> 00:02:58.409 his parents, Jack and Lillian, and their six 00:02:58.409 --> 00:03:01.490 kids. Six kids. Eight people total in a two -bedroom 00:03:01.490 --> 00:03:04.509 house. And get this. No. No indoor plumbing. 00:03:04.729 --> 00:03:08.889 Wow. In the 1950s. Yep. They had a tin bath that 00:03:08.889 --> 00:03:10.389 they'd have to drag in front of the coal fire 00:03:10.389 --> 00:03:13.569 to heat up the water. And the toilet was an outhouse 00:03:13.569 --> 00:03:16.569 in the back garden. That level of claustrophobia 00:03:16.569 --> 00:03:20.319 of just... Constant proximity. It shapes a person. 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:23.500 And his parents were working nonstop. Constantly. 00:03:23.780 --> 00:03:26.400 His father, Jack, was a toolmaker at General 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:28.979 Electric, working grueling night shifts. And 00:03:28.979 --> 00:03:31.280 his mom, Lillian, worked in a car factory, testing 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:35.430 car components. It was a life of pure grinding 00:03:35.430 --> 00:03:37.909 manual labor. So there wasn't really an escape 00:03:37.909 --> 00:03:39.990 at home. And there certainly wasn't one at school 00:03:39.990 --> 00:03:42.310 for him either. Today, we diagnose him immediately. 00:03:42.569 --> 00:03:45.009 Instantly. But in the 1950s British school system, 00:03:45.129 --> 00:03:47.050 if you couldn't read well, you were just labeled 00:03:47.050 --> 00:03:50.550 thick or lazy. He had severe dyslexia. He also 00:03:50.550 --> 00:03:53.889 had attention deficit disorder. But the teachers 00:03:53.889 --> 00:03:56.389 just saw a troublemaker. He was humiliated by 00:03:56.389 --> 00:03:58.349 them. He talked about being caned. Oh, yeah. 00:03:58.449 --> 00:04:00.729 And the sources detail something much darker 00:04:00.729 --> 00:04:02.759 that happened around that time, too. He was the 00:04:02.759 --> 00:04:06.080 victim of pretty horrific sexual abuse by school 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:07.840 bullies when he was around 11 years old. Which 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:09.620 is something he didn't speak about publicly for 00:04:09.620 --> 00:04:13.300 decades. A deep, deep trauma. Absolutely. And 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:16.079 when you combine that trauma with the constant 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:18.699 academic failure, with the feeling of being trapped 00:04:18.699 --> 00:04:22.139 in this gray industrial world, you get a kid 00:04:22.139 --> 00:04:23.779 who's just desperate to get out of his own head. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:25.879 The biographies mention he attempted suicide 00:04:25.879 --> 00:04:28.519 multiple times as a teenager. He did. He felt 00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:31.459 completely trapped. He left school at 15 with... 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:35.040 Absolutely no qualifications, no prospects, nothing. 00:04:35.319 --> 00:04:37.540 And this leads to my favorite part of his early 00:04:37.540 --> 00:04:42.040 biography, his resume, because the list of jobs 00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:45.480 he bounced between before music, some of them 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:47.379 are just bizarre. It's incredible. You know, 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:48.720 everyone talks about the slaughterhouse. We'll 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:51.240 get there. But the car factory horn tuner is 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:53.000 the one that always gets me. It sounds like a 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.079 Monty Python sketch, doesn't it? It really does. 00:04:55.199 --> 00:04:57.910 I just have this image of him. You know, 16 years 00:04:57.910 --> 00:05:00.509 old, standing on a factory line, just honking 00:05:00.509 --> 00:05:02.810 horns all day long to check the pitch. Beep, 00:05:02.829 --> 00:05:06.089 beep, beep, beep. For eight hours a day. The 00:05:06.089 --> 00:05:09.230 monotony. The sheer loudness of it. Actually, 00:05:09.250 --> 00:05:10.670 when you think about it, it's surprisingly good 00:05:10.670 --> 00:05:12.589 training for a career in heavy metal. It really 00:05:12.589 --> 00:05:15.009 is. But we shouldn't gloss over the slaughterhouse 00:05:15.009 --> 00:05:17.329 job because that one was loud. That one was different. 00:05:17.410 --> 00:05:19.310 He worked in the abattoir. So he was on the kill 00:05:19.310 --> 00:05:22.389 floor. He was. He was killing cows, dealing with 00:05:22.389 --> 00:05:25.930 sheep carcasses. It was visceral, smelly, bloody. 00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:29.759 gut -wrenching work and he said later that the 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:32.579 screams of the animals haunted him and you think 00:05:32.579 --> 00:05:35.139 about that later in his life when critics would 00:05:35.139 --> 00:05:38.339 ask why his music was so dark or why he was so 00:05:38.339 --> 00:05:41.319 comfortable with imagery of you know blood and 00:05:41.319 --> 00:05:43.699 guts it wasn't just a costume it wasn't an act 00:05:43.699 --> 00:05:46.160 he put on he'd spent his formative years literally 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:48.839 ankle deep in it he'd seen the machinery of death 00:05:48.839 --> 00:05:51.339 up close he saw the inside of a slaughterhouse 00:05:52.029 --> 00:05:54.050 And then he saw the inside of a cell. This is 00:05:54.050 --> 00:05:56.850 the pivot point, right? Around 1965, he gets 00:05:56.850 --> 00:06:00.110 arrested. He was 17. He tried to burglarize a 00:06:00.110 --> 00:06:02.250 clothes shop in the neighborhood. But he was 00:06:02.250 --> 00:06:05.370 not a very good burglar. What did he steal? Some 00:06:05.370 --> 00:06:06.889 shirts and a small television that he couldn't 00:06:06.889 --> 00:06:08.689 even carry properly. He got caught almost immediately. 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:10.810 The fine was relatively small, something like 00:06:10.810 --> 00:06:14.350 40 quid. But his father, Jack, refused to pay 00:06:14.350 --> 00:06:16.730 it. That feels harsh. Go to prison, son. It'll 00:06:16.730 --> 00:06:19.050 teach you a lesson. It was that old school tough 00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:21.779 love mentality. Jack had worked his whole life, 00:06:21.939 --> 00:06:25.220 never been in trouble, and he was ashamed. So 00:06:25.220 --> 00:06:27.720 Ozzy spends six weeks in Winston Green Prison. 00:06:27.939 --> 00:06:30.019 And this is where he physically brands himself. 00:06:30.180 --> 00:06:32.480 You know the famous tattoo across his knuckles? 00:06:32.959 --> 00:06:35.680 O -Z -Z -Y. I would just assume that was done 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:37.899 in a proper tattoo parlor later on, you know, 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:40.879 once he was famous. No. He did it himself in 00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:44.490 that prison cell. Wow. With a sewing needle and 00:06:44.490 --> 00:06:47.310 great polish. Wait, great polish, like for a 00:06:47.310 --> 00:06:50.050 fireplace? Essentially, yes. Graphite and grease. 00:06:50.189 --> 00:06:52.970 He sat there and poked the ink into his own skin, 00:06:53.149 --> 00:06:55.310 letter by letter. Just think about the pain of 00:06:55.310 --> 00:06:57.870 that, the risk of infection. But it shows you 00:06:57.870 --> 00:07:00.149 his mindset. He was carving out an identity. 00:07:00.329 --> 00:07:01.949 He wasn't just John from Lodge Road anymore. 00:07:02.170 --> 00:07:05.189 He was O -Z -Z -Y. He was marking himself as 00:07:05.189 --> 00:07:08.089 an outsider permanently. So he comes out of prison, 00:07:08.189 --> 00:07:09.889 he's got the tattoos, he's got all this trauma, 00:07:10.069 --> 00:07:12.689 and he's got this dead -end life in Aston. Yeah. 00:07:12.990 --> 00:07:15.329 How do we get from there to the invention of 00:07:15.329 --> 00:07:18.189 an entire genre of music? Because it wasn't a 00:07:18.189 --> 00:07:20.850 straight line. Not at all. He heard She Loves 00:07:20.850 --> 00:07:23.389 You by the Beatles, and that was the moment he 00:07:23.389 --> 00:07:25.889 said, that's what I want to do. He tried a few 00:07:25.889 --> 00:07:28.470 bands, but nothing stuck. He eventually put that 00:07:28.470 --> 00:07:32.129 ad in the paper. Ozzy Zig needs gig. And he links 00:07:32.129 --> 00:07:34.649 up with Geezer Butler, who knew Tony Iommi and 00:07:34.649 --> 00:07:37.209 Bill Ward. At first, they were playing blues, 00:07:37.509 --> 00:07:39.750 the band was called. Oh, Polka Talk Blues, right. 00:07:39.910 --> 00:07:42.930 Just a terrible name. An all -time bad band name. 00:07:42.970 --> 00:07:45.769 Then they changed it to Earth. Which is not much 00:07:45.769 --> 00:07:47.430 better for a metal band. It sounds like a folk 00:07:47.430 --> 00:07:49.730 group. It was very hippie, very of the time. 00:07:49.829 --> 00:07:52.110 Yeah. But they were playing these loud 12 -bar 00:07:52.110 --> 00:07:55.930 blues gigs in pubs, and nobody cared. They were 00:07:55.930 --> 00:07:58.310 bored. The audience was bored. It wasn't working. 00:07:58.449 --> 00:08:01.649 Until the famous light bulb moment, their rehearsal 00:08:01.649 --> 00:08:03.810 space was across the street from a movie theater. 00:08:03.990 --> 00:08:06.889 And the theater was showing the 1963 Boris Karloff 00:08:06.889 --> 00:08:09.730 horror movie, Black Sabbath. Right. And Tony 00:08:09.730 --> 00:08:12.069 Iommi and Gieser are looking out the window and 00:08:12.069 --> 00:08:14.269 they see this long line of people stretching 00:08:14.269 --> 00:08:17.029 down the block waiting to get in. And one of 00:08:17.029 --> 00:08:20.250 the legends is Iommi says, isn't it strange that 00:08:20.250 --> 00:08:22.819 people pay money to get scared? That might be 00:08:22.819 --> 00:08:25.579 the single most important insight in rock history. 00:08:25.819 --> 00:08:28.339 It really might be. They realized that Disney 00:08:28.339 --> 00:08:31.500 and love songs weren't the only market. Fear 00:08:31.500 --> 00:08:34.340 is a commodity. Yeah. So they decided right then 00:08:34.340 --> 00:08:36.740 and there to try and make music that sounded 00:08:36.740 --> 00:08:39.019 like a horror movie. But it wasn't just a marketing 00:08:39.019 --> 00:08:41.559 tactic, was it? It was rooted in a specific, 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:44.480 genuinely frightening experience that Geezer 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:48.399 had. Yes. This is crucial. Geezer Butler was 00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:51.259 obsessed with the occult. He was reading all 00:08:51.259 --> 00:08:53.820 these books by a Leister Crowley. He'd painted 00:08:53.820 --> 00:08:56.080 his apartment black, filled it with inverted 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:58.820 crosses, the whole nine yards. So he was really 00:08:58.820 --> 00:09:01.980 living it. He was. And he claims that one night 00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:05.960 he woke up and saw a black, shadowy figure standing 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:08.399 at the foot of his bed, just staring at him. 00:09:08.500 --> 00:09:11.440 He was paralyzed with terror. He told Ozzy about 00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:14.509 it the next day. And Ozzy being Ozzy said, That's 00:09:14.509 --> 00:09:16.090 brilliant. Let's write a song about that. And 00:09:16.090 --> 00:09:18.730 that song became Black Sabbath. But here's where 00:09:18.730 --> 00:09:20.330 we need to get a little technical for a second, 00:09:20.370 --> 00:09:22.070 because the genius wasn't just in the lyrics. 00:09:22.129 --> 00:09:24.769 It was in the music theory. It was Tony Iommi. 00:09:24.850 --> 00:09:26.870 And the accident he had. The accident changed 00:09:26.870 --> 00:09:29.710 everything. He was working in a sheet metal factory, 00:09:29.809 --> 00:09:32.610 and on his last day of work, a machine sliced 00:09:32.610 --> 00:09:34.830 off the tips of his right hand middle and ring 00:09:34.830 --> 00:09:38.309 fingers. His fretting hand. For a guitarist, 00:09:38.330 --> 00:09:40.250 that's a death sentence. It should have been. 00:09:40.350 --> 00:09:42.590 He was about to give up. But then his factory 00:09:42.590 --> 00:09:45.269 foreman gave him a record by Django Reinhardt, 00:09:45.269 --> 00:09:47.909 the jazz guitarist. And he learned that Reinhardt 00:09:47.909 --> 00:09:49.909 played with only two fingers after being burned 00:09:49.909 --> 00:09:53.350 in a fire. It inspired him. So he made his own 00:09:53.350 --> 00:09:56.269 prosthetics? He did. He melted down a plastic 00:09:56.269 --> 00:09:58.789 liquid soap bottle and fashioned these little 00:09:58.789 --> 00:10:01.419 thimbles for his fingertips. But he couldn't 00:10:01.419 --> 00:10:03.659 press down on the strings as hard, so to make 00:10:03.659 --> 00:10:06.120 it easier to play, he tuned his entire guitar 00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:08.879 down three semitones. And that's where the sound 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:11.620 comes from, that heavy, doomy, sludgy sound. 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:13.860 That's a huge part of it. And the other part 00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:15.820 is the specific interval he used in that first 00:10:15.820 --> 00:10:19.240 song. He used a tritone. The diabolus of musica. 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:22.139 The devil's interval. Exactly. It's an augmented 00:10:22.139 --> 00:10:25.519 fourth. Mathematically, it creates a lot of sonic 00:10:25.519 --> 00:10:28.820 tension. In medieval times, the church literally 00:10:28.820 --> 00:10:30.720 banned it from their music because it sounded 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:33.539 wrong or evil. It doesn't resolve nicely to the 00:10:33.539 --> 00:10:36.159 ear. It leaves you feeling anxious and unsettled. 00:10:36.279 --> 00:10:38.340 So you have the devil's interval. You have the 00:10:38.340 --> 00:10:40.700 downtuned guitar. You have Geezer's nightmare 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:43.799 lyrics. And then you have Ozzy's voice. He wasn't 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:46.080 a blues shouter like Robert Plant. He wasn't 00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:48.860 trying to be sexy. No, he was wailing. He sounded 00:10:48.860 --> 00:10:51.759 like a man in agony or like an air raid siren 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:53.919 warning the village that the monster was coming 00:10:53.919 --> 00:10:56.460 over the hill. It was shrill. It was desperate. 00:10:56.600 --> 00:10:59.240 It was unsettling. So when that debut album drops 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:02.080 on Friday the 13th, February 1970, it doesn't 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:04.179 just sound different. It sounds dangerous. It 00:11:04.179 --> 00:11:05.860 sounded like nothing else on earth. The critics, 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:08.019 of course, absolutely hated it. Lester Bangs 00:11:08.019 --> 00:11:10.299 called it unimaginative. But the kids got it. 00:11:10.340 --> 00:11:12.519 The kids in the Rust Belt, in the factory towns, 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:14.840 in all those depressing places, they understood 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:17.799 it. Because it reflected their reality. If you're 00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:19.840 working in a steel mill in Sheffield or Pittsburgh, 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:23.759 flower power doesn't resonate. The crushing, 00:11:23.820 --> 00:11:26.200 mechanical, repetitive sound of Black Sabbath 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:29.580 sounded like the factory floor. It was the soundtrack 00:11:29.580 --> 00:11:32.200 to their lives. And the success was almost immediate. 00:11:32.299 --> 00:11:35.019 But with that success came the excess. And I 00:11:35.019 --> 00:11:36.799 want to be careful not to glamorize it because 00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:39.820 the consumption levels were, they were just... 00:11:40.610 --> 00:11:42.929 By the time we get to the late 70s, the band 00:11:42.929 --> 00:11:45.409 isn't just partying. They are fundamentally non 00:11:45.409 --> 00:11:48.629 -functional. This is the Never Say Die era, 1978, 00:11:49.230 --> 00:11:51.470 1979. They were trying to record in Toronto. 00:11:51.789 --> 00:11:53.730 And it was a disaster. The studio was freezing 00:11:53.730 --> 00:11:56.049 cold. They were spending, by their own admission, 00:11:56.269 --> 00:11:58.590 thousands of dollars a week on cocaine and alcohol. 00:11:59.090 --> 00:12:01.070 Tony Iommi said in his biography that they'd 00:12:01.070 --> 00:12:03.389 show up to the studio and just stare at each 00:12:03.389 --> 00:12:05.519 other. They couldn't play. The creative well 00:12:05.519 --> 00:12:08.360 was dry, and the friction between Ozzy and Tony 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:11.779 Iommi was getting physical. Oh, it was. There's 00:12:11.779 --> 00:12:13.779 a famous story about a fight in a hotel room 00:12:13.779 --> 00:12:16.659 where Ozzy, in a complete drunken rage, took 00:12:16.659 --> 00:12:19.340 a swing at Tony, and Tony, who was a big guy 00:12:19.340 --> 00:12:22.440 and a trained boxer. He just decked him. Knocked 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:24.299 him out cold. The communication had completely 00:12:24.299 --> 00:12:27.980 broken down. It was just anger and paranoia fueled 00:12:27.980 --> 00:12:31.480 by substances. So in April 1979, the band made 00:12:31.480 --> 00:12:33.940 the call. Bill Ward was sent to do it. He went 00:12:33.940 --> 00:12:35.940 to Ozzy's hotel room and told him he was out. 00:12:36.139 --> 00:12:39.899 The official reason given was unreliability and 00:12:39.899 --> 00:12:42.860 excessive substance abuse. Which, coming from 00:12:42.860 --> 00:12:44.860 the other members of Black Sabbath at that time, 00:12:44.919 --> 00:12:47.779 is just, it's the pot calling the kettle black. 00:12:48.059 --> 00:12:50.820 It was incredibly hypocritical and Ozzy knew 00:12:50.820 --> 00:12:53.659 it. He said, we were all messed up. But Ozzy 00:12:53.659 --> 00:12:56.059 was the one who was falling apart the most visibly. 00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:58.240 He was the one who would just disappear for days 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:00.460 on end. He was the scapegoat. So he's fired. 00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:03.700 He's 30 years old. He gets a payout of 96 ,000 00:13:03.700 --> 00:13:06.340 pounds for his share of the name. And his reaction 00:13:06.340 --> 00:13:08.759 is, well, it's terrifying. He went to the Le 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:10.679 Parc Hotel in West Hollywood. He took all that 00:13:10.679 --> 00:13:12.879 money. He bought cases of booze. He bought a 00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:14.820 mountain of drugs. And he locked the door. And 00:13:14.820 --> 00:13:17.980 his plan was just to die. His plan was to stay 00:13:17.980 --> 00:13:20.269 there. until the money ran out or his heart gave 00:13:20.269 --> 00:13:22.909 out, whichever came first. He was fully prepared 00:13:22.909 --> 00:13:26.269 to drink and drug himself to death and, if he 00:13:26.269 --> 00:13:28.850 somehow survived, end up back on the dole in 00:13:28.850 --> 00:13:32.590 Birmingham. That was it. Career over. And this 00:13:32.590 --> 00:13:35.590 is where the story should have ended. A tragic 00:13:35.590 --> 00:13:39.289 rock and roll flame out. But then there's a knock 00:13:39.289 --> 00:13:42.070 on the door. Enter Sharon Arden. Now, at this 00:13:42.070 --> 00:13:44.309 point, she isn't Sharon Osbourne, the TV star. 00:13:44.409 --> 00:13:46.409 Most people have never heard of her. She's just 00:13:46.409 --> 00:13:49.129 the 27 -year -old daughter of Don Arden. And 00:13:49.129 --> 00:13:51.669 Don Arden was one of the most feared music managers 00:13:51.669 --> 00:13:54.110 in the business. They called him the Al Capone 00:13:54.110 --> 00:13:56.889 of pop. He was known for dangling rivals out 00:13:56.889 --> 00:13:59.850 of windows. A genuinely scary guy. And he managed 00:13:59.850 --> 00:14:02.809 Sabbath. He did. So he signed Ozzy to a solo 00:14:02.809 --> 00:14:05.110 deal, mostly just to keep him as a business asset, 00:14:05.289 --> 00:14:07.009 but he didn't want to deal with the mess himself. 00:14:07.350 --> 00:14:09.549 So he sends his daughter Sharon to Los Angeles 00:14:09.549 --> 00:14:12.450 to look after the investment. And she walks into 00:14:12.450 --> 00:14:14.950 that hotel room. She walks in and she sees this 00:14:14.950 --> 00:14:17.909 absolute wreck of a human being. Yeah. A pale, 00:14:17.970 --> 00:14:21.049 shaking, bloated man surrounded by pizza boxes 00:14:21.049 --> 00:14:23.250 and empty bottles. And something just shifts. 00:14:23.549 --> 00:14:25.690 It wasn't instant romance, though, was it? It 00:14:25.690 --> 00:14:28.269 was business first. It was survival. She cleaned 00:14:28.269 --> 00:14:30.090 him up. She told him, basically, if you want 00:14:30.090 --> 00:14:32.879 to work, Get up. If you want to die, stay here. 00:14:33.240 --> 00:14:35.279 She forced him to start auditioning musicians 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:38.220 for a new band. And the romance blossomed out 00:14:38.220 --> 00:14:40.440 of that, out of that codependency and that shared 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:42.159 ambition. It did. They eventually got married 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:45.799 in 1982 on July 4th. And Ozzy famously said he 00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:47.960 chose Independence Day so he'd never, ever forget 00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:50.500 his anniversary, which is very practical. Very 00:14:50.500 --> 00:14:54.179 on brand for Ozzy. But before the wedding, they 00:14:54.179 --> 00:14:56.919 had to build a band. And this is the most critical 00:14:56.919 --> 00:14:59.379 musical turning point in Ozzy's entire life. 00:14:59.899 --> 00:15:03.460 because he finds a young, quiet kid from a band 00:15:03.460 --> 00:15:06.019 called Quiet Riot, a guy named Randy Rhodes. 00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:08.860 We have to do a deep dive on Randy here, because 00:15:08.860 --> 00:15:11.740 the shift in sound from Sabbath's Never Say Die 00:15:11.740 --> 00:15:15.019 to Ozzy's Blizzard of Oz, it's just... It's drastic. 00:15:15.220 --> 00:15:17.779 It is night and day. Tony Iommi was a genius, 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:20.899 but he played heavy, trudging, blues -based riffs. 00:15:21.059 --> 00:15:23.860 He mainly used the pentatonic scale. It was muddy 00:15:23.860 --> 00:15:26.659 and dark and powerful. But Randy Rhoads was different. 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:29.039 Randy Rhoads was a music teacher. He was a student 00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:31.240 of the craft. He understood classical theory. 00:15:31.460 --> 00:15:34.200 He played in modes Aeolian, Phrygian. He brought 00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:36.360 elements of Bach and Vivaldi into heavy metal. 00:15:36.519 --> 00:15:39.419 He was a virtuoso. A true virtuoso. If you listen 00:15:39.419 --> 00:15:42.299 to the main riff of Crazy Train, that's not a 00:15:42.299 --> 00:15:45.129 blues lick. It's precise, it's staccato, it's 00:15:45.129 --> 00:15:47.850 almost baroque in its structure. And his solos, 00:15:47.850 --> 00:15:50.950 his solos were these perfectly composed, lightning 00:15:50.950 --> 00:15:53.730 fast, melodic pieces of music. And it forced 00:15:53.730 --> 00:15:56.690 Ozzy to sing differently. Completely. He couldn't 00:15:56.690 --> 00:15:58.450 just wail over the top of it. He had to find 00:15:58.450 --> 00:16:00.850 actual melodies that could fit inside these complex 00:16:00.850 --> 00:16:03.529 chord structures. Randy pushed him to be a better 00:16:03.529 --> 00:16:05.750 vocalist, a better songwriter. And the chemistry 00:16:05.750 --> 00:16:08.340 was instant. Blizzard of Oz comes out in 1980 00:16:08.340 --> 00:16:11.019 and suddenly Ozzy isn't a has -been. He's the 00:16:11.019 --> 00:16:13.399 biggest thing in rock. He completely eclipsed 00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:15.580 Black Sabbath. You know that had to hurt the 00:16:15.580 --> 00:16:18.059 guys in his old band. Here's Ozzy, the guy they 00:16:18.059 --> 00:16:20.860 fired for being a mess, selling out arenas with 00:16:20.860 --> 00:16:23.620 this blonde guitar god by his side. It was a 00:16:23.620 --> 00:16:26.120 golden era. It felt like it would last forever. 00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:30.440 Until March 19th, 1982, Leesburg, Florida. The 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.899 darkest day. The band is on a tour bus driving 00:16:33.899 --> 00:16:37.590 to a festival in Orlando. The bus has a faulty 00:16:37.590 --> 00:16:39.929 air conditioning unit, so they pull over at a 00:16:39.929 --> 00:16:42.129 property owned by the bus company to get it fixed. 00:16:42.330 --> 00:16:44.549 It was a place called the Flying Baron Estates. 00:16:44.649 --> 00:16:46.909 And there's a small private airstrip there. There 00:16:46.909 --> 00:16:49.370 is. And the bus driver, Andrew Aycock, who had 00:16:49.370 --> 00:16:52.429 a pilot's license, decides to take a small, single 00:16:52.429 --> 00:16:55.090 -engine Beechcraft Bonanza plane for a joyride. 00:16:55.330 --> 00:16:57.850 Without permission. He'd been up all night driving. 00:16:58.049 --> 00:17:00.809 Up all night. And the toxicology report later 00:17:00.809 --> 00:17:03.159 showed he had cocaine in his system. He does 00:17:03.159 --> 00:17:05.460 one flight with the keyboardist, Don Airy, and 00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:08.240 their chore manager. That goes fine. Then he 00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:11.119 lands and takes up Randy Rhodes and Rachel Youngblood, 00:17:11.220 --> 00:17:13.519 the band's seamstress and makeup artist. And 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:16.640 Randy. Randy was famously afraid of flying. He 00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:18.400 was terrified of it. He only went up because 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:20.200 he wanted to take some aerial photographs of 00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:22.599 the Florida countryside for his mom. He was a 00:17:22.599 --> 00:17:26.279 devoted son. That detail always just breaks my 00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:28.079 heart. He was just a sweet kid wanting to take 00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:30.640 some photos for his mother. The pilot. Aycock, 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:34.079 for some reason, decides to start buzzing the 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:37.039 tour bus, diving the plane down low to try and 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.440 scare the people sleeping inside. His ex -wife 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:41.799 was actually on the bus. Some people speculate 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:44.220 he was trying to hit the bus or just scare her. 00:17:44.380 --> 00:17:47.039 We'll never know for sure. He did it twice successfully. 00:17:47.519 --> 00:17:50.119 The third time, he miscalculated. He came in 00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:52.900 too low. The left wing of the plane clipped the 00:17:52.900 --> 00:17:55.119 top of the tour bus. It just ripped the wing 00:17:55.119 --> 00:17:58.339 right off. The plane spun out of control, cartwheeled 00:17:58.339 --> 00:18:00.599 across the property, crashed into the garage 00:18:00.599 --> 00:18:03.500 of a nearby mansion, and exploded into a massive 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:06.039 fireball. And Ozzie? Ozzie was asleep on the 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:08.559 bus. He said the impact felt like the bus had 00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:11.670 hit a car. He woke up, stumbled outside in a 00:18:11.670 --> 00:18:15.289 daze, and just saw the inferno. Randy, Rachel, 00:18:15.410 --> 00:18:17.529 and the pilot died instantly. They couldn't even 00:18:17.529 --> 00:18:19.369 identify the bodies at first. They had to use 00:18:19.369 --> 00:18:21.849 dental records. Randy was only 25 years old. 00:18:22.029 --> 00:18:24.369 And this just, this broke Ozzy. I mean, we talk 00:18:24.369 --> 00:18:27.190 about his madman years and the antics, but this 00:18:27.190 --> 00:18:30.250 was a profound psychological break. He lost his 00:18:30.250 --> 00:18:33.049 best friend. He lost his creative soulmate. He 00:18:33.049 --> 00:18:35.109 said later that a part of him died in that field 00:18:35.109 --> 00:18:37.940 in Florida. And yet... This is the Sharon factor 00:18:37.940 --> 00:18:41.160 again. They didn't cancel the tour. No. By modern 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:43.339 standards, it seems insane. They took about a 00:18:43.339 --> 00:18:45.940 week off, hired a replacement guitarist, Brad 00:18:45.940 --> 00:18:48.900 Gillis, and put Ozzy back on stage. No grief 00:18:48.900 --> 00:18:51.640 counseling, no time to process, just the show 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:54.480 must go on. And it absolutely fueled his addiction. 00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:57.940 He was drinking to numb the grief, to get through 00:18:57.940 --> 00:19:00.859 the shows. The next few years, the Bark at the 00:19:00.859 --> 00:19:03.680 Moon and the Ultimate Sin era, he was functioning, 00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:05.539 he was selling records, but he was hollowed out. 00:19:05.789 --> 00:19:07.650 And this is where the Madman mythology really 00:19:07.650 --> 00:19:11.269 takes over. The 1980s were just one long list 00:19:11.269 --> 00:19:14.049 of controversies for him. It starts with the 00:19:14.049 --> 00:19:17.390 Satanism panic. This was the era of the PMRC, 00:19:17.549 --> 00:19:19.950 the Parents Music Resource Center, led by Tipper 00:19:19.950 --> 00:19:23.170 Gore. There was this widespread belief in America, 00:19:23.329 --> 00:19:25.769 particularly in the Christian right, that heavy 00:19:25.769 --> 00:19:28.190 metal was the root of all evil. And Ozzy was 00:19:28.190 --> 00:19:30.390 poster boy number one. He was public enemy number 00:19:30.390 --> 00:19:32.799 one. Cardinal John O 'Connor in New York actually 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:35.279 gave a sermon from the pulpit calling Ozzy's 00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:38.140 music a help to the devil. Televangelists were 00:19:38.140 --> 00:19:40.819 burning his records on TV. Which is just hilarious 00:19:40.819 --> 00:19:43.400 because Ozzy was just a guy from Birmingham who 00:19:43.400 --> 00:19:46.059 loved the Beatles and could barely read. Exactly. 00:19:46.180 --> 00:19:49.220 Yeah. But he was smart. Or rather, Sharon was. 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:52.059 They leaned into it. When the establishment called 00:19:52.059 --> 00:19:55.240 him a Satanist, he wrote Mr. Crowley, a song 00:19:55.240 --> 00:19:58.859 about the occultist Leicester Crowley. He played 00:19:58.859 --> 00:20:00.599 the villain because it sold tickets and wound 00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:02.900 up the right people. But he also did things that 00:20:02.900 --> 00:20:05.880 made him an incredibly easy target. The animal 00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:07.980 incidents. We have to set the record straight 00:20:07.980 --> 00:20:09.759 on the dove and the bat because people still 00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:12.140 get the details mixed up. Okay, the dove. This 00:20:12.140 --> 00:20:14.880 was 1981. This was calculated until it wasn't. 00:20:15.599 --> 00:20:17.640 Sharon wanted him to make a good impression at 00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:20.490 a big CBS records meeting in L .A. The plan was, 00:20:20.609 --> 00:20:23.390 Ozzy walks in, he releases two white doves as 00:20:23.390 --> 00:20:25.390 a sign of peace, they take some photos, and he 00:20:25.390 --> 00:20:28.069 leaves. A nice, simple PR stunt. A simple PR 00:20:28.069 --> 00:20:30.849 stunt. But Ozzy was incredibly drunk and bored 00:20:30.849 --> 00:20:33.390 by the corporate speeches, so he just, he grabs 00:20:33.390 --> 00:20:36.029 one of the doves, bites its head off, and spits 00:20:36.029 --> 00:20:38.250 it on the conference table. Oh my god. The room 00:20:38.250 --> 00:20:41.069 goes silent. She then pulls the other dove out, 00:20:41.170 --> 00:20:43.750 and is about to do it again, when security guards 00:20:43.750 --> 00:20:45.970 physically drag him out of the building. And 00:20:45.970 --> 00:20:49.009 the bat. That was in Des Moines, Iowa in 1982. 00:20:49.549 --> 00:20:52.309 That's a genuine mistake. It was a weird time. 00:20:52.490 --> 00:20:55.230 Fans used to throw things on stage like raw meat 00:20:55.230 --> 00:20:58.869 and snakes and stuff. Someone threw what Ozzy 00:20:58.869 --> 00:21:01.430 thought was a rubber toy bat on the stage. It 00:21:01.430 --> 00:21:03.930 was a real bat. It was a real bat. It was either 00:21:03.930 --> 00:21:07.049 dead or stunned from being in the crowd. Ozzy, 00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:10.130 doing his monster act, picked it up, put it in 00:21:10.130 --> 00:21:12.930 his mouth and bit down. And the bat bit him back. 00:21:13.170 --> 00:21:15.740 It clamped down on his tongue. He realized immediately 00:21:15.740 --> 00:21:18.480 this was real. This was warm blood. He had to 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:20.140 be rushed to the hospital after the show for 00:21:20.140 --> 00:21:22.700 a series of incredibly painful rabies shots, 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:25.079 which they inject directly into your stomach 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:27.220 and thigh. He spent the rest of the tour terrified 00:21:27.220 --> 00:21:29.099 he was going to start foaming at the mouth. It's 00:21:29.099 --> 00:21:31.880 like slapstick horror. But the next controversy 00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:34.619 wasn't funny at all. The suicide solution lawsuits. 00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:37.640 This is where the legal system tried to pin a 00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:40.279 teenager's death on a rock song. This is a crucial 00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:44.180 moment for free speech in America. In 1984, a 00:21:44.180 --> 00:21:46.740 19 -year -old kid named John McCollum from California 00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:49.119 committed suicide. He was found with headphones 00:21:49.119 --> 00:21:52.000 on, listening to Ozzy's records. And his parents 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.380 sued Ozzy and the record label? They did. They 00:21:55.380 --> 00:21:59.029 claimed the song, Suicide Solution. contained 00:21:59.029 --> 00:22:02.490 subliminal messages or hemisync tones that hypnotized 00:22:02.490 --> 00:22:04.609 their son into killing himself. They actually 00:22:04.609 --> 00:22:06.890 brought in a research firm, the Institute for 00:22:06.890 --> 00:22:09.509 Bioacoustics, to analyze the audio waves, didn't 00:22:09.509 --> 00:22:11.930 they? They did. And they claimed to have found 00:22:11.930 --> 00:22:15.069 subliminal lyrics sped up saying, get the gun, 00:22:15.210 --> 00:22:18.369 shoot, shoot. It was the height of the satanic 00:22:18.369 --> 00:22:20.309 panic. People were ready to believe anything. 00:22:20.670 --> 00:22:23.750 And what was Ozzy's defense? Two things. First, 00:22:23.910 --> 00:22:26.089 that the lyrics were completely misinterpreted. 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:28.980 The title, Suicide Solution, wasn't about solution 00:22:28.980 --> 00:22:32.000 as an answer or a fix. It was solution as a liquid 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:35.259 mixture. Alcohol. Oh. The song was an elegy he 00:22:35.259 --> 00:22:38.000 wrote about Bon Scott, the singer of ACDC, who 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:40.420 had recently drank himself to death. The lyrics 00:22:40.420 --> 00:22:43.119 are a warning. Wine is fine, but whiskey's quicker 00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:45.380 suicide is slow with liquor. He was saying, don't 00:22:45.380 --> 00:22:47.059 do this to yourself. This is an anti -suicide 00:22:47.059 --> 00:22:49.480 song, and the shoot, shoot lyrics. That was just 00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:51.319 him ad -libbing in the studio, and what he was 00:22:51.319 --> 00:22:53.359 actually saying was, get the glass out, shoot, 00:22:53.460 --> 00:22:56.890 shoot, as in shooting a drink. The judge, thankfully, 00:22:57.109 --> 00:22:59.730 ruled in Ozzie's favor. On what grounds? Freedom 00:22:59.730 --> 00:23:02.769 of speech. The court basically said that art 00:23:02.769 --> 00:23:04.990 cannot be held liable for the actions of the 00:23:04.990 --> 00:23:07.869 consumer unless there is a direct and immediate 00:23:07.869 --> 00:23:10.730 incitement to violence. It was a landmark case. 00:23:10.829 --> 00:23:13.329 But it dragged on for years and cost them millions. 00:23:13.410 --> 00:23:15.630 It took a massive toll on them. You look at the 00:23:15.630 --> 00:23:18.470 stress, the grief for Randy, the rabies shots, 00:23:18.690 --> 00:23:21.950 the arrests at the Alamo for urinating on a national 00:23:21.950 --> 00:23:24.230 monument. While wearing Sharon's dress, no less. 00:23:24.369 --> 00:23:26.690 Right. And then you add the drug intake. I want 00:23:26.690 --> 00:23:29.910 to jump to section four here. The survivor. Because 00:23:29.910 --> 00:23:32.029 scientifically, he shouldn't be dead now. He 00:23:32.029 --> 00:23:34.710 should have been dead in 1990. Absolutely. The 00:23:34.710 --> 00:23:37.369 levels of consumption are just. They're beyond 00:23:37.369 --> 00:23:39.849 comprehension. There was a period in the 80s 00:23:39.849 --> 00:23:42.680 where a doctor... In Beverly Hills, a Dr. Alan 00:23:42.680 --> 00:23:44.740 Schwemmer, who was later investigated and lost 00:23:44.740 --> 00:23:47.980 his license -prescribed Aussie over 13 ,000 doses 00:23:47.980 --> 00:23:50.279 of narcotics in a single year. That's, what is 00:23:50.279 --> 00:23:53.299 that, like 35 pills a day? Roughly. Yeah. Every 00:23:53.299 --> 00:23:55.960 single day, on top of liters of vodka and cognac. 00:23:56.380 --> 00:23:58.500 And he also admitted at one point to taking four 00:23:58.500 --> 00:24:01.140 tabs of acid every day for two years straight. 00:24:01.339 --> 00:24:03.640 I don't even know how the human brain functions 00:24:03.640 --> 00:24:06.539 at that point. It doesn't, usually. Which is 00:24:06.539 --> 00:24:09.900 why, in 2010, a Massachusetts -based company 00:24:09.900 --> 00:24:13.079 called Gnome, a genetics research company, decided 00:24:13.079 --> 00:24:15.960 to sequence Ozzy's full genome. They wanted to 00:24:15.960 --> 00:24:18.200 see if he was a medical anomaly. A genetic freak. 00:24:18.599 --> 00:24:21.180 Was he? He absolutely was. It wasn't just that 00:24:21.180 --> 00:24:23.160 he had a strong liver or something. Yeah. It 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:25.559 was written in his DNA. They found a specific 00:24:25.559 --> 00:24:29.660 and very rare mutation on the ADH4 gene. What 00:24:29.660 --> 00:24:31.960 does that gene do? It's the gene responsible 00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:34.079 for creating the enzyme that breaks down alcohol 00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:36.759 and removes it from the system. Ozzy's version 00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:39.539 of this gene was supercharged. His body could 00:24:39.539 --> 00:24:41.980 metabolize alcohol and other toxins at a rate 00:24:41.980 --> 00:24:44.420 that would kill a normal person. So he was literally 00:24:44.420 --> 00:24:47.119 built for it. And didn't they find a lot of Neanderthal 00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:50.000 DNA too? Yes. Significantly more than the average 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.099 European. The scientists joked that he was literally 00:24:52.099 --> 00:24:54.880 a distinct subspecies of human. He was genetically 00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:57.180 predisposed to survive the party. But the party 00:24:57.180 --> 00:25:00.880 almost cost him his family. The 1989 Moscow Music 00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:02.839 Peace Festival incident. This is the absolute 00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:05.420 rock bottom. He had just performed at this massive 00:25:05.420 --> 00:25:09.240 concert in Moscow. He came home, still loaded 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:11.549 on Russian vodka. which he always said made him 00:25:11.549 --> 00:25:13.990 violent and blackout, unlike other drugs. He 00:25:13.990 --> 00:25:15.690 walked into the bedroom where Sharon was reading. 00:25:15.869 --> 00:25:18.069 And he just snapped. He looked at her, completely 00:25:18.069 --> 00:25:20.450 dead -eyed, and said, We've come to a decision 00:25:20.450 --> 00:25:23.329 that you have to go. And he lunged at her and 00:25:23.329 --> 00:25:26.589 began choking her. My God. She managed to find 00:25:26.589 --> 00:25:29.450 and hit a panic button they had installed. The 00:25:29.450 --> 00:25:32.269 police arrived just in time. Ozzie woke up in 00:25:32.269 --> 00:25:34.589 a jail cell with absolutely no memory of the 00:25:34.589 --> 00:25:38.750 event. He asked the cop, Why am I here? And the 00:25:38.750 --> 00:25:41.109 cop said, You're here for the attempted murder 00:25:41.109 --> 00:25:43.529 of your wife. That chills me every time I read 00:25:43.529 --> 00:25:46.089 it. That's not rock and roll antics. That's domestic 00:25:46.089 --> 00:25:49.170 violence. That's terrifying. It is. And Sharon 00:25:49.170 --> 00:25:51.730 controversially dropped the charges, but she 00:25:51.730 --> 00:25:54.190 gave him the ultimate ultimatum. Go to rehab 00:25:54.190 --> 00:25:56.769 and get properly clean or you will never see 00:25:56.769 --> 00:25:58.730 me or your children again. And that was the real 00:25:58.730 --> 00:26:01.309 turning point. He went to rehab. He started the 00:26:01.309 --> 00:26:04.130 long, slow climb back to something resembling 00:26:04.130 --> 00:26:07.440 sobriety. And that climb led to the most unexpected, 00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:10.119 most bizarre, and most successful second act 00:26:10.119 --> 00:26:12.759 in the history of entertainment, the MTV era. 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:17.019 The Osbournes, 2002. We have to remember what 00:26:17.019 --> 00:26:19.099 television was like before this show. Reality 00:26:19.099 --> 00:26:22.519 TV was Survivor or The Real World? Game shows? 00:26:23.240 --> 00:26:25.059 There was no keeping up with the Kardashians. 00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:27.660 The celeb reality show did not exist as a genre. 00:26:27.859 --> 00:26:31.259 And then MTV puts cameras in Ozzy Osbourne's 00:26:31.259 --> 00:26:33.359 house. And instead of seeing the Prince of Darkness 00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:36.019 sacrificing goats in the backyard. We saw a confused 00:26:36.019 --> 00:26:38.240 shuffling dad trying to figure out how to use 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:41.119 a TV remote. We saw him yelling at his dogs for 00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:43.490 peeing on the expensive carpet. We saw him struggling 00:26:43.490 --> 00:26:46.490 to punch Rashbag in the bin. It completely demystified 00:26:46.490 --> 00:26:49.089 him. It humanized him in a way nothing else could 00:26:49.089 --> 00:26:51.130 have. Suddenly, the guy who bit the head off 00:26:51.130 --> 00:26:53.970 a bat was just America's dad. He was vulnerable. 00:26:54.150 --> 00:26:56.509 He was hearing impaired. He mumbled. He was actually 00:26:56.509 --> 00:26:58.829 really funny. And the world fell in love with 00:26:58.829 --> 00:27:00.690 him all over again, but for a completely different 00:27:00.690 --> 00:27:03.430 reason. It became the highest rated show on MTV's 00:27:03.430 --> 00:27:05.329 history. It made them hundreds of millions of 00:27:05.329 --> 00:27:07.930 dollars. It paved the way for the entire Kardashian 00:27:07.930 --> 00:27:11.259 empire. And it legitimized him to the mainstream. 00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:13.880 He was hosting the American Music Awards. He 00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:16.140 was performing for the Queen. He was having dinner 00:27:16.140 --> 00:27:18.640 with President George W. Bush at the White House 00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:21.000 Correspondents' Dinner. Which is just mind -blowing 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:22.660 when you think about where he came from. But 00:27:22.660 --> 00:27:25.079 we also have to credit Sharon's business acumen 00:27:25.079 --> 00:27:27.680 here with Ozzfest. Yes, this started because 00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:30.119 of a rejection, which is a running theme in their 00:27:30.119 --> 00:27:33.640 story. Wallapalooza. Wallapalooza. The cool alternative 00:27:33.640 --> 00:27:37.519 90s festival. They told Sharon that Ozzy was 00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:40.420 a dinosaur and uncool. They wouldn't put him 00:27:40.420 --> 00:27:42.539 on the bill. And Sharon said, screw you. We'll 00:27:42.539 --> 00:27:44.859 start our own festival. And Ozzfest became the 00:27:44.859 --> 00:27:47.119 biggest touring festival in the world for a time. 00:27:47.180 --> 00:27:51.319 It grossed over $170 million. But more importantly. 00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:54.420 It launched the careers of an entire generation 00:27:54.420 --> 00:27:58.220 of metal bands. Slipknot, System of a Down, Disturbed, 00:27:58.220 --> 00:28:01.039 Linkin Park. So he wasn't just a dinosaur. He 00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:03.660 used his legacy to platform the next generation. 00:28:03.920 --> 00:28:06.880 He was the T -Rex leading the pack. So he conquered 00:28:06.880 --> 00:28:09.839 the 70s with Sabbath, the 80s with Randy, the 00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:12.680 90s with Ozzfest, and the 2000s with reality 00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:16.680 TV. But time. Time is the one thing you can't 00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:19.039 beat. Let's talk about the decline. The long 00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:22.220 goodbye from 2019 to 2025. It started with something 00:28:22.220 --> 00:28:26.259 so mundane. A fall. As simple as that. In early 00:28:26.259 --> 00:28:28.200 2019, he got up in the middle of the night to 00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:30.339 go to the bathroom, tripped in the dark, and 00:28:30.339 --> 00:28:32.759 fell flat on his face. And because of his previous 00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:35.259 accidents, he'd had a really bad quad bike crash 00:28:35.259 --> 00:28:38.059 in 2003. His body was already full of metal rods 00:28:38.059 --> 00:28:41.079 and plates. The fall dislodged the metal rods 00:28:41.079 --> 00:28:44.299 in his spine. It compressed his vertebrae. He 00:28:44.299 --> 00:28:47.140 needed multiple complex surgeries. The pain was 00:28:47.140 --> 00:28:49.839 excruciating and constant. It triggered a domino 00:28:49.839 --> 00:28:52.039 effect of health issues. And then amidst the 00:28:52.039 --> 00:28:54.099 recovery from that came the diagnosis we had 00:28:54.099 --> 00:28:56.099 all sort of feared was coming. Parkinson's disease. 00:28:56.380 --> 00:28:58.420 He revealed it in a really emotional interview 00:28:58.420 --> 00:29:01.980 on Good Morning America in early 2020. We started 00:29:01.980 --> 00:29:04.299 to see the visible effects, the tremors, the 00:29:04.299 --> 00:29:07.359 difficulty walking. And the tours just kept getting 00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:09.359 canceled. The No More Tours 2, which was supposed 00:29:09.359 --> 00:29:11.380 to be his final run, just kept getting postponed. 00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:13.400 postponed, and then finally canceled for good. 00:29:13.619 --> 00:29:15.619 It felt like we were watching him fade away in 00:29:15.619 --> 00:29:18.119 real time. But, and this is why he's a legend, 00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:20.759 he didn't stop making music. In the middle of 00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:23.240 all this pain, this physical decline, he puts 00:29:23.240 --> 00:29:26.420 out two of the best albums of his career. Ordinary 00:29:26.420 --> 00:29:29.720 Man in 2020 and Patient No. 9 in 2022. Working 00:29:29.720 --> 00:29:32.220 with producer Andrew Watt gave him this modern, 00:29:32.339 --> 00:29:35.200 vital sound. And the collaborations were amazing. 00:29:35.440 --> 00:29:38.380 Elton John, Jeff Beck. Impost Malone. The track, 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:40.500 Take What You Want. That track was brilliant. 00:29:40.599 --> 00:29:42.779 It was a massive hit. It put Ozzy back in the 00:29:42.779 --> 00:29:46.200 top 10 for the first time in 30 years. And the 00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:48.579 lyrics on those final albums were so raw, so 00:29:48.579 --> 00:29:51.279 honest. He was singing about death, about saying 00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:53.299 goodbye, about being patient number nine. He 00:29:53.299 --> 00:29:55.259 wasn't hiding from the decline. He was turning 00:29:55.259 --> 00:29:57.680 it into art. Which leads us to the final stand, 00:29:57.940 --> 00:30:01.680 July 5, 2025, Birmingham, Villa Park, the home 00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:04.240 of his beloved Aston Villa Football Club. The 00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:06.579 back to the beginning show. We all knew it was 00:30:06.579 --> 00:30:09.420 a one -off. He physically couldn't tour. But 00:30:09.420 --> 00:30:12.019 he summoned the strength for one last night in 00:30:12.019 --> 00:30:14.099 his hometown. And he got the band back together, 00:30:14.220 --> 00:30:16.720 the original band. The rumors were true. Tony 00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:19.500 Iommi was there. Geezer Butler was there. And 00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:22.160 yes, after all the bad blood and contract disputes, 00:30:22.420 --> 00:30:25.099 even Bill Ward was there on drums. They put it 00:30:25.099 --> 00:30:26.920 all aside for him. Tell me about the staging. 00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:30.259 Because he couldn't stand for two hours. No, 00:30:30.299 --> 00:30:32.079 he was largely immobile by then. So they leaned 00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:34.140 into the Prince of Darkness persona one last 00:30:34.140 --> 00:30:37.779 time. They built this massive Gothic iron throne 00:30:37.779 --> 00:30:41.299 at center stage. Black velvet carved skulls, 00:30:41.299 --> 00:30:44.440 the works. He performed the entire show sitting 00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:47.279 there. like a king holding court. 40 ,000 people 00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:49.799 in the stadium. And 5 .8 million streaming live 00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:51.880 around the world. I was watching this stream 00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:54.799 when I only hit the opening riff of War Pigs, 00:30:54.900 --> 00:30:58.099 the sound of the crowd singing along. It was 00:30:58.099 --> 00:31:00.039 so loud it drowned out the PA system. It was 00:31:00.039 --> 00:31:02.180 deafening. Ozzy didn't have to move. He just 00:31:02.180 --> 00:31:05.079 had to be there. And how was his voice? It held 00:31:05.079 --> 00:31:07.099 up. It had that familial crack, that haunting 00:31:07.099 --> 00:31:09.980 waver, but the power was still there. When they 00:31:09.980 --> 00:31:12.779 finished the encore with Paranoid, Fireworks 00:31:12.779 --> 00:31:14.960 going off over Aston, he just yelled, I love 00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:18.539 you all, one last time into the mic. It was the 00:31:18.539 --> 00:31:20.660 perfect ending. It brought the entire story full 00:31:20.660 --> 00:31:23.500 circle, from the slaughterhouse in Aston to a 00:31:23.500 --> 00:31:25.720 sold -out stadium in Aston. And all the proceeds 00:31:25.720 --> 00:31:28.279 went to Parkinson's UK and the Birmingham Children's 00:31:28.279 --> 00:31:30.859 Hospital. Even at the very end, he was giving 00:31:30.859 --> 00:31:33.539 back. But we didn't realize how close the end 00:31:33.539 --> 00:31:36.440 really was. No. We thought maybe he'd have a 00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:39.019 few years of quiet retirement. But it was just 00:31:39.019 --> 00:31:43.059 17 days later. July 22, 2025. He passed away 00:31:43.059 --> 00:31:45.640 at his estate, Welder's House, in Buckinghamshire. 00:31:45.940 --> 00:31:48.579 The official report cited a heart attack with 00:31:48.579 --> 00:31:51.619 complications from Parkinson's. Sharon said he 00:31:51.619 --> 00:31:54.740 went peacefully in his sleep. No pain. For a 00:31:54.740 --> 00:31:56.660 man whose entire life was defined by violence 00:31:56.660 --> 00:31:59.319 and noise, he got the most peaceful exit possible. 00:31:59.539 --> 00:32:02.140 The global reaction was what you'd expect. Tributes 00:32:02.140 --> 00:32:05.140 from Metallica to Elton John to Paul McCartney. 00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:07.039 But I want to talk about the funeral procession 00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:09.980 in Birmingham. It was a pilgrimage. They drove 00:32:09.980 --> 00:32:12.819 the hearse past his childhood home at 14 Lodge 00:32:12.819 --> 00:32:15.720 Road. They drove it over the Black Sabbath Bridge 00:32:15.720 --> 00:32:19.259 on the canal. The streets were lined with tens 00:32:19.259 --> 00:32:22.160 of thousands of fans. And it wasn't just metalheads 00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:24.460 in leather jackets. No, that was the amazing 00:32:24.460 --> 00:32:27.789 thing. It was grandmothers. Little kids with 00:32:27.789 --> 00:32:30.210 their parents, people in business suits who had 00:32:30.210 --> 00:32:32.210 stepped out of their offices. It felt like a 00:32:32.210 --> 00:32:34.390 state funeral for the Republic of Rock and Roll. 00:32:34.529 --> 00:32:37.289 It was. And then that moment at Buckingham Palace 00:32:37.289 --> 00:32:39.170 we mentioned at the start, the Queen's Guard 00:32:39.170 --> 00:32:41.869 playing paranoid. It signified that he wasn't 00:32:41.869 --> 00:32:44.769 an outsider anymore. He was a British institution. 00:32:45.130 --> 00:32:47.349 He was as much a part of the cultural fabric 00:32:47.349 --> 00:32:50.250 as Fish and Chips or James Bond. Now that we're 00:32:50.250 --> 00:32:53.170 here in 2026, we have the documentary No Escape 00:32:53.170 --> 00:32:56.140 From. Now we have his final autobiography, Last 00:32:56.140 --> 00:32:58.539 Rites. We have the full picture. So what is the 00:32:58.539 --> 00:33:01.799 ultimate legacy? It's the dichotomy. That's the 00:33:01.799 --> 00:33:04.160 magic word for Ozzy. If he was just the crazy 00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:06.720 drug guy, he would be a footnote, a cautionary 00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:09.799 tale. If he was just the mumbling reality TV 00:33:09.799 --> 00:33:13.220 dad, he'd be a joke. But he was both, and neither, 00:33:13.400 --> 00:33:16.099 all at the same time. He was a complete and utter 00:33:16.099 --> 00:33:19.420 paradox. He was a villain who was deeply lovable. 00:33:19.839 --> 00:33:22.900 He was a multimillionaire superstar who never 00:33:22.900 --> 00:33:26.299 lost his working -class Aston accent. He was 00:33:26.299 --> 00:33:28.200 the Prince of Darkness who wrote these incredibly 00:33:28.200 --> 00:33:31.140 tender, beautiful ballads like Changes and Mama, 00:33:31.220 --> 00:33:34.019 I'm Coming Home. And above all else, he was a 00:33:34.019 --> 00:33:37.420 survivor. That's the headline. He survived the 00:33:37.420 --> 00:33:40.319 poverty of post -war Britain. He survived abuse. 00:33:40.680 --> 00:33:43.880 He survived the loss of his best friend. He survived 00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:45.619 an addiction that should have killed him ten 00:33:45.619 --> 00:33:48.700 times over. And he survived the music industry 00:33:48.700 --> 00:33:50.700 itself, which is maybe the hardest trick of all. 00:33:50.819 --> 00:33:53.220 It's hard to imagine the world without him. He 00:33:53.220 --> 00:33:55.900 was such a constant presence for over 50 years. 00:33:56.160 --> 00:33:58.759 He changed the sound of music forever with Black 00:33:58.759 --> 00:34:01.460 Sabbath. He changed the image of the rock frontman 00:34:01.460 --> 00:34:04.119 with his solo career. He changed the face of 00:34:04.119 --> 00:34:06.359 television with the Osbournes. There aren't many 00:34:06.359 --> 00:34:08.239 people who can say they revolutionized global 00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:11.300 culture three separate times. I want to leave 00:34:11.300 --> 00:34:13.650 our listeners with a final thought. We live in 00:34:13.650 --> 00:34:15.690 an era now where celebrities are media trained 00:34:15.690 --> 00:34:17.570 from the moment they're discovered. Their social 00:34:17.570 --> 00:34:20.090 media is drafted by committees. They issue a 00:34:20.090 --> 00:34:22.389 public apology if they say something even slightly 00:34:22.389 --> 00:34:25.150 controversial. It's the era of the polished, 00:34:25.250 --> 00:34:29.889 sanitized star. Exactly. So my question is, will 00:34:29.889 --> 00:34:33.260 we ever see an Ozzy Osbourne again? Someone so 00:34:33.260 --> 00:34:37.780 raw, so unfiltered, so chaotic, and so undeniably 00:34:37.780 --> 00:34:40.320 authentically themselves, or was he the last 00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:42.579 of the true Iron Men? I think we all know the 00:34:42.579 --> 00:34:44.340 answer to that. There was only one double O. 00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:46.780 I think you're right. Tonight, if you're listening 00:34:46.780 --> 00:34:49.219 to this, pour yourself a drink, or don't, and 00:34:49.219 --> 00:34:51.199 put on Black Sabbath Fall 4 or Blizzard of Oz. 00:34:51.380 --> 00:34:53.619 Turn it up until the neighbors complain. It's 00:34:53.619 --> 00:34:55.599 what he would have wanted. Rest in peace, Ozzy. 00:34:55.739 --> 00:34:57.519 Thanks for listening to The Deep Dive. We'll 00:34:57.519 --> 00:34:58.139 see you next time.