Ozzy Osbourne is so much more than just a metal pioneer. While his work with Black Sabbath placed him and the rest of the Brummie band at the forefront of the genre’s formation, with them forefathers of all things dark and heavy, his life story is the stuff of legend, with him committing to many capers that have confirmed him as the one and only ‘Prince of Darkness’.
Osbourne has become something of a caricature later in life due to the debilitating effects of hard living and abusing the body to inexplicable levels, with him a sad reminder of why alcohol and drug abuse lead to nothing but pain. Yet, his almost superhuman ability to ingest intoxicants produced many infamous moments that have gone a fair way in propping up his status as the overlord of music’s underworld.
When discussing Osbourne’s life, it is vital not to glorify narcotic abuse, as it has caused so much destruction for himself and many other people throughout society, be it fellow musicians or everyday folk. However, there can be no doubt that how some of these moments played out, and the insouciance with which he retells them makes for damn good yarns with extremely comedic value. They offer insight into the chemically altered mind behind some of rock’s most influential music.
That’s why today, we’ve listed the five most insane bouts of drug-addled madness that Osbourne ever committed to pop culture lore. While there were many to choose from, we’ve picked an array that ranges from the downright hilarious to other moments that might make you think twice before huffing your next key.
The five most insane drug-fuelled escapades of Ozzy Osbourne:
5. A horse with no name
As this is the Black Sabbath legend, there’s no better place to start than with a classic, one of the most ridiculous anecdotes in rock history. While Osbourne has ingested many different narcotics over the years, one he has made clear that he isn’t a fan of is LSD. Although this makes sense vis-à-vis him and his band’s hatred of the flower power movement and everything it represented, it’s actually for much more comedic reasons.
Speaking to Classic Rock in 2022, Osbourne reflected on the band making 1972’s Vol. 4 and the drug-fuelled heyday it was a part of. He also revealed the experience that made him never take LSD again.
“We lived together in a house in Los Angeles, rehearsed there, did loads of drugs and made an album: simple. Those were good times.” But as Ozzy discovered, the good times came at a price “At that time in America, people were very fond of lacing your drinks with acid”.
The frontman continued: “I didn’t care. I used to swallow handfuls of tabs at a time. The end of it came when we got back to England. I took ten tabs of acid then went for a walk in a field. I ended up standing there talking to this horse for about an hour. In the end, the horse turned round and told me to fuck off. That was it for me.”
This story comes from Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and not Osbourne himself. However, as the pair and the rest of the band – Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – partook in ample hellraising together, you’d wager that this one has greatveracity.
The tale was recounted in Iommi’s 2011 interview with the New York Post when promoting his memoir, Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath. This particular one paints drug-fuelled Ozzy in a truly hellish light, explaining why he got his title as ‘The Prince of Darkness’.
Iommi recalled: “With drugs always you get bored, so you must do something to one another. Like Ozzy hauling a shark through a window, dismembering it and soaking our room in blood.” As the guitarist omitted any other context, it seemingly points to the fact this was just any other day in the Black Sabbath camp.
3. Poisoning Bill Ward through his member
This moment is also from 1972 and the days of the cocaine-smattered Bel Air mansion when Black Sabbath were working on Vol. 4. In fact, the lads were huffing so much Columbian marching powder that they originally planned to call the record Snowblind.
During this era, drummer Ward was often the butt of harsh pranks at the hands of the rest of the band. The worst of all that he suffered was when a coked-up Osbourne decided to get lairy when they were urinating next to each other. Years later, Osbourne told Rolling Stone: “I see this aerosol can and squirt his dick with it. He starts screaming and falls down. I look at the can and it says, WARNING: DO NOT SPRAY ON SKIN – HIGHLY TOXIC. I poisoned Bill through his dick!”
Then, in his 2009 autobiography, I Am Ozzy, the vocalist tried to rewrite history and view his role in the prank in a different life. He wrote: “One day, Tony gets this can of blue spray paint and sneaks around the other side of the railing, and when Bill starts pissing over the railing, he sprays his dick with it. You should have heard the scream, man. It was priceless. But then, two seconds later, Bill blacks out, falls headfirst over the railing and starts rolling down the hillside.”
While I Am Ozzy is brimming with hilarious moments, this cocaine-driven one featuring Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson is the coming together of greats you didn’t know you needed.
Osbourne recalled that after playing New York’s Madison Square Garden, he went to a club in an old church, where he and his circle were in a private room imbibing and, as his master Satan would want him to do on hallowed ground, sniff some of his favoured white powder. At some point, a man approached him and asked if he wanted to have his photograph taken with Brian Wilson. “Who the fuck’s Brian Wilson?” he replied. After he was told it was The Beach Boys leader, he said, “Oh, him. Sure. Yeah. Whatever.”
It was 1983, and just the week before, fellow Beach Boy and Wilson’s brother, Dennis, who had known Charles Manson in the 1960s, had drowned aged 39 in a terrible tragedy. Osbourne was instructed to meet Brian on the stairwell, and absolutely loaded on coke and drink, he waited for him and the photograph for roughly 35 minutes. By this point, he was so annoyed, but in light of what happened to Dennis, he relented from being angry towards him. He wrote: “The first thing I said was: ‘Sorry to hear about your brother, Brian.’”
According to Ozzy, Wilson didn’t say anything; he just gave him a funny look and walked off. That was enough. He continues: “‘First you show up late,’ I said, raising my voice, ‘and now you’re just gonna fuck off without saying a single fucking word? I tell you what, Brian, why don’t we forget about the photograph so you can shove your head back up your arse, where it fucking belongs, eh?’”
The following morning, Ozzy’s head was pounding. At one point, the phone rings and his confused wife, Sharon, is heard muttering, “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it.” She then hands him the phone and tells him he’s calling Brian Wilson. “Who the fuck’s Brian Wilson?” Ozzy says, before getting a painful smack on the head with the receiver. She informed him he had insulted Wilson, a “living musical legend” the previous night, and now he was phoning him to apologise.
Despite Ozzy protesting that Wilson insulted him, Sharon revealed what had actually happened. The Pet Sounds genius was undeniably wronged, and what Osbourne told him in his drink-and-coke daze was insane.
She said: “‘Ozzy, when Brian Wilson reached over to shake your hand, the first thing you said was: ‘Hello, Brian, you fucking arsehole, I’m glad to hear your brother’s dead.’” Continuing: “Everyone else seems to remember perfectly well. They also remember you told him to shove his head up his arse, because that’s where it belongs. Here, this is Brian’s number. Apologise.”
Sharon agreed that it wasn’t truly him who said it; it was the cocaine that he kept ingesting that did, but he still needed to make amends to Wilson. He promptly rang to apologise. “We’re cool now, me and Brian,” Ozzy wrote.
There are many examples that confirm just how destructive drug abuse can be, and this is one of the most shocking from all of popular music’s annals. It occurred during the 1980s, when Osbourne’s fever pitch had taken on a dark turn, and unfortunately, their cats would feel his wrath.
Speaking to The Scotsman in 2007, the Black Sabbath vocalist revealed that he massacred the family’s 17 cats when at the peak of his addictions. Unsurprisingly, this was the final straw for his family. He had to buckle up. People have been sent to prison for much less.
He recalled: “I was taking drugs so much I was a f*****. The final straw came when I shot all our cats. We had about 17, and I went crazy and shot them all. My wife found me under the piano in a white suit, a shotgun in one hand and a knife in the other.”
There’s being ‘The Prince of Darkness’, then there’s this. A truly horrific crime undertaken by a man who had not been his true self for years. Don’t do drugs, kids.
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