Sharon Osbourne, widow and manager of the late Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, has issued a new public statement in response to Jim Simpson. The latter briefly managed Black Sabbath during their time as Earth and their early transition into Black Sabbath. Sharon and Simpson have been engaged in an 18-month standoff over Simpson‘s plans to release a previously shelved demo Earth recorded prior to the band striking it big as Black Sabbath.
The dispute over the matter recently flared up in public after Sharon and her children Jack and Kelly addressed the matter publicly on ‘The Obsournes Podcast‘ earlier this week. In that episode, they condemned the project and urged fans to not partake. Sharon also disputed Simpson‘s ownership of the recordings and questioned his motivations in intending to release the recordings without the band’s consent.
Simpson himself fired back in a press statement, disputing Sharon‘s claims and her recounting of their interactions regarding his attempts to release the recordings. You can see both of their initial statements regarding that in full over in this story published earlier this week.
With Simpson‘s rebuttal arriving after Sharon‘s initial comments on the podcast, Sharon has now followed up today, November 15th, with the following statement on social media:
“In response to Jim Simpson’s press release of 14 November 2025, I am enclosing his original email to Tony Iommi and my subsequent emails to Mr. Simpson. As you can see, my emails to Mr. Simpson were not threatening. I was clearly stating the facts about Black Sabbath’s legal position.
Regarding his claim that Big Bear Records is the “longest-running independent record label in the UK, this is a false claim. “Topic Records” is a British folk music label. It began as an offshoot of the Workers’ Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world. It still operates today. Big Bear is not even a Limited company and does not file open accounts in public.
Simpson also states that he is “….in the process of relaunching Big Bear Records in a new distribution partnership with Trapeze Music & Entertainment Ltd (director being John Cooper), a well-established company with a huge catalogue including the likes of Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Marlene Dietrich, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Digby Fairweather and hundreds of other artists. I seriously doubt that the artists he mentions, or their estates, would have authorized them to be sold in the USA.
Let it be known that Trapeze Music is an “out-of-copyright” UK based label that is in debt for £539,000 and the entertainment division is in debt for £1.442 million. A previous entity under the Trapeze banner, with the director, (being John Cooper), was Discovery Records Limited, which went into liquidation in 2018 with an estimated deficiency of £1,407,388. These artist recordings he mentions appear NOT to be out of copyright in the USA, but Trapeze sells through a us domestic import distributor called MVD who they claim inadvertently put the BLACK SABBATH recordings online digitally in the USA and then quickly withdraw them when Simpson’s lawyers were told the Black Sabbath material is not out of copyright, despite the fact they had agreed not to release them to the public without giving us 14 days prior notice.”
A full legal opinion from Kings Council was provided to their UK lawyer. Trapeze‘s owner previously ran several companies that ended up in bankruptcy. We would never have allowed any BLACK SABBATH product to be released through Big Bear Records or Trapeze Music, and at no time did Simpson ever offer the band royalties, and he has continuously refused to let Black Sabbath hear the recordings that he claims are his. Their integrity is dubious.
In closing, Mr. Simpson may claim that he invited me to have coffee with him on 4 July 2025 but I was out of contact which he well knew as I was at Villa Park at soundcheck all day, and I later heard that Mr. Simpson was busy that day doing a Q&A about his time managing Black Sabbath from ’68-’70 at a pub called “Ye Olde Foundry” in Dudley for personal commercial gain.”
Sharon furthered her claims by republishing several emails in the below gallery of communications made in regards to the release and her and the band’s efforts to thwart it.
