Noddy Holder reckons Ozzy Osbourne started the tradition of shaving a sleeping drunk's eyebrows

Ozzy Osbourne (inset) and Noddy Holder — (Image credit: Ozzy Osbourne: Greg Doherty | Noddy Holder: Planet Rock Radio)

Slade frontman Noddy Holder has claimed that Ozzy Osbourne began the drunken tradition of shaving off the eyebrows of an unconscious party-goer. He made the revelation during an interview with Planet Rock Radio's Jen Thomas.

"Ozzy Osbourne stared that!" exclaims Noddy. "If you passed out with Ozzy – whether you were drinking or whatever – he would shave your eyebrows. I could always keep up with Ozzy, so he never did it to me, but quite often he'd shave peoples' eyebrows.

"Of course, when they wake up in the morning and they look in the mirror, they know there's something wrong, but they don't realise their eyebrows have gone. But Ozzy came up with that one. He used to do it all the time."

Noddy goes on to reveal that Ozzy would also used indelible ink to draw moustaches under the noses of his sleeping victims.

Ozzy confirmed that he was a phantom eyebrow shaver as long ago as 1983, when he was interviewed in a coffin by UK music show The Tube. Speaking with host Jools Holland – who came prepared with a stake and garlic "in case there's any trouble" – Ozzy admitted to this "new hobby".

"When people are asleep I lurk into their room and zip their eyebrows" he explained. "They look the next day completely different. Their whole life changes, you know".

In 2014, then-Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars looked back on his band's infamous 1984 tour with Ozzy, during which the Prince of Darkness's wild behaviour was at its most pronounced.

"The Ozzy tour was the height of alcoholism,” Mars told Metal Hammer. “Ozzy had this thing where he used to bite people; he was always playing pranks, shaving off someone’s eyebrows, you know. We were crazy bastards."

Last Christmas Ozzy and Noddy joined forces to add their voices to a charity single, This Christmas Time, which raised money for The Cancer Platform, a global online project providing information to people living with cancer.

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Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.