Ozzy Osbourne has given his Last Rites. The Prince Of Darkness’ second memoir was released today (October 7) by Sphere Publishing. Although the book wasn’t supposed to be a posthumous project from the late Black Sabbath star, it offers fascinating insight into his final years, including the series of surgeries he endured towards the end of his life and his retirement concert this summer. It also sees Ozzy reflect even further, looking back on his entire career as he admits he’s coming to terms with his mortality.
The book is an essential, entertaining read, full of facts and stories surrounding the heavy metal godfather that we didn’t know before. These are the most striking of the bunch.
Some of Black Sabbath’s drugs came from Pablo Escobar
Black Sabbath recorded Vol. 4 in Los Angeles in 1972, and Ozzy describes the sessions as “our most coked-up period”. Case in point: some of the band’s blow came from notorious Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who apparently got his product into the States “via some bent LA customs officer”. Sabbath were so strung-out that, at one point, they heard police sirens blaring outside and were convinced it was a drug raid. Turns out, Ozzy had simply pressed a panic button in the studio by mistake.
Ozzy once came back from holiday early because he was convinced John Bonham would snort his cocaine
Ozzy tries to wrap his head around his eventual death throughout Last Rites, and it leads him to look back at old friends who died young. One of the musicians he writes about most is late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, who passed away in 1980 aged 32. At some point in the 70s, before Ozzy was set to take a holiday with his first wife and the kids, the Prince Of Darkness left a batch of top-notch coke at Bonham’s place for the drummer to keep guard of. From that point on, Ozzy was paranoid that Bonham would snort up his stash, to the point that he came back from the trip early just to check on it. When he got to Bonham’s, not a gram was missing. “John, my old friend, if you’re reading this up there, I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” he writes.
Ozzy became ‘Ozzy’ the day he married Sharon
People have been calling John Osbourne ‘Ozzy’ since his school days, but during his early career he considered the names to represent two different sides of himself. At home – to his first wife, mum and dad – he was John, while Ozzy was the Black Sabbath wildman shouting ‘Let’s go fucking crazy!’ night after night. He writes that the day he married Sharon, his wife of 43 years and manager for even longer, is when he wholly became ‘Ozzy’. Sharon never once called her husband by his birth name. “I like you as Ozzy,” she explained when he asked why.
Only two people could out-party Ozzy, and one of them was a 7ft 4in pro-wrestler
Ozzy’s reputation as a hard-living party boy has endured for decades, and by all accounts he lived up to the legends. In Last Rites, the singer confesses that only two people ever out-partied him. The first, less surprising, name is Motörhead leader Lemmy Kilmister, also notorious for his heavy drinking and drug use. The other? André The Giant. The pro-wrestler and Princess Bride star stood at 7ft 4in and weighed more than 500lbs, and his metabolism was just as impressive. According to Ozzy, “The guy would drink whole jugs of vodka and cranberry – and while he was sitting there, waiting for ’em to be made, he’d get through a six-pack of beer.”
Lemmy wrote three drafts of Mama I’m Coming Home (and read an entire book) in just a few hours
Lemmy penned lyrics for four songs on Ozzy’s 1991 opus No More Tears, among the most enduring of which are those on Mama I’m Coming Home. Ozzy had the music but needed the words, so he took the track to the Motörhead man, along with a book about a German military leader as a gift. Lemmy told Ozzy to return in two hours; when he came back in “four or five”, the singer/bassist asked where he’d been and handed him the finished lyrics. He then revealed that he had “two other versions” on standby if need be and that the book Ozzy gave him was “crap”.
The King Of England once sent the Prince Of Darkness a bottle of Scotch
Ozzy writes that he’s met King Charles III “loads of times”, to the point that the King Of England and the Prince Of Darkness developed an unlikely rapport: “Every time I see him, we have a right old laugh.” They got so close that, after Ozzy fell off a quad bike and sustained serious injuries in 2003, the then-future ruler sent him a bottle of Scotch whisky. Ozzy admits, “The only problem was, Sharon confiscated it before I could get my hands on it.”
Ozzy didn’t want Rage Against The Machine’s drummer to be on Black Sabbath’s final album
The original Black Sabbath lineup reunited in 2011, but their ranks quickly thinned again when Bill Ward bowed out over a contract dispute. When the time came for the band to make their comeback album, 2013’s 13, Ozzy hoped to bring his solo band drummer Tommy Clufetos into the studio. Even though Sabbath’s remaining members jammed 13’s material with Clufetos in the lead-up to the recording, producer Rick Rubin pushed for a different drummer, and Rage Against The Machine’s Brad Wilk ultimately got the gig. Ozzy admits: “I was never comfortable with that decision. Everyone had been fine with Tommy until Rick came on board and had other ideas, so I was kind of pissed off about that for a while.”
Ozzy’s first spinal surgery only made everything worse
Ozzy’s late-life health problems are the core of the new book. They started when the singer got a staph infection in two of his fingers in late 2018. The following February, things got even worse when he attempted to dive into his bed, only to crash onto the bedroom floor and break his neck. His first surgeon, whom Ozzy only refers to as ‘Dr No Socks’, quickly operated but was overenthusiastic, putting loads of screws and metal plates into Ozzy’s spine that it later turns out weren’t required. The resultant pain was agonising, debilitating and long-lasting. Ozzy writes: “I came in here with a sore neck … and I’m coming out a cripple.”
Ozzy was working on another solo album when he died
Last Rites’ final chapter was written in the brief window between Ozzy’s retirement show, Back To The Beginning, on July 5 and his death on July 22. It’s only alluded to in a single sentence, but the singer confirms that he had more solo music in the pipeline before he passed away. “Although I won’t be performing again, I’ve already got an idea for a new album,” he says.
Ozzy knew he had a possibly fatal heart issue before he died of a heart attack
During the final chapter, and in one of Last Rites’ most chilling portions, Ozzy acknowledges that he has heart problems, calling them one of his potentially “life-or-death” health issues. The singer contracted sepsis following his final spinal surgery in 2023; the infection left him with arrhythmia and a heart valve that was “80 percent blocked”. Due to the blood thinners he was on to treat his Parkinson’s, doctors said surgically repairing the valve “would be too dangerous”. Shortly after the chapter was written, Ozzy died of a heart attack, aged 76.
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