Ozzy Osbourne ‘wouldn’t change a thing’, he told BBC film
Ozzy Osbourne said he “wouldn’t change a thing” about his life, speaking in a poignant BBC documentary filmed before his death.
The rock legend died in July at the age of 76, less than three weeks after a star-studded farewell concert in his home city, Birmingham.
“What a great way to go out that gig was,” he said in one of his final interviews for the documentary.
Sharon & Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home followed the final three years of his life and was broadcast on BBC One on Thursday. The one-hour film had originally been scheduled to be screened in August, but the BBC postponed it, saying at the time it was “respecting the family’s wishes to wait a bit longer”.
“I’ve had a lot of fun,” he was heard saying at the end of the documentary. “I’ve had a lot of blood, sweat and tears, you know.
“It’s been a great life. If I could live my life again, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.”
He also spoke about how his “emotions” nearly got the better of him during the “humbling” final gig at Villa Park in early July.
In the film, his daughter Kelly noted how “everyone was crying” in the stadium while he was singing Mama, I’m Coming Home – a song written for Ozzy and his wife Sharon by Lemmy from Motorhead.
“I couldn’t get the words out,” recalled Ozzy, adding that it had been “torture” to have to sit down on a throne to perform due to a serious spinal injury.
“The only thing that was terribly frustrating for me, I had to sit there instead of running across the stage,” the former Black Sabbath frontman said.
“I wanted to get up and sing so much. It was very humbling to sit in that chair for nine songs.”
As well as Black Sabbath, the event featured performances from an array of artists they influenced, such as Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.
Ozzy, who revealed in 2020 that he had Parkinson’s disease, was shown in the days after the concert saying he was “retiring from public life”.
Originally known for his music and wild rock ‘n’ roll antics, the British singer and his family moved to Los Angeles in the noughties and became the stars of their own trailblazing reality TV show, The Osbournes.
The BBC documentary follows Ozzy and Sharon as they planned their dream of moving back to their home in Hertfordshire, UK.
“I don’t want to be buried in America,” he declared in the documentary.
It also shows him undergoing physiotherapy and running on a machine aided by prosthetic back and leg supports as part of his “determined” bid to return to the stage one last time.
“He wants that opportunity to say goodbye to his fans properly,” noted Sharon.
Kelly – who features in the film alongside Jack and Aimee, Ozzy’s other two children with Sharon – offered: “I always thought my dad was invincible. But Iron Man wasn’t really made of iron.”
As frontman of Black Sabbath, the Birmingham-born musician is credited as one of the founding fathers of heavy metal, thanks to songs like Iron Man and Paranoid.
But he had a litany of health problems. He was seriously injured in a quad bike crash in 2003, and suffered spinal damage in a late night fall in 2019, which ultimately led to him having to cancel his two-and-a-half-year farewell tour.
‘Hooked on apples’
His memoir, Last Rites, will be posthumously published next week.
An extract, published in the Times on Thursday, revealed that the late star got sepsis at the start of this year, and it “was really was touch and go” at one stage.
“The whole family basically thought I was a goner,” he wrote.
He also revealed he spent eight days in hospital soon after moving back to the UK in May because of concerns about his blood pressure.
And he wrote that before leaving Los Angeles, he had replaced his old addictions to drugs and alcohol with fruit. “I did get hooked on apples for a while,” he said.
“Not just any apples, mind you. They had to be Pink Lady apples… I got to the point where some nights I was eating 12 of ’em.”
He added: “It got to the point where I needed to join Pink Ladies Anonymous. It’s a wonder I didn’t wake up one day with an apple tree sprouting out of my arse.”
Following his death, Ozzy was given an emotional send-off as his coffin took a final journey through his home city, watched on by thousands of fans who chanted his name.
A seperate documentary about the last six years of his life, titled Ozzy: No Escape From Now, is set to air on Paramount+ on Tuesday, 7 October.
Some fans will be able to see it at special preview screenings in Birmingham on Friday, and London on Monday.
Sharon & Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
