Ozzy Osbourne - I Am Ozzy

‘All I can say is that I lost two of the greatest people in my life,’ I said, trying not to choke up. ‘But it ain’t gonna stop me because I’m about rock ’n’ roll, and rock ’n’ roll is for the people, and I love people, and that’s what I’m about. I’m going to continue because Randy would have liked me to, and so would Rachel, and I’m not going to stop, ’cos you can’t kill rock ’n’ roll.’

If it sounds a bit over-the-top, it’s ’cos I was as pissed as a fart. It was the only way I could function.

In private, I wasn’t so sure that you couldn’t kill rock ’n’ roll. ‘It’s not meant to be,’ I kept telling Sharon. ‘Let’s call it a day.’

But she wasn’t having any of it. ‘No, we are not calling it a day. This is what you’re meant to do, Ozzy. Nothing’s gonna stop us.’ If Sharon hadn’t given me that speech a few times, I’d never have gone on a stage again.

I don’t know who started making the calls to find a new guitarist. Sharon was a mess, totally distraught, so maybe her father’s office organised it from LA. But eventually the search became a welcome distraction, a way to take our minds off things. I remember at one point I phoned Michael Schenker, the German guy who had played with UFO. He was like, I’ll do you this favour, but I want a private jet, and I want this, and I want that. I said to him, ‘Why are you stipulating your demands at this point? Just get me though the next show and we’ll talk about it.’ But he just kept saying, Oh, I’ll need this and I’ll need that. So in the end I said, ‘Y’know what? Go fuck yourself.’

He’s nuts anyway, Schenker, so I don’t hold it against him.

Our first stand-in was Bernie Tormé, a tall, blond Irish guy who had played with Ian Gillan’s band. Bernie was in an impossible situation, trying to take Randy’s place, but he couldn’t have been more helpful. Having been thrown in at the deep end, he did an incredible job for a few nights, before leaving to record with his own band. Next we hired Brad Gillis, from Night Ranger, and he got us through to the end of the tour.

I honestly don’t know how we did any of those gigs after Randy died. We were all in a state of shock. But I suppose being on the road was better than sitting around at home, thinking about the two incredible people we’d lost, and how we’d never get them back.

A few weeks after Randy died, I asked Sharon to marry me. ‘If there’s one good thing that could come out of all the shit we’ve been through on this tour,’ I told her, ‘it would be making you my wife.’

She said yes. So I put a ring on her finger, and we set a date.

Then the booze wore off and I changed my mind.

After everything that had gone down with Thelma, I was terrified of going through it all again. But then I got over the fear. I was in love with Sharon, and I knew I didn’t want anyone else. So, a few weeks later, I proposed again.

‘Will you marry me?’ I asked her.

‘Fuck off.’

‘Please?’

‘No.’

‘Please?’

‘All right then, yes.’

It went on like that for months. We had more engagements than most people have wedding guests. After the first one, it was usually Sharon who called them off. One time, when we were driving to a meeting in LA, she threw her ring out of the car window ’cos I hadn’t come home the night before. So I went out and bought her another one. Then I got pissed and lost it, but I didn’t realise until after I’d got down on one knee.

So that one was a non-starter.

But a couple of days later, I bought her another ring and we got engaged yet again. But then I was walking home after a twenty-four-hour bender, and I passed a graveyard. There was one freshly dug grave with a bunch of flowers on top. Beautiful flowers, actually. So I nicked them and gave them to Sharon when I got home. She almost burst into tears, she found it so touching.

Then she made this little sobbing noise and went, ‘Oh, Ozzy, and you even wrote me a note, how sweet!’

Suddenly I was thinking: What note? I can’t remember writing any note.

But it was too late. Sharon was already opening up the envelope and pulling out the card.

‘In loving memory of our dearest Harry,’ it said.

That was another ring out of the fucking window.

And I got a black eye, for good measure.

I proposed to her seventeen times in the end. You could track me home by the trail of rings. They weren’t fucking cheap, either. But they got a lot cheaper as time went on, that’s for sure.

Then, as soon as I’d signed the decree-whatever-the-fuck-it’s-called to make my divorce with Thelma official, Sharon chose July 4 as our wedding day—so I’d never forget the anniversary.

‘At least it’s not the first of May,’ I said to her.

‘Why?’

‘That’s the date Thelma chose so I’d never forget the anniversary.’

With things getting serious with Sharon, she started to get heavy with me about all the cocaine I was doing. She was fine with the booze, but the coke—no way. The fact that our psycho bus driver had been high on coke when he killed Randy and Rachel made it even worse.

Every time I took the stuff, I’d get a bollocking—to the point where I had to start hiding it from her.

But that caused even more problems.

One time, we were staying in one of the bungalows at the Howard Hughes house, and I’d just bought this eight-ball—an eighth of an ounce of coke—from my dealer.

‘This stuff’s gonna knock your head off,’ the bloke had told me.

As soon as I got back to the bungalow I went over to the bookshelves and hid the plastic bag inside this hardback novel. ‘Third shelf up, six books to the left,’ I kept repeating, so I’d remember. I was planning to save it for a special occasion, but that night I was having a bit of a bad comedown, so I decided to have a little toot. I made sure that Sharon was asleep, tiptoed out of the bedroom, went over to the bookshelves, counted three up and six across, then opened up the novel. No coke. Fuck.

Maybe it was six shelves up and three books from the left?

Still no coke.

So I sneaked out of the bungalow and knocked on the window of the room where Tommy was staying. ‘Pssst!’ I whispered. ‘Hey, Tommy! Are you awake, man? I can’t find the fucking coke.’

The second I said that, there was this clattering noise behind me.

Sharon had flung open the window of our bungalow.

‘IS THIS WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, YOU FUCKING DRUG ADDICT?’ she shouted, emptying the bag of coke on to a sheet of paper.

‘Sharon,’ I said. ‘Be cool. Don’t do anything cra—’

But then she goes puff, and blows all the coke into the garden.

Before I even have time to react, Sharon’s Great Dane comes lolloping out from his kennel, and starts licking up the coke from the grass like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted in his life. I’m thinking, This ain’t gonna be good news. Then the dog’s tail goes straight out—BOING!—and he takes this enormous shit. I’ve never seen such a big shit in my life, and it goes all over the water fountain in the courtyard. Then the dog takes off. He’s a fucking huge dog, this Great Dane, so when he runs he does some damage, knocking over plant pots, denting cars, trampling over flower beds, but he keeps it up for three days and three nights straight, his tongue hanging out, his tail still standing on end.

By the time the coke wore off, I swear the dog had lost four pounds. He’d developed a bit of a taste for the old waffle dust, too.

He was always trying to sniff it out after that.

We got married in Hawaii on the way to a gig in Japan. It was a small ceremony on the island of Maui. Don Arden showed up, but only because he wanted Sharon to sign some paper-work. My mum and my sister Jean came, too. Tommy was my best man. The funny thing about getting married in America was that we needed to get a blood test before they’d give us a licence. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the bloke from the lab had called back and said,