Black Sabbath icon Ozzy Osbourne has a long history of controversial moments in his career, spanning over more than five decades, that earned him the title of ‘Prince of Darkness.’ Although the musician’s track record is filled with unbelievable events that live up to that name, the fans pretty much do the rest of the job in terms of building a reputation.
Today, we’re here to take a look at several of Osbourne’s most shocking actions that contributed to his reputation. Furthermore, we’ll recall when Ozzy admitted that the biggest force behind his fame as one of the craziest rock stars ever lived isn’t actually himself.
Ozzy Osbourne Has A Bad Reputation As ‘The Prince Of Darkness’
The list of crazy Ozzy Osbourne stories is possibly impossible to complete as even the musician himself doesn’t remember most of them. However, the most infamous incident that perhaps started all of this is when Osbourne bit the head of a bat in the middle of a show, thinking that it was a rubber toy.
Following the incident, fans immediately started to speculate stories regarding the musician as if he’s a person who occasionally bites off the heads of random animals. In their defense, the bat wasn’t the only animal Osbourne killed by biting its head off since he once killed a dove by biting its head off out of boredom during a meeting.
Somehow nearly every crazy story of the Black Sabbath singer involves animals, as there was one time when Osbourne shot and killed 17 of their cats under the influence. While almost all of these incidents happened when the singer was drunk or high, his peak moment must have been the time when he ran out of cocaine one day.
As depicted in the Mötley Crüe biopic entitled ‘The Dirt,’ Ozzy Osbourne came up with the idea to snort a line of ants. Since he was also fond of alcohol, Osbourne also replaced his drink with his urine. Although he has a long rap sheet, the Prince of Darkness doesn’t think he’s the main reason behind his reputation.
Ozzy Osbourne Said People Are His Best Publicist
During a 1982 interview with Night Flight, Ozzy Osbourne reflected on his split personality as John Osbourne and Ozzy Osbourne. The rocker stated that these are two different people as he doesn’t walk around 24/7 as the crazy Ozzy we all know, which would be heavy.
Furthermore, Osbourne stated that he does everything he does because he has enough courage to do them, whereas everybody else is too afraid. However, he didn’t forget to mention that the people are the best publicist since they came up with all the rumors that eventually created his reputation as the ‘Prince of Darkness.’
If you ask him, Ozzy Osbourne wasn’t created by himself; it was instead a creation of the people who exaggerate what he has done so far. The former Black Sabbath singer said that the bat incident, which was a mistake, started the whole thing, and his reputation grew incrementally with allegations of him slaughtering other animals on stage.
About his image as ‘Ozzy Osbourne,’ the rocker said:
“I’m a split personality. Ozzy Osbourne and John Osbourne are two different people. John Osbourne is talking to you now, but if I want to be Ozzy Osbourne, it takes over you. To be Ozzy, 24 hours of the day is kind of heavy. People expect you to bite the heads of things every time they see you. Me and my wife Sharon go out to dinner sometimes and people recognize us in the restaurant and go, ‘Was he eating that duck? He probably bit the head of it.’ So what?
Do you know why I do what I do? The reason why I do what I do is that it’s what everybody wants to do but they ain’t got the guts to. All I am is honest. Take it, for instance, every gig I do, I get put down for biting the head of this and that. I don’t do all that junk, but people elaborate on Ozzy Osbourne.
People are my best publicist they found the next gig and say, ‘Ozzy blew the head of five sheep and cut the ankles of five cows.’ People elaborate and Ozzy Osbourne has been created through that not through me. All I did was to go out there and make the mistake of biting the head of a bat.”
You can watch the entire interview below.
