The Osbourne family have spoken out against people who have taken advantage of Ozzy Osbourne‘s death in the months since his passing. Speaking on the Osbournes Podcast, Sharon, Jack and Kelly discuss the impact of losing their husband and father, both from a personal perspective and in terms of how it has affected people as a whole.
At one point in the conversation, the family discuss how some have used Ozzy dying for their own personal gain, be it grifters selling bootleg merch, con artists pretending to have contacted Ozzy from the other side or even artists inventing interactions with the Prince Of Darkness at his final show in Birmingham in July.
“Yeah, you’ve got all the merch people that come out doing this stuff that’s all unofficial and whatever,” begins Sharon, before Kelly makes a point of mentioning “people claiming that dad said things to them that he never said.”
“Everybody gets on the bandwagon,” Sharon agrees. “‘He said to me this at the last show…’ I know the people he spoke to because they had to come into the dressing room to see him. So we know who he spoke to.”
“There’s been a couple people,” Kelly continues, “and I don’t know if we wanna name names, that have said that dad said certain things to them at the last show that we know he never said. And we’ve had quite a few nutters coming out of the woodwork saying that they’re speaking to dad from the grave.
“It really bothers me,” Kelly later adds of those particular punishers. “I think it’s severely inappropriate.”
Sharon then brings up one fan who sent the Osbournes some rather unusual items owing to a belief that she might be Ozzy’s long lost child.
“We had one lady send us her toenails!” the Osbourne matriarch reveals. “It was a toenail, some blood, hair,” Kelly clarifies, “because she’s absolutely convinced that she’s dad’s child.”
“Do we need to do a DNA test?” Jack asks jokingly, adding sarcastically: “Oh this is so exciting. We have a new sibling!”
“It’s like anything,” Sharon notes philosophically at one point. “You gotta realise: you go on the internet, there’s always a group of people, the fanatics, the nutters, they’ll always come out. That’s life, unfortunately, you just move on.”
“I think part of that, though, is just how deeply affected by dad’s passing people are,” Jack replies. “I’ve seen messages where people are like, ‘I never thought I wouldd feel this way about someone I didn’t know dying.’ I think people are genuinely feeling this void and they’re just like, ‘Holy shit, this guy’s gone.'”
Sharon then moves to compare Ozzy to another dearly missed pop culture icon, explaining why the two are cut from a similar cloth.
“It’s very much like Robin Williams, because people adored him,” she observes. “You didn’t have to like his movies or whatever, he was one of these people you just warmed to. And your dad was the same. And Robin was very much like your dad where he didn’t care who you were. Didn’t care! He’d come talk to you, give you a hug, just a great guy with no pretences, genuine. And dad was one of those charismatic people that people were just drawn to.”
Ozzy’s death, less than three weeks after his final show with Black Sabbath at the emotional Back To The Beginning concert in July, prompted an immense outpouring of grief, with musicians, actors, comedians, politicians and royalty amongst the notable people to pay tribute.
Speaking to Classic Rock in 2008 about how he’d like to be remembered, Ozzy gave a typically straightforward answer that suggests Sharon’s Robin Williams comparisons might be pretty spot-on: “How would I like to be remembered? As a guy that tried to make people have fun with their lives.”
