EDITORIAL: Ozzy Osbourne, heavy metal pioneer and reality TV patriarch who redefined pop chaos

Ozzy Osbourne was realistic about how he would be remembered after death.

“I know when I eventually do leave this place, it’s going to be, ‘Ah, the man who bit the head off the bat joined the bat today’,” he told People magazine in 2022.

Certainly, much of the reflection following Osbourne’s death at age 76 has centred around his bat-biting, cat-shooting, ant-snorting, booze and drug fuelled eccentricities which shocked the world through the 1970s and 80s.

But he is also remembered for his contradictions: the self-styled Prince of Darkness versus the bumbling sitcom dad character who struggled to operate the TV remote control.

Osbourne’s impact on popular culture was immense and spanned across an astonishing seven decades.

Few people manage to change the course of entertainment history, but Osbourne did it twice: first when he introduced the world to a whole new genre of music with heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath in the late 1960s, and second when he was at the vanguard of a new type of low-stakes, domestic focused reality television in the 2000s.

The Osbournes, which ran for four profanity-laden seasons from 2002, made household names of the family’s other members too: wife Sharon, daughter Kelly and son Jack.

It presented a markedly different side to the Iron Man and paved the way for other celebrity home life programming. Keeping Up With The Kardashians is a direct descendant of The Osbournes cultural juggernaut.

Throughout much of his life, Osbourne was ruled by his addictions. He was booted from Black Sabbath by his bandmates in 1979 for his substance abuse and erratic behaviour before a reunion in 1985, and Sharon revealed he was “stoned on every episode” of the Osbournes.

Sobriety finally stuck in 2013, by which time his decades of rock ‘n’ roll excess had caught up with him — not even the Iron Man can indulge in a 40-year bender without suffering some consequences.

The remainder of his life was plagued by health problems, with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease in 2019 and a number of surgeries following injuries to his neck and back.

No one was more astonished at his longevity than Osbourne himself, remarking in 2022 that his survival against the odd was his legacy.

“People go, ‘Well, you’re 70… why don’t I throw the towel in?’ Why should I? People still want to buy my records. People still want to see me, so why should I? It motivates me to get off my backside and do something. I mean, if my career had gone down the toilet and I knew it was the end, I’d be pretty miserable.”

He gave his fans what they wanted to the end, performing his final show, seated in a black throne, with Black Sabbath in his hometown of Birmingham on July 5, ending his remarkable career back where it started.

”I’ve done a lot for a simple working-class guy,” Osbourne told Rolling Stone in 2002, reflecting on his legacy.

“I made a lot of people smile. I’ve also made a lot of people go, ‘Who the f..k does this guy think he is?’ But I’ve got no complaints. At least I’ll be remembered.”

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by WAN Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore