In 1982 in Des Moines, Ozzy had a series of rabies shots after
biting the head off a bat that an audience member threw on stage. Osbourne thought it was a fake plastic bat.
He was banned from San Antonio in 1982 and arrested for defiling a national monument for urinating on the Alamo. The ban was lifted in 1991 after Ozzy gave $10,000 to the caretakers of the Alamo.
When he was 17, he tried to join the army. They wouldn't take him.
Ozzy hates Christmas. He thinks it's silly to spend all your money at the end of the year.
Pat Boone used to live next door, but moved out. Ozzy thought he was a great neighbor.
Ozzy was born as John Michael Osbourne in Aston, Birmingham, England. He was the fourth of six children born to Jack and Lillian Osbourne.
When he was young, Ozzy wanted to be a plumber. He was a plumber's apprentice when he was 15.
His wife, Sharon, is also his manager. She is the daughter of Don Arden, who managed Ozzy in Black Sabbath. When Ozzy went solo, Sharon bought out his contract from her dad.
He went sober in 1991. The drugs he did up to that point would have killed most men - there was a particularly bad spell in 1979 after being ousted from Black Sabbath where Ozzy says he likely would have died had manager Sharon Arden not signed him as a solo artist.
He threw meat at the audience on his Diary Of A Madman tour. This led to the bat incident when fans started throwing stuff back.
Ozzy has made cameos in a few movies, playing a fundamentalist preacher in the 1987 movie
Trick Or Treat, a band manager in
The Jerky Boys Movie, and himself in Adam Sandler's
Little Nicky. For that movie, he was in the ball that Nicky's mother (Reese Witherspoon) gave him from God for when he was in trouble. Ozzy came out and bit the head off of Nicky's brother who was trying to become the new Devil, thus saving the day. He also had a cameo in
Austin Powers: Goldmember.
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Emily - Fairfield, OH
He has at least 15 tattoos, including the letters O,Z,Z,Y on the knuckles of his left hand. He made those himself with a needle and a piece of graphite while he was in jail for burglary as a youth.
Ozzy had no formal music training and wrote very few of the Black Sabbath songs. His showmanship and distinctive voice made him famous.
Former Quiet Riot guitarist Randy Rhoads joined Ozzy when he went solo in 1980. Rhoads died two years later in Florida when he went up in a small plane and the pilot started buzzing Ozzy's tour bus. On the third pass, the wing hit the bus and the plane crashed into a nearby house, killing Rhoads, the pilot, and the tour hairdresser. Rhoads was 25.
In 2002, MTV did a show based on his home life. Sharon Osbourne invited them to do it after they did a segment on their house for MTV Cribs.
Before his show on MTV, a website created an internet sitcom based on his life. Titled Ozzy And Harriet, it was a spoof of the '50s TV show.
In late 2003, Sharon admitted that in the early 1980s, she cheated on Ozzy with his guitarist, Randy Rhoads, although she had sex with him only once. She said she did it when she and Ozzy weren't communicating, and that Ozzy knew, but hated discussing it, and that they both cried whenever talking about Randy. Around the same time, Ozzy admitted that he was molested at age 11 by two boys who used to wait for him to come home from school: "They felt me and touched me and... it was terrible. I was afraid to tell my father or mother."
He credits Sharon with saving his life and keeping him on track - he's often professed his devotion for her and their children. "She pushed me when I needed it," Ozzy said. "She yelled at me when I needed it. At the time I didn't think I wanted to be yelled at, but in the long run, you got to get off your butt and you got to get to what you're here to do."
According to the Motley Crue biography
The Dirt, on one of the Ozzy's tours, Motley Crue was the opening acts for the shows. While standing outside, Ozzy peed on the pavement. He then got down on all fours and lapped up the pee like a dog. He then told Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue bassist) to pee on the pavement and lick it up just as he did. Nikki peed on the ground and got down and just as he stuck his tongue out, Ozzy beat him to it.. Nikki was shocked. Then Ozzy took a straw out of someone's drink and saw some ants. He bent down to the ground and snorted the ants right up like a fancy drug.
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He collects Victorian art.
Ozzy worked at a slaughterhouse for three years as a youth, where he "was figuring out all these different ways to kill these animals." There, he started drinking ox and pig blood. He said it was very easy: "You kinda stick a knife in there and hold out your cup." He then "got into the habit and started drinking it rather frequently." There is an Ozzy T-shirt which spoofs the "Got Milk?" commercials with the line "Got Blood?"
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Zakk Wylde heard Ozzy was going to have a guitar audition on Howard Stern's radio show. Zakk got the job.
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John - Oslo, Norway
When they were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, Ozzy mooned the crowd because he felt they weren't enjoying the band as much as they should. Iommi: "I've seen Ozzy's arse more times than I've seen my own!"
Ozzy's wife and manager Sharon organized Ozzfest in 1996 when Lollapalooza refused to book Ozzy.
In 2009 Ozzy announced that he was looking for a new guitarists. Relations with Zakk Wylde were good, but Ozzy said his songs were beginning to sound a bit like Zakk's Black Label Society.
Ozzy's single "Let Me Hear You Scream" appeared on the April 14, 2010 episode of CSI: NY.
In March of 2002, MTV aired the first episode of The Osbournes, a reality show following Ozzy and his family. It broke records for the most-watched MTV show.
He met the other members of Black Sabbath when he posted an advertisement in a music store that simply said "Ozzy Zig Needs Gig- has own PA"
Ozzy's first solo album, 1980's
Blizzard of Ozz, went multi-platinum. It contained the classic single
Crazy Train.
In May 2005 Ozzy was diagnosed with Parkin Syndrome, a genetic condition that produces tremors and other Parkinson's-like symptoms.
Now for another rumor, which sounds fake, but isn't: Ozzy
really did get his genes sequenced by Knome, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, get his health profile and find out how he could still be alive after all those drugs.
The story, along with TEDMED video, here. Bottom line: geneticist Nathaniel Pearson actually found genes in Ozzy's DNA that might allow him to metabolize substances differently than other people. That's right: Ozzy has a mutant superpower.
Ozzy took 19 goes to pass his driving test.
Ozzy Osbourne was going to play Kylie Minogue's fairy in Baz Luhrmann's movie extravaganza Moulin Rouge! (yes, really!) However, his part was reduced to a single angry scream.
Ozzy is dyslexic and has attention-deficit disorder - he says he can't sit still for more than five minutes. Rock star is a good profession for him, as an office job or factory work would have been unbearable.
His father was a straight-laced, responsible factory worker who worked the night shift. He saved enough money to buy Ozzy a PA system and microphone, which got him gigs because he was the only singer around with that equipment.