Ozzy Osbourne’s painful journey: 2019 injuries and his fight with Parkinson’s

The severity of the injuries that have kept the renowned heavy metal artist off the stage for the majority of the last six years was disclosed by Ozzy Osbourne, his wife, and manager Sharon Osbourne in a recently released interview with The Guardian. One significant event in that chronology happened in early 2019, when Ozzy took a header while using the restroom late at night.

I went to the bathroom in the night, I didn’t put the light on. I thought I knew where the bed was. I was stupid, I dived and there weren’t a bed there. I landed straight on my face. I felt my neck go crunch. I went: ‘Sharon! Call an ambulance!’ She said, ‘Where the hell are you? Get into bed!’ I said: ‘Sharon, don’t ask questions.’ I thought I was going to be paralysed.

But as Ozzy acknowledged in the interview, the pneumonia episodes he had right before that fall also left him with long-term problems.

I had an infection. I’m still on antibiotics to be honest with you, I had a thing put in the vein in my arm to feed in IV shots of them. I’ve still got it on – it comes out this week, with a bit of luck. Antibiotics knock the hell out of you.

However, dislodging steel rods that had been surgically implanted in him following a horrific 2003 ATV accident proved to be the most difficult obstacle to overcome at the moment, in February 2019. Osbourne was reportedly told after the 2019 fall that he would probably become paraplegic if he didn’t have surgery to repair the damage to his neck. Osbourne continued by outlining the subsequent process he went through.

The worst fucking surgery you can imagine. I should have got a second opinion, but you think surgeons know what the fuck they’re doing.

The Osbourne family claims that two metal plates were attached on either side of Ozzy‘s spine, but the screws holding them in place eventually broke free, leaving behind bone fragments and abscesses. The harmful foreign objects would later be surgically removed from Ozzy.

They haven’t figured out the damage. Five operations later, it just fucked his body. It was torturous for him: Parkinson’s and damage to his spine. It’s just been horrendous Sharon Osbourne

Osbourne has previously acknowledged that complications from several of those surgeries caused nerve damage. Although Osbourne received a covert Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in the early 2000s, the condition’s increasing symptoms, most notably numbness in one leg, started to show up in the years following his fall. At first, he dismissed the tingling as the result of a heavy drinking session, during which he was hardly active for several days. Osbourne has been plagued by his inability to return to the stage, which has caused him to descend into a severe despair. Sharon reportedly proposed that Ozzy get together for a final show featuring the iconic lineup of his former bandmates from the groundbreaking Black Sabbath and a farewell to his solo career during this depressing time.

You wake up the next morning and find that something else has gone wrong. You begin to think this is never going to end. Sharon could see that I was in Doom Town, and she says to me, ‘I’ve got an idea.’ It was something to give me a reason to get up in the morning. I thought: oh, fucking hell, she’s got an idea. Here we go.

Thus, “Back to the Beginning” was born. Ozzy isn’t unaware of how his health is at the moment.

We’re only playing a couple of songs each. I don’t want people thinking, ‘We’re getting ripped off’, because it’s just going to be … what’s the word? … a sample, you’re going to get a few songs each by Ozzy and Sabbath. I do weights, bike riding, I’ve got a guy living at my house who’s working with me. It’s tough – I’ve been laid up for such a long time. I’ve been lying on my back doing nothing and the first thing to go is your strength. It’s like starting all over again. I’ve got a vocal coach coming round four days a week to keep my voice going. I have problems walking. I also get blood pressure issues, from blood clots on my legs. I’m used to doing two hours on stage, jumping and running around. I don’t think I’ll be doing much jumping or running around this time. I may be sitting down, but the point is I’ll be there, and I’ll do the best I can. So all I can do is turn up.

It’s time to say ‘enough’. When you’ve given it your all, you can sit back and say: I did it. Sharon Osbourne

I’d love to say ‘never say never’, but after the last six years or so … it is time. I lived on the road for 50-odd years, and I’ve kind of got used to not picking up my bags and getting on the bus again. I don’t smoke dope or do any of the rock star lifestyle any more. I’m kind of like a homebody. I never go out. I never hang out in bars – I don’t drink. So what the fuck is out there for me? I hate going shopping with my wife. I feel like stabbing myself in the neck after half an hour. But it’s time for me to spend some time with my grandkids, I don’t want to die in a hotel room somewhere. I want to spend the rest of my life with my family.