Jason Momoa shares the unexpected story behind his Black Sabbath hosting gig

How Jason Momoa ended up hosting Black Sabbath‘s last performance has been revealed. The actor, who has been in Aquaman, Game of Thrones, and a Minecraft film, will emcee Back To The Beginning on July 5 at Birmingham’s Villa Park. In addition to being the final performance by the original Sabbath lineup, which consists of Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitars, Geezer Butler on bass, and Bill Ward on drums, it will also be Osbourne‘s final appearance on stage. In an interview with NME, Momoa claims that Osbourne‘s manager and wife, Sharon, personally invited him to host. 

I was blown away. I don’t know how I’m going to host, but I’ll figure it out. I’m just so excited to be there. It’s funny, because I was begging for tickets and now I turn out to be hosting.

In an exclusive interview with Metal Hammer last month, guitarist Kirk Hammett of Metallica claimed that Momoa had reached out to him in hopes of getting a pass to Sabbath‘s farewell show. The actor ended up presenting the show as a result of that request.

It’s funny, because he called me up like, ‘Can you get me tickets?’ I was like, ‘Bro…’ I had management send a message that Jason Momoa wanted to come to the Sabbath show, and next thing I know we’d been told Sharon Osbourne had called him to ask him to emcee it! It was like, ‘Hell yeah! So our next phone call was like, ‘I can’t believe it!’ ‘Cool, I can give your ticket to someone else then!’

Despite making a music video for the 2020 song “Scary Little Green Man” by The Prince of Darkness, Momoa admits that he has never met Ozzy previously. The music video was never released for whatever reason. For personal reasons, he was also unable to attend the final performance of Sabbath’s 2016–17 “retirement” tour, The End, in Birmingham.

I was gonna go to the last show in 2017, after I finished Aquaman. Something happened at home and I needed to fly home for my kids, and I missed the last show. I was going to be in Birmingham. I was pretty bummed about it. But, dad duties. Ozzy came out with an album [2020’s Ordinary Man] and he wasn’t feeling too well, so they asked if I wanted to do the video for him. I got to do that video for him and be helpful and now, I’ve got the opportunity to host!