“I don’t want to kill her! I want to hug her!” metal icon Ozzy Osbourne told his longtime publicist Marcee Rondan of SRO PR as we stopped to pose for a photo while walking through the New York set on the Universal Studios backlot in 2013.
Universal Studios Hollywood was celebrating the music of Black Sabbath’s album, “13” by creating an immersive and very bloody walk-thru experience that included Horror Nights’ creative director John Murdy working directly with Osbourne and his reunited Sabbath brothers, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi, to bring the band’s songs to life.
While Osbourne did his signature “looks like I’m playfully choking you” pose with others, he went in for a warm hug with me that afternoon, his signature cologne — a sort of woodsy musk — wafting over me as we then flashed wide grins at the camera.
Producers of Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights created an attraction based on the music of Black Sabbath (Ozzy Osbourne, left, and Geezer Butler, right) in 2013. (Photo by Fielding Buck, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Despite his reputation for being a dark, bat-biting madman, Osbourne had a soft side. He admitted to me that he’d rather watch Monty Python movies than horror films, citing Butler as the true gorehound of the band.
It’s hard to believe that the beloved Prince of Darkness is gone, as the Osbourne family announced that Ozzy died at the age of 76 on Tuesday, July 22.
Rock singer Ozzy Osbourne performs at Universal Amphitheatre in 2011. (Photo by Gene Blevins, Contributing Photographer)
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Just weeks earlier, he sat upon a throne and was celebrated by thousands of adoring fans and dozens of artists during his final concert, dubbed Back to the Beginning, in Birmingham, England, on July 5.
It was a 10-hour rock marathon featuring acts like Mastodon, Halestorm, Anthrax, Lamb of God, Tom Morello, Jack Black, Alice in Chains, Pantera, Slayer, Tool, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and dozens more that were all influenced by Osbourne’s music. The benefit show was capped by Osbourne’s farewell as he performed both his solo material and songs with Iommi, Butler and drummer Bill Ward including Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” “N.I.B,” “Iron Man” and “Paranoid.”
This loss feels heavy because it is.
At home with the Osbournes
While covering music in Southern California for two decades, I spent time with the Osbourne family at Ozzfest press junkets, documentary and album releases and in-store signings. And occasionally the Osbournes would open their Los Angeles-area home to select media members to celebrate milestones or offer interviews in the comfort of their cozy abode — always hospitable with some tea, coffee and usually cake.
In 2018, Osbourne beamed about being a grandpa, having welcomed his third granddaughter, Minnie, just a few days before inviting us all over.
“I held her in one hand yesterday,” he said proudly, motioning how he cradled the little girl, cupping his hand to his chest.
Though we were there to discuss the plans for his No More Tears 2 Final Tour, he was all too happy to brag about his son, Jack Osbourne’s, growing family.
Surely this wasn’t the man that everyone was so afraid of.
No ordinary man
Ozzy Osbourne, shown performing at Ozzfest in 2016, died Tuesday, July 22, less than three weeks after playing a farewell concert in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
I spent a week with Osbourne and his team as he promoted his 2020 album, “Ordinary Man,” just after he revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Though tabloids had been reporting Osbourne was on his death bed at that time, he proclaimed “I’m not dead yet!”
I joined him at a taping of “Ozzy’s Boneyard” at the SiriusXM studios in Los Angeles one afternoon and then at an in-store signing at Amoeba Records, which had lines wrapping down the sidewalks of Sunset Boulevard. Osbourne stayed beyond his agreed upon time, just to make sure he signed something for everyone, his hand cramping up as he inked about 1,500 copies of the record for his die-hard fans. He signed things with care, not scribbling just to move the line along. He’d break his stride from time to time, looking up and greeting fans with a smile.
“The fans are what have kept me alive,” he said bluntly. “I knew they had been camping out and about two-thirds of the way through I got a bit fatigued, but I had to keep going. They waited all that time and I’m a little uncomfortable … so what? They deserve my effort.”
He explored his own mortality on that album, sharing in the lyrics, “… and the truth is I don’t wanna die an ordinary man.”
When asked how he’d want to be remembered, he said: “It’s not the way I want to be remembered [but] I know I’ll be the man that bit the head off the bat. That will be my epitaph. It won’t be, ‘Here lies Ozzy Osbourne … he did a bit of good …’ It’s going to be ‘The bat-biting lunatic,’ which … I don’t care.”
Writer Kelli Skye Fadroski poses with Ozzy Osbourne at Universal Studios in 2013. (Photo courtesy of Marcee Rondan)
Before the Osbournes hosted a star-studded “Ordinary Man” listening party inside the Rainbow Bar & Grill on the Sunset Strip on Feb. 20, 2020, tattoo icon Mark Mahoney’s Shamrock Social Club, located just across the street, was celebrating the album by offering an Ozzy flash tattoo promotion. Hundreds got fresh Ozzy ink that day, myself included.
With the “why not” mentality of the rest of the crowd and with the devil-on-the-shoulder encouragement of my company, before I knew it, Mahoney had permanently inked “Ozzy” on my right ankle. We walked up and showed Sharon Osbourne. She immediately walked me over to Ozzy, who surprised fans by showing up to the tattoo shop to say a quick, “Hello.”
“Ozzy, look what Kelli did,” Sharon said.
“Kelli,” Ozzy said — in much the same way he’d playfully yell his own daughter Kelly Osbourne’s name. “Why did you do that?”
“Why not,” I replied with a laugh.
Ozzy reminded me, he loved the Beatles, but he didn’t have a Beatles tattoo.
“On one hand, I’m very honored, but the thing is, it’s there for the rest of their lives,” he said about fans getting tattoos with his name, image or song lyrics. “People come and go, but that tattoo will be there forever.”
I have no regrets.
Kelli Skye Fadroski was a music writer for the Orange County Register and Southern California News Group from 2006 to 2024.