A tribute to Ozzy Osbourne at the 2026 Brit Awards in London, UK. Photo by Isabel Infantes/ is a sociologist who combines freelance writing with an academic teaching and research career at institutions including Birkbeck College and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. His work has been published by The Guardian, New Humanist and Prospect, among others, and his latest book is The Beautiful Death of Ozzy Osbourne: How Metal Teaches Us to Live (2026).
I am grateful no one else is in the room with me. In principle, I’ve no problem with my family seeing me cry: but blinking away hot salty tears while watching Ozzy Osbourne? That seems somehow ludicrous.
This is, after all, the self-styled prince of darkness, a trickster-like figure – one part devil, one part joker, one part joke. I thought I knew Ozzy – we all thought we knew him, whether we liked him or not. He was the fresh-faced, charismatic vocalist of Black Sabbath.
He was the bloated, crazed, drug-addled artist who bit the head off a dead bat onstage and once tried to strangle his wife. Later in life he was the lovable, bewildered paterfamilias on The Osbournes reality TV series. For some, he was also the artist with a back catalogue on which much of metal still rests.
The Ozzy that is making me cry is none of those things. Here I am, in the easy chair in our living room, laptop balanced on my thighs, my recently broken ankle encased in a support boot and raised up on a bolster. My lower leg and foot prickle with heat on this sultry day in July 2025, and I cannot take my eyes off Ozzy performing the final show of his illustrious career, at Villa Park in Birmingham, UK, before an ecstatic audience, and for those like me who have paid for the live stream.
There are no antics, no wide-eyed devilish grin, none of the incessant running back and forth that we’re used to from him. Instead, he sits on a bat-shaped throne, singing with an appalling intensity, and occasionally demanding that the crowd clap along. All day long I’d been watching metal’s great and good perform brief sets in honour of the man who inspired so many of them.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
