Ozzy Osbourne - I Am Ozzy

There were other good things happening for Black Sabbath around that time, too. For example, after sorting out our finances, we’d decided to hire Don Arden as our manager, mainly because we’d been impressed by what he’d done for the Electric Light Orchestra. And for me, the best thing about being managed by Don Arden was getting to see his daughter Sharon on a regular basis. Almost immediately, I began falling in love with her from a distance. It was that wicked laugh that got me. And the fact that she was so beautiful and glamorous—she wore fur coats, and had diamonds dripping from everywhere. I’d never seen anything like it.

And she was as loud and crazy as I was. By then, Sharon was helping to run the business with Don, and whenever she came over to see the band, we’d end up having a laugh. She was great company, was Sharon—the best. But nothing happened between us for a long time.

But I knew it was all over with Black Sabbath, and it was clear they’d had enough of my insane behaviour. One of my last memories of being with the band was missing a gig at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville during our last US tour. I’d been doing so much coke with Bill while driving between shows in his GMC mobile home that I hadn’t slept for three days straight. I looked like the walking dead. My eyeballs felt like someone had injected them with caffeine, my skin was all red and prickly, and I could hardly feel my legs. But at five o’clock in the morning on the day of the gig, after we pulled into town, I finally hit the sack at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. It was the best fucking sleep I’d ever had in my life. It was like being six feet under, it was so good. And when I woke up, I felt almost normal again.

But I didn’t know that the key I’d used to get into my room was from one of the other Hyatt hotels we’d stayed at earlier in the tour, in another city. So while my bags had been sent to the right room by the tour manager, I’d gone to the wrong room. Which wouldn’t normally have been a problem: the key I had in my pocket just wouldn’t have worked and I would have gone down to reception and realised the mistake. But when I got to the room, the maid was still in there, plumping the pillows and checking that the minibar was full. So the door was open and I walked straight in. I just showed her the key—which had the right number and the Hyatt logo on it—and she smiled and told me to enjoy my stay. Then she closed the door behind her while I got into the wrong bed in the wrong room and fell asleep.

For twenty-four hours.

In the meantime, the gig came and went. Of course, the hotel sent someone up to my room to look for me, but all they found was my luggage. They had no idea I was zonked out on a different floor, in another wing of the hotel. The lads panicked, my ugly mug was plastered all over the local TV stations, the cops set up a special missing persons unit, the fans began to plan a candlelit vigil, the insurance company was on the phone, venues across America were preparing for the tour to be cancelled, the record company went apeshit, and Thelma thought she’d become a widow.

Then I woke up.

The first thing I did was call down to the front desk and ask them what time it was. ‘Six o’clock,’ the woman told me. Perfect timing, I thought. The gig was at eight. So I got out of bed and started looking for my suitcase. Then I realised that everything seeemed very quiet.

So I called back down to the front desk.

‘Morning or evening?’ I asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘You said it was six o’clock. Morning or evening?’

‘Oh, morning.’

‘Ah.’

Then I called the tour manager’s room.

‘Yeah?’ he croaked.

‘It’s me, Ozzy,’ I said. ‘I think there might be a problem.’

First there was silence.

Then tears—of rage. To this day, I’ve never had a bollocking like it.

It was Bill who told me I was fired.

The date was April 27, 1979—a Friday afternoon.

We were doing some rehearsals in LA, and I was loaded, but then I was loaded all the time. It was obvious that Bill had been sent by the others, because he wasn’t exactly the firing type.

I can’t remember exactly what he said to me. We haven’t talked about it since. But the gist was that Tony thought I was a pissed, coked-up loser and a waste of time for everyone concerned. To be honest with you, it felt like he was finally getting his revenge for me walking out.

And it didn’t come as a complete surprise: I’d had the feeling in the studio for a while that Tony was trying to wind me up by getting me to sing takes over and over again, even though there was nothing wrong with the first one.

I didn’t let it affect my friendship with Bill. I felt bad for the guy, actually, ’cos his mum had just died. Then not long after I was kicked out of Black Sabbath, his father died too. When I’d heard the news, I thought, Fuck the war, I’m still his mate, we’re still the same people who lived in a GMC together for months on end in America. So I drove straight up to Birming ham to see him.

He’d taken it really badly and I felt terrible for him. Then his dad’s funeral turned into a joke. They were carrying the coffin out of the church when they realised that someone in the funeral party had nicked the vicar’s car. The vicar refused to continue with the service until he got it back, but whoever had nicked the fucking thing couldn’t get the steering lock off, and ended up crashing into a garden. Imagine that kind of bullshit going down when you’re trying to lay your old man to rest. Unbelievable.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel betrayed by what happened with Black Sabbath. We weren’t some manufactured boy band whose members were expendable. We were four blokes from the same town who’d grown up together a few streets apart. We were like a family, like brothers. And firing me for being fucked up was hypocritical bullshit. We were all fucked up. If you’re stoned and I’m stoned, and you’re telling me that I’m fired because I’m stoned, how can that fucking be? Because I’m slightly more stoned than you are?

But I don’t give a fuck any more—and it worked out for the best in the end. It gave me the shove up the arse I needed, and it probably made it a lot more fun for them, making records with a new singer. I don’t have anything bad to say about the guy they hired to replace me, Ronnie James Dio, who’d previously been with Rainbow. He’s a great singer. Then again, he ain’t me, and I ain’t him. So I just wish they’d called the band Black Sabbath II.

That’s all.

All of a sudden I was unemployed.

And unemployable.

I remember thinking, Well, I’ve still got a few dollars in my pocket, so I’ll have one last big fling in LA—then I’ll go back to England. I honestly thought I’d have to sell Bulrush Cottage and go and work on a building site or something. I just resigned myself to the fact that it was over. None of it had ever seemed real, anyway. The first thing I did was check myself into a place called Le Parc Hotel in West Hollywood, paid for by Don Arden’s company, Jet Records. I was amazed Don had forked out for it, to be honest with you. The second he realises I ain’t going back to Black Sabbath, I said to myself, they’re gonna kick me out of this place—so I might as well enjoy it while I still can. You didn’t get a room at Le Parc—you got a little apartment-type thing with its own kitchen where you could make your own food. I never left. I just sat on the bed and watched old war films with the curtains closed. I didn’t see daylight for months. My dealer would come over and give me some blow or some pot, I’d get booze delivered from Gil Turner’s up on Sunset Strip, and every once in a while I’d get some chicks over to fuck. Although I dunno why anyone was prepared to fuck me, not in those days. I was eating so much pizza and drinking so much beer, I had bigger tits than Jabba the Hutt’s fat older brother.