I Am Ozzy

by Ozzy Osbourne; Chris Ayres

  If you haven’t seen that cover – Born Again was Black Sabbath’s third album after I left – it’s of an aborted demon baby with fangs and claws. What an unbelievable thing to say!

  On the one hand, doing Live Aid was brilliant: it was for a great cause, and no one can play those old Black Sabbath songs like me, Tony, Geezer and Bill. But on the other hand, it was all a bit embarrassing. For a start, I was still grossly overweight – on the video, I’m the size of a planet. Also, in the six years since I’d left the band, I’d become a celebrity in America, whereas Black Sabbath had been going in the other direction. So I got preferential treatment, even though I hadn’t asked for it. It was just stupid little things, like I got a Live Aid jacket and they didn’t. But it still felt awkward. And I didn’t handle it with much grace, because my coked-up rock star ego was out of control. Deep down, a part of me wanted to say to them, ‘You fired me and now I don’t need you, so fuck you.’ Looking back now, all I can think is, Why was I like that? Why did I have to be such a dickhead?

  But the gig went smoothly enough. We just checked in to the hotel, met up at the sound check, ran through the set list, got up there, did the songs and fucked off home.

  As for Don Arden’s lawsuit, it probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. Jet Records had taken a big hit when we left. And a lot of other things were going wrong for him too.

  For example, it was around that time Sharon’s brother David ended up in court in England for allegedly kidnapping, black-mailing and beating up an accountant called Harshad Patel. It was a very bad scene. David was sentenced to two years in Wandsworth for whatever part he had in it, but he only served a few months. By the end of it, he’d been moved to Ford Open Prison.

  Then they went after Don, who was still living in the Howard Hughes house at the top of Benedict Canyon. In the end, Don realised he was going to be extradited, so he went back of his own accord to stand trial. Then he hired the best lawyers in London and got off, scot-free.

  A few months after Live Aid, on November 8, 1985, Jack was born. I was too pissed to remember much of it – I spent most of the time in the pub opposite the hospital – but I remember Sharon wanting to have him circumcised. I didn’t put up a fight. I mean, the funny thing is, even though my mother was a Catholic, she had me circumcised. None of my brothers had it done – just me. I remember asking my mum what the fuck she was thinking, and she just went, ‘Oh, it was fashionable.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘It was fashionable to cut my dick off!’ I remember shouting at her.

  But I have to admit, it is cleaner that way. And because Jack was part-Jewish – because of Don Arden, whose real name was Harry Levy – it seemed like the right thing to do.

  The most amazing thing about Jack being born is that he was our third kid in three years. We hadn’t planned it that way. It just happened. Every time I came off the road, me and Sharon would get in the sack together – as you do – one thing would lead to another, then nine months later Sharon would be giving birth to another little Osbourne.

  It was crazy, really, because I ended up touring the world as the Prince of Darkness with three little kids in tow, which wasn’t exactly good for the image. For a few years I spent most of my time between gigs in a panic trying to find Jack’s comfort blanket, which was this little yellow teddy bear thing called Baby. Jack would go fucking insane if he didn’t have Baby to cuddle and chew on. But we were travelling so much, Baby would always end up getting left behind. I became obsessed with that fucking bear. I’d come off stage after singing ‘Diary of a Madman’, and the first thing I’d say was, ‘Where’s Baby? Has anyone seen Baby? Make sure we don’t lose Baby.’

  On more than one occasion we had to send our private jet halfway across America just to get Baby back from the hotel were we’d stayed the previous night. We’d drop twenty grand on jet fuel, just to rescue Baby. And don’t think we didn’t fucking try to just buy Jack a replacement. He was too smart for that – he wouldn’t have any of it. You’d find a comfort blanket that was absolutely identical in every way to Baby, but Jack would take one look at it, throw it back at you, and bawl his eyes out until he got his real Baby back. And of course as time went on, Baby ended up having major surgery after being eaten by Sharon’s dog a few times, so in the end there was no mistaking him.

  As much as I was drunk and absent a lot of the time, I loved being a dad. It’s just so much fun watching these little people you’ve brought into the world as they develop and grow up. Sharon loved being a mum, too. But enough was enough after a while. After Jack was born, I remember her saying to me, ‘Ozzy, I can’t have you anywhere near me next time you finish a tour. I feel like I’ve been pregnant for ever, I can’t do it any more.’

  So I went and got the snip. What a strange experience that was.

  ‘You know this can’t be reversed, don’t you, Mr Osbourne?’ said the doc.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So you’re sure about this?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Absolutely sure?’

  ‘Doc, believe me, I’m sure.’

  ‘OK then, sign this form.’

  After the operation, my balls swelled up to the size of watermelons. They ached terribly, too. ‘Hey, Doc,’ I said. ‘Can you give me something that will leave the swelling but take away the pain?’

  All in all, I don’t recommend it, as far as elective surgery goes. When you pop your load after you’ve had the snip, nothing but dust comes out. It’s like a dry sneeze. Really weird, man.

  Then, nine months later, Sharon got broody again. So I had to go back to the doc and ask him to unsnip me.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he said. ‘I told you that couldn’t be done. But we can always try, I suppose.’

  It didn’t work. As the doc said, it’s very hard to reverse a snip. Maybe if I’d gone back to get my pipes cleaned out, it would have been OK. Who knows? But we gave up on having any more kids after that. Still, five kids in one lifetime ain’t bad – and I love them all so much.

  They’re the best things that ever happened to me, no question about it.

  Another problem with getting the snip was that it made me think I suddenly had the freedom to do whatever I wanted to – or at least whatever I thought I wanted to, when I was pissed out of my skull. But my wife was brought up in a rock ’n’ roll environment, and she can sniff out a lie from six thousand miles away. And I’m the world’s worst liar, anyway.

  So she knew exactly what I was up to. Of course, she hated it, but she put up with it. At first.

  It wasn’t like I was having affairs. I just wanted to think I was Robert Redford for an hour. But I was never any good at that game. Most of the time, when I was with a chick, she’d be calling an ambulance or carrying me back to my hotel room in a cab while I puked my guts out. I’d start the night like James Bond, and end it like a pile of shit on the floor. And the guilt that followed was always fucking lethal. I hated it. I felt like such an arsehole. And I’m a terrible hypochondriac, so I’d always be shitting myself that I’d caught some rare and deadly virus. I can catch a disease off the telly, me. I’ll be taking some pill to help me get to sleep, then I’ll see an ad for it on TV, and the voiceover will say, ‘Side-effects may include vomiting, bleeding and, on rare occasions, death’ and I’ll convince myself I’m halfway to the morgue. It got to the point where I had doctors coming over to look at my dick twice a week, just to be on the safe side.

  Then AIDS came along.

  I wasn’t worried at first. Like most people, I thought it was a gay thing. And no matter how drunk or high I got, I never felt the urge to jump in the sack with some hairy-arsed bloke.

  But it didn’t take long for everyone to realise that you don’t have to be gay to get AIDS. Then, one night, I bonked this chick in the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood. As soon as I was done, I just knew something wasn’t right. So, at two in the morning, I called the front desk and asked if they had a doctor on duty. They did – those
fancy hotels always have their own in-house quacks – so he came up to my room, checked out my tackle and told me I should go and have a test.

  ‘What d’you mean, a test?’ I asked him.

  ‘An HIV test,’ he said.

  That was it, as far as I was concerned. I was a goner.

  For a few days I drove myself halfway insane with worry. I was impossible to be around. Then I blurted everything out to Sharon. You can imagine how that went down. Think of that 100-megaton bomb the Russians once set off in the Arctic.

  That was Sharon when I told her that I had to get an HIV test ’cos I’d bonked some dodgy chick from a hotel bar. Angry doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was such a bad scene, I began to think that being dead might actually be better than being alive for another bollocking.

  Anyway, I got the test. And then a week later, I went with Sharon to get the results.

  I’ll never forget the doctor walking into that little room, sitting down, getting out his file, and going, ‘Well, Mr Osbourne, the good news is that you don’t have herpes, the clap or syphilis.’

  The second he said that, I knew something was up.

  ‘What’s the bad news?’ I asked him.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid there’s no easy way to tell you this,’ he said, as my whole body went numb with fear. ‘But you’re HIV positive.’

  I literally fell to my knees, put my hands over my head, and screamed, ‘WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN I’M HIV POSITIVE? THAT’S A FUCKING DEATH SENTENCE, YOU ARSEHOLE!’

  You’ve got to remember, in those days HIV wasn’t treatable like it is now. If you got HIV, it meant you’d get AIDS – and then you’d die. The End. And if I was HIV positive, then it probably meant that Sharon was HIV positive, too. Which meant I’d killed the mother of my kids.

  I couldn’t even look at Sharon, I felt so fucking terrible. She must have hated me at that moment. But she didn’t say anything. I suppose the shock of it must have been as bad for her as it was for me.

  Then the phone on the doctor’s desk rang. I was still on my knees and screaming at this point, but I soon shut up when I realised it was the lab, calling about my results. I listened as the doctor ummed and ahhed for a while. Then he put down the receiver and went, ‘Actually, Mr Osbourne, let me clarify: your test was borderline, not positive. That means we need to run it again. Sorry for the confusion.’

  Confusion? If I hadn’t been such a mess, I would have got up and chinned the bastard.

  But I was in no state for anything.

  ‘How long will that take?’ I croaked, trying not to throw up.

  ‘Another week.’

  ‘I won’t last a week,’ I said. ‘Seriously, doc, I’ll have topped myself by then. Is there any way of getting it faster?’

  ‘It’ll be expensive.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘OK then. I’ll get it for you overnight. In the meantime, Mrs Osbourne, I suggest you get a test, too.’

  Sharon nodded, her face white.

  The next day we went back for my results. I’d been a fucking wreck all night, but Sharon wasn’t exactly in the mood to give me any sympathy. The only thing she was in the mood for was divorce. I honestly thought my marriage was over.

  ‘So, Mr Osbourne,’ began the doc. ‘We ran another test on you, and I’m delighted to say that you don’t seem to have HIV – although we should do the test one more time, to be sure.’

  I put my head in my hands, released all the air from my lungs, and thanked God like I’d never thanked Him before. Meanwhile, I heard Sharon let out a sob of relief and blow her nose.

  ‘The confusion seems to have arisen from the state of your immune system,’ the doc went on. ‘Basically, Mr Osbourne, your immune system currently isn’t functioning. At all. At first, the lab couldn’t understand it. So they did some more blood-work, and then they came across some – well, er, some lifestyle factors that probably explain the anomaly.’

  ‘Lifestyle factors?’

  ‘Your blood contains near-fatal quantities of alcohol and cocaine, Mr Osbourne, not to mention a number of other controlled substances. The lab’s never seen anything like it.’

  ‘So I really don’t have HIV?’

  ‘No. But your body thinks it does.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

  ‘Mr Osbourne, you might not be HIV positive, but your life is still in grave danger if you don’t take it easier.’

  I nodded, but by then I wasn’t even listening. I was too busy planning the drink I needed to celebrate. Mind you, I did change my lifestyle in one way – I never cheated on Sharon again.

  With the AIDS crisis over, I flew back to England to prepare for the next tour. I’d only been back a week or two when I got a frantic call from Sharon, who was still in California.

  ‘Ozzy, get on the next plane out here.’

  She sounded terrible.

  ‘What? Why?’ I said.

  ‘Just go to the airport, buy a ticket, then call the Beverly Hills Hotel and let me know which flight you’re on.’

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘No. One more thing, Ozzy.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘DO. NOT. GET. DRUNK.’

  Click.

  Fifteen hours later, I was walking through immigration at LAX when about ten thousand flashbulbs went off. I thought there must have been a royal visit going on or something. Then a reporter shoved a TV camera in my face and said, ‘What do you think, Ozzy?’

  ‘Oh, er, well, the chicken was a bit soggy,’ I said. ‘But other than that, it was a pretty decent flight.’

  ‘I mean about the kid. The dead kid. Any comment?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The suicide. Your thoughts?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talki—’

  Before I could say any more, about ten security guards pushed the cameraman out of the way and formed a circle around me. Then they escorted me outside and bundled me into a black limo.

  Waiting on the back seat was Howard Weitzman, my lawyer.

  ‘The kid’s name is – or rather was – John McCollum,’ he explained, handing me a copy of the Los Angeles Times. ‘Nineteen years old. Big fans of yours. According to his parents, he was drinking and listening to Speak of the Devil when he shot himself with his father’s .22. He was still wearing headphones when they found him. And they’re blaming it all on you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘The father says his son was just doing what the lyrics of “Suicide Solution” told him to do.’

  ‘But Speak of the Devil is a live album of Black Sabbath songs. “Suicide Solution” isn’t even on there.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And has he actually read the lyrics?’

  ‘Look, you and I both know the song’s about the perils of too much liquor, but he doesn’t see it that way.’

  ‘He thinks I want my fans to kill themselves? How the fuck does he think I plan to sell any more records?’

  ‘That’s not all, Ozzy. They’re saying that your songs have subliminal messages embedded in them, instructing the young and impressionable to “get a gun”, “end it now”, “shoot-shoot-shoot”, that kind of thing. It’s all in the lawsuit. I’ll have a copy sent over to your hotel.’

  ‘How much are they suing me for?’

  ‘Everything. Plus damages.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Unfortunately not. We’re on our way to a press conference right now. Let me do the talking.’

  The press conference was at a tennis club. I was jet-lagged, pissed (I couldn’t help myself) and in shock. It got even worse when I was led on to this little podium to face the cameras. I was used to being interviewed by music magazines or whatever, but not by this hardcore national media gang. It was like being back in the classroom with Mr Jones. The reporters were throwing questions at me so hard and so fast, I almost wanted to duck for cover.

  One guy said, ‘Listen, Mr Osbourne, isn’t it true that you sing on one of your
songs, “Paranoid”, “I tell you to end your life”?’

  I had to take a moment to run through Geezer’s lyrics in my head. Then I said to him, ‘No, I sing “ enjoy life”.’

  But the other reporters were already shouting their follow-up questions, so no one could hear.

  ‘It’s ENJOY life,’ I kept repeating. ‘ENJOY life.’

  No one listened.

  ‘Ozzy,’ said another reporter. ‘Mr McCollum’s attorney says he went to one of your concerts, and that it was like being at Nuremberg, with the crowd chanting your name. Any comment?’

  ‘Nuremberg?’ I should have said, ‘I don’t think Hitler spent much of his time at Nuremberg making the peace sign and shouting “rock ’n’ roll”.’ But I didn’t. I couldn’t get my words out. I just froze.

  Then they started asking about ‘Suicide Solution’. All I can remember is Howard Weisman shouting above the crowd, ‘The song is autobiographical. It’s about Mr Osbourne’s well-publicised battle with alcoholism, which he believes is a form of suicide, as evidenced by the tragic death of Mr Osbourne’s good friend Bon Scott, lead singer of the Australian band AC/DC.’

  ‘But Ozzy,’ shouted the reporters, ‘isn’t it true that…’

  Finally, it was over and I went back to the hotel, shaking. I flopped down on the bed, flicked on the TV, and there was Don Arden, discussing the case. ‘To be perfectly honest, I would be doubtful as to whether Mr Osbourne knew the meaning of the lyrics – if there was any meaning – because his command of the English language is minimal,’ he said.

  I suppose it was his way of showing support.

  The press conference was very frightening, and it gave me a taste of what was to come. I became public enemy number one in America. I opened a newspaper one morning in New York and there was a picture of me with a gun pointed at my head. They must have cut and pasted it together ’cos I’d never posed for it, but it freaked me out. Then I started to get death threats wherever I went. The cops would use them to try to get me to cancel gigs. One time in Texas, the local police chief called up our tour manager and said, ‘There’s been some dynamite stolen from the local quarry, and we’ve had a letter from an anonymous source saying it’s going to be used to blow up Ozzy.’