"I open my eyes and see the captain and co-pilot with an axe, chopping down the door to the cockpit": After 40 years of friendship with Ozzy Osbourne, Stephen Rea has some stories to share

The story of Stephen Rea and Ozzy Osbourne ranks among heavy metal’s most unlikely and uplifting sagas. It begins amid the grey streets of Belfast at the height of the Troubles, arcs through the blazing heat of Rock in Rio, winds through the decades across European stages and tour buses, and concludes in a quiet hotel suite in Birmingham on July 5, 2025.

Once whispered among insiders, Rea’s extraordinary journey now takes centre stage in his engrossing new memoir, Ozzy & Me: Life Lessons, Wild Stories and Unexpected Epiphanies from Forty Years of Friendship with the Prince of Darkness. The title may be a mouthful, yet it barely hints at the depth and heart of the story within.

As a teenager, Rea joined Ozzy’s official fan club – membership number 00090 – and first saw his hero at Castle Donington during Ozzy’s late-afternoon appearance at the 1984 Monsters of Rock festival. When he learned Ozzy would be performing at Rock in Rio in January 1985, Rea’s father casually suggested they make it a family holiday. His mother wrote to the fan club seeking information on tickets, and that single letter changed the trajectory of his life.

Ozzy’s secretary tracked down the family’s phone number, called out of the blue, and arranged tickets. Those tickets became backstage passes, and the next morning, a casual breakfast with Ozzy himself. From that unlikely encounter grew a deep and enduring friendship, with Rea eventually working within the Osbourne camp.

A captivating thread running through the memoir is the sheer generosity and humanity shown by Ozzy and Sharon, whose quiet acts of kindness repeatedly altered the course of Rea’s life. Their bond lasted four decades, culminating in a triumphant and heartbreaking farewell at July 2025’s Back To The Beginning concert in Birmingham. If you saw it in a film, you’d never believe it.

We spoke with Stephen about writing the book, the creative decisions behind it, and the insights it offers into Ozzy away from the spotlight.

This book is very much your own coming-of-age tale. What role does Ozzy play?

I like to think of it as a love letter to Ozzy and Sharon. I don’t think people would be particularly interested in the story of a bloke from Belfast. I hope this book is about Ozzy, as seen through my perspective.

Ozzy shaped the trajectory of your entire life. Was he a mentor?

I don’t know if I’d see him as a mentor because even as a teenager, I could see that Ozzy was killing himself on a daily basis. Jack (Osbourne) offered to write the forward and one of his lines was ‘Stephen was there in the 80s – a decade my dad famously didn’t remember.’ Haha.

Even though I was sixteen, I knew that Ozzy wasn’t the ideal role model. And he never held himself out to be a hero. So not so much a mentor, but there were life lessons that I learned from Ozzy. First, he never took himself seriously. The Prince of Darkness was the Prince of Daftness. He always laughed at himself, he was always willing to take a joke and he never put himself on a pedestal.

Secondly, he rolled with the punches. There were multiple occasions where something would happen like the bass player left, or the drummer left. I’d treat it like the end of the world but Ozzy would just be like, "Meh, it’ll be fine. Sharon will find someone." So there was always a sense that things would work out and not to get too spun out about things.

Did you feel any obligation to protect the Osbournes’ privacy or did you feel an obligation to document their humanity?

That’s a fair question. It’s not sugar-coated, I think. There are things in the book like a scene where Sharon lies to the police! I hope it doesn’t come across as sanitised. I’ve been honest. It’s my story in the sense that it’s seen through my eyes. So did I respect their privacy? Not really. Twenty, thirty or forty years ago, when Ozzy was sitting at a bar drinking with me, I’m sure he never thought, "Whoops, better be careful what I say here because someday he might write a story."

The book is peppered with stories that Ozzy told you through the years, that you would write down in a notebook that Ozzy bought for you in a hotel gift shop. Were there any that didn’t make the cut because they didn’t necessarily serve the narrative?

There were some fantastic stories. Most of them were told to me sitting in a bar, over drinks, with Ozzy just recounting stories. Like stories about him coming back from the California Jam with Deep Purple or stories of him taking the dogs for a walk and getting drunk and crazy sort of drunken Ozzy stories.

Can you give us one?

As told by Ozzy:

"Coming back from the California Jam, in 1974. There’s Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in the first class compartment of this jumbo jet. There’s fucking drinks and drugs everywhere and of course I’m sitting next to Richie Blackmore’s wife, who’s some kind of big fat biker boiler.

"So everyone’s out of their head and next thing I know, Bill Ward has taken his top off and is ranting and raving and wanting to fight with a stewardess. Bill hated flying and would always get out of his box and take his top off.

"Geezer was the same and all this fucking madness is going on and I just thought, ‘Fuck this, I’m going upstairs to the lounge area.’ Well, I must have dozed off up there on my own because next thing I know, I hear this faint Thump! Thump! somewhere in the distance. I open my eyes and see the fucking captain and co-pilot with an axe, chopping down the door to the cockpit.

"I was like, 'What the fuck is going on?' and the captain was like, 'It’s OK, sir, there’s no need to be alarmed.' I’m like, 'We’re twenty thousand feet in the air, we’ve got no pilot and you’re telling me not to be alarmed?!'

"What had happened was one of the crew was asleep, the other had gone to take a leak and the captain had taken a wander out into first class to have a chat with the passengers and the door shut behind him.

"The plane was fine. It was on autopilot for hours, but I said, 'Listen, you better not let those fuckers downstairs know what’s going on, otherwise we’ll be in big fucking trouble!'"

What’s the softest thing about Ozzy that the world never got right?

He was a teddy bear. He’d do anything for anyone. If it wasn’t for Sharon, he would have been walked all over. Disabled people would come back and ask him for money for a new wheelchair and he’d say, "How much is it?"

The other thing was that he was sharp. People who knew him from The Osbournes would see him as this sort of bumbling guy who was out of it, and always shuffling around and didn’t know how to work the TV and such. But Ozzy was sharp, nothing got by him. He was content to let people think whatever they did about him but he was on the ball. People underestimated him.

Mike Inez (Alice in Chains) was Ozzy’s long-time bassist and Ozzy chose him to play in Birmingham for his final solo performance. He appears in key moments throughout the book. What role did he play for you?

Mike and I have known each other for thirty odd years and I know that everyone says he’s such a great guy but Mike really is. Mike and his wife came back across for the funeral and what I said to him was that I feel so fortunate that I got to say goodbye. But Mike didn’t see him again after he walked offstage after Ozzy’s final solo show in July.

So the last thing that Ozzy said to Mike was, "I love you, Mike," on the stage. I said to Mike, "You were one of only four people in the world on stage with Ozzy for his final solo performance. Four people in the world were on stage with Ozzy and his last words to you were on stage on his last show."

I was so happy for Mike because he’s been in and out of the band and through the years, he always showed up when they needed him. They’d call him and he would step up. So Mike and I have a very similar relationship in that we both loved Ozzy, we would do anything for Ozzy and for him, he was in the band, but we had a similar kind of experience and feeling. So it was really good for us to have each other.

When you began this book, you could never have foreseen that its publication would coincide with Black Sabbath’s final show and Ozzy’s passing in July, 2025. How did it feel when these events unfolded?

I started this six years ago and for various reasons, the schedule came out a year ago and the book was scheduled to be released in November, 2025. The publishing world works at a glacial pace so this was all planned a year out.

Come July and I was terrified that the Osbournes were going to think that this was a cash in; it was coming out a few months after he died, and I was worried that they might think I’d done this to cash in.

But the day after the funeral, I was in the (Osbourne) house, standing in the kitchen, and Jack came down and he said, "Stephen, when’s your book due to come out?" and I thought, "Thank God." I said, "Jack, it’s coming out in November and I’m glad you knew it was coming." He said, "No, I get it, and I want to write the forward for you."

So it’s bittersweet. On one hand, I’m delighted that it’s coming out when there’s so much attention on Ozzy and so much appreciation of what he gave to the world and what his music meant. But there’s sadness too, that he never got to read it. Even if he had never read it, no one ever had the chance to hand him a copy and say, "Stephen’s written this book about you."

Ultimately, what is this book about?

It’s about friendship, because we were friends for decades. We’d go years without seeing each other, but when we did see each other, the years fell away. So it is about friendship, but I also feel like it’s a moment in time.

It’s such an incredible story and it’s one that will never happen again because no kid will ever write to Anthrax or Slipknot or Megadeth or AC/DC and say, "I’m a big fan of your music. I’m going to this show," and the band respond, "Great, here’s a backstage pass. Come watch from the side of the stage and let’s go out for breakfast after!"

It’s a different world. I wanted to capture the moment back then when it was possible for you to write a letter to your hero and amazing things would happen.

Ozzy & Me: Life Lessons, Wild Stories and Unexpected Epiphanies from Forty Years of Friendship with the Prince of Darkness is out now.