Ozzy Osbourne - I Am Ozzy

The guys had a truck waiting by the time we got outside. Two of the crew members sat up front while I climbed into the back with Sharon. We’d strapped her to this gurney, but she was bouncing off the fucking thing like you wouldn’t believe. It was wild, like something out of The Exorcist. The spasms were so intense it was like she was levitating. Then, when we got to the hospital—it took us three minutes—all these nurses were running around, screaming. It was a terrible scene, the worst vibe you can possibly imagine.

After that, I got a team of nurses to live with us at Doheny Road, ’cos I never wanted Sharon to go through that again. I also got my agent to call Robin Williams to ask him if he would come over and cheer up Sharon. I’ve always believed that if you can get someone to laugh when they’re sick, it’s the best way of helping them to get better—and I got the feeling that Robin felt the same way after seeing that movie he did, Patch Adams. So he came over one day when I’d gone off to the studio, and apparently Sharon was crying with laughter the whole afternoon. To this day I think that’s the greatest gift I’ve ever given my wife, and I’m for ever in Robin’s debt for it. I mean, ‘thanks’ is nowhere near enough, is it? The guy is just a really wonderful human being. But in spite of Robin’s comedy show, Sharon had another seizure that night and she ended up in hospital again.

I got terribly paranoid whenever Sharon was in hospital. One stray germ, I thought, and she could get an infection and die. At first, I ordered the kids to wear face masks and gloves whenever they were around her. But then they’d bring the dogs, which drove me crazy. In fact, Sharon’s dog Minnie didn’t leave her side for one second during the chemo. I never saw that dog eat. I never saw it piss. By the end of the treatment, the dog was as dehydrated as Sharon was. One time I went to the hospital and they were both lying there, side by side, with matching drips. Minnie was like a guardian angel for Sharon. But she didn’t like me one bit. In fact, she didn’t like men, full stop. Even when she was on her last legs, that dog would always find the energy to growl at me. The last thing Minnie ever did was give me one of her withering looks, as if to say, ‘Urgh.’

I suffered physically during Sharon’s illness, too, but in my case it was self-inflicted. I’d drink a case of beer in the morning, smoke a shitload of dope at lunchtime, try to wake myself up again with speed, then go jogging. At least it dimmed the reality of the situation, but by the end I was a fucked-up shell of a human being. Then, one day, Sharon said to me, ‘For God’s sake, Ozzy, go and do some gigs. You’re driving everyone crazy.’

So that’s what I did. I’d already missed a few Ozzfest dates by then, but I rejoined the tour on August 22 in Denver. I was so uptight, I wouldn’t let anyone talk about cancer. If I heard the c-word, I freaked out. But a few nights later, when we were in another city—don’t ask me where—I was halfway through the set and I just thought, Fuck this, I can’t keep denying that this is happening. So I said to the crowd, ‘I want to tell you about Sharon’s progress. She’s doing well, and she’s going to beat this cancer. She’s going to kick it up the fucking arse!’

The crowd went mental. I swear to God, they lifted me up. It was magical. The power of people, when they focus on something positive, never fails to amaze me. A few days after that I went to see my physiotherapist about some back problems I’d been having. ‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ he said. ‘I can see by the look on your face that you’re terrified, but I want you to know that ten years ago I had what your wife’s got. And I made a full recovery.’

‘You survived the chemo?’ I said.

‘I didn’t even have chemo,’ he said.

It was the first truly positive thing I’d heard from anyone about Sharon’s illness. Or at least the first time I’d listened to anything positive. In my mind, cancer equalled death. And I think a lot of other people thought the same way I did. They’d say to me, ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Sharon,’ without even looking at me, like they knew she was dying. But this guy was different, and he changed my attitude right there and then.

And he was right: when the chemo was over, Sharon’s cancer seemed to have been completely destroyed.

I remember going to the hospital, and one of the doctors telling me, ‘Just so you understand, your wife’s going to spend as much time getting over the chemo as she did getting over the cancer.’

I said, ‘Let me tell you something about my wife. The second you give her the all-clear, she’ll be off and running—and you won’t be able to stop her.’

‘I don’t want to argue, Mr Osbourne,’ he said, ‘but, believe me, she’s not going to be able to do very much.’

A week later, she got the all-clear.

And you couldn’t see her for dust.

When we started to film The Osbournes , Sharon hadn’t spoken to her father for almost twenty years. It was terribly sad, because I knew that deep down, somewhere, she loved the guy. But after everything he’d done, she’d pretty much given up on him. She’d even told the kids that their grand-father had died during the war—although it didn’t take long for them to find out the real story. I remember the day it happened, in fact: we were all in the car together, driving through Beverly Hills, when Sharon suddenly hit the brakes, made an illegal U-turn, and pulled up outside Nate ’n Al’s delicatessen.

Before anyone could ask her what the fuck she was doing, she was leaning out of the window and screaming, ‘You fucking arsehole! YOU FUCKING ARSEHOLE!’

Then I saw Don standing there on the street. He immediately started to shout back. The last thing I remember is him coming right up to the car window, until he was only inches from Sharon’s face, and calling her a ‘fucking whore’. Then Sharon put her foot down and sped off, leaving him coughing and spluttering in a cloud of black smoke from the tires.

Meanwhile, inside the car, there was just this stunned silence. I had no fucking idea how to explain what had just happened to the kids. Then Aimee’s little voice piped up from the back seat.

‘Mum, why did Tony Curtis call you a whore?’

‘BECAUSE TONY CURTIS IS A FUCKING ARSEHOLE,’ came the reply.

To this day, I have no idea why Aimee thought Don was Tony Curtis. Maybe that’s what Sharon had told her, or maybe she’d seen Tony Curtis on telly—at the time he was a dead-ringer for Don. But it didn’t matter, ’cos that’s when Sharon told the kids everything.

It wasn’t the only time we bumped into Don in LA. On another occasion we’d been to see a movie at the Century City shopping mall, and we were waiting for our car at the valet stand.

All of a sudden, I spotted Don behind Sharon.

‘Promise me you won’t go nuts,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Just promise me.’

‘OK, I promise.’

‘Your father’s standing right behind you.’

The moment I said it, one of the valet guys turned up with our car. Thank God for that, I thought.

‘Get in the car,’ barked Sharon.

‘You’re not gonna do anything crazy, are you?’ I said to her.

‘No.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘GET IN THE FUCKING CAR.’

I got in the passenger side and closed the door. Sharon climbed into the driver’s seat.

Then she turned into this Satan woman. She floored the accelerator, mounted the kerb, and drove straight at her father. He had to dive into a hedge to get out of the way. She almost killed him—with about fifty people standing around as witnesses. It was terrifying.