face. Then she started dancing. What can I say? Her movements, the way she carried her head, the curve of her back… I couldn’t believe it. I could see the work, the commitment. By the time she rushed over to see us, Ozzy and I were clutching each other, both in floods of tears.
Just months before she’d been this broken creature, crawling on the ground. And now… a glorious butterfly had emerged, to take wing and fly.
It was too much to hope that she would win – I mean, you can’t compete with Donny Osmond, who has danced his entire life. But our little Kelly made the final, coming third behind a singer called Maya, who was also a dancer.
Everything about that show was nurturing and empowering, and she has learnt a new skill which will last her all her life. And from the moment she took her final bow, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
4
No Rest for the Wicked
Ozzy and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi in 1978.
A few years ago I had this idea that we would slow down a bit. I even thought Ozzy might retire when he reached sixty. That was the plan, at least.
What was I thinking? Ozzy, stop working? It’s about as likely as me stuffing the red hair dye at the back of the bathroom cabinet and going au naturel while tending my herbaceous borders. It ain’t gonna happen.
Ozzy turned sixty on 3 December 2008, while we were in the middle of filming Osbournes Reloaded . I had planned a surprise party for him in Las Vegas, but first I had to get him there; not easy with someone who hates leaving the house unless it’s for a recording studio or stage. After much deliberation, I told him that we had to fly to Vegas two days before to film with a family for the show’s ‘The Osbournes meet the Osbournes’ slot. This went down quite badly.
‘Fucking hell, Sharon, what a shit way to spend my birthday.’ I think he probably suspected all was not as it seemed, but he moaned the whole way there anyway.
I was telling the truth. He was going to meet a family called the Osbournes. His own. I had arranged for a crowd of family and friends, including his sisters, Gillian, Jean and Iris, to fly out from the UK to surprise him. When we reached the hotel, we walked in and there they all were. Jack, Aimee and Kelly came, of course, and so did Louis and Jessica, his children from his first marriage. It was really fantastic, everyone being together, because it hadn’t happened that much over the years.
Ozzy’s relationship with each of his sisters is good, but he’s particularly close to his oldest sister, Jean. It’s like she has become the mother he never really had. The pecking order in their family, in terms of birth, is Jean, Iris, Gillian, Paul, Ozzy and Tony. Jean is the one he speaks to regularly, usually every week, and she tells him what the rest of the family are up to. He doesn’t see much of his brothers because they all have such different lives now. There’s no bad feeling, it’s just that they have grown apart. It happens, particularly when you don’t even live in the same country.
It was fantastic that Louis and Jessica came, and Ozzy was thrilled as it was a great opportunity for them to spend much needed time together. For Jack it was a heaven-sent opportunity, and he took it. He was filming a documentary on his father called God Bless Ozzy Osbourne . Jack bankrolled it himself. He invested in his own equipment, cameras, hired a cameraman and a sound guy and followed Ozzy around the world for a couple of years. It debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, sold to Showtime and was the most-watched documentary on the network. It made him money and laid the foundation stone for a career behind the camera instead of in front of it.
Ozzy wasn’t a good dad to the children of his first marriage because he was absent so much of the time. It’s easier now that they’re adults with children themselves, and the relationship is better, but it’s still slightly distant because of all those lost
Just months before she’d been this broken creature, crawling on the ground. And now… a glorious butterfly had emerged, to take wing and fly.
It was too much to hope that she would win – I mean, you can’t compete with Donny Osmond, who has danced his entire life. But our little Kelly made the final, coming third behind a singer called Maya, who was also a dancer.
Everything about that show was nurturing and empowering, and she has learnt a new skill which will last her all her life. And from the moment she took her final bow, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
4
No Rest for the Wicked
Ozzy and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi in 1978.
A few years ago I had this idea that we would slow down a bit. I even thought Ozzy might retire when he reached sixty. That was the plan, at least.
What was I thinking? Ozzy, stop working? It’s about as likely as me stuffing the red hair dye at the back of the bathroom cabinet and going au naturel while tending my herbaceous borders. It ain’t gonna happen.
Ozzy turned sixty on 3 December 2008, while we were in the middle of filming Osbournes Reloaded . I had planned a surprise party for him in Las Vegas, but first I had to get him there; not easy with someone who hates leaving the house unless it’s for a recording studio or stage. After much deliberation, I told him that we had to fly to Vegas two days before to film with a family for the show’s ‘The Osbournes meet the Osbournes’ slot. This went down quite badly.
‘Fucking hell, Sharon, what a shit way to spend my birthday.’ I think he probably suspected all was not as it seemed, but he moaned the whole way there anyway.
I was telling the truth. He was going to meet a family called the Osbournes. His own. I had arranged for a crowd of family and friends, including his sisters, Gillian, Jean and Iris, to fly out from the UK to surprise him. When we reached the hotel, we walked in and there they all were. Jack, Aimee and Kelly came, of course, and so did Louis and Jessica, his children from his first marriage. It was really fantastic, everyone being together, because it hadn’t happened that much over the years.
Ozzy’s relationship with each of his sisters is good, but he’s particularly close to his oldest sister, Jean. It’s like she has become the mother he never really had. The pecking order in their family, in terms of birth, is Jean, Iris, Gillian, Paul, Ozzy and Tony. Jean is the one he speaks to regularly, usually every week, and she tells him what the rest of the family are up to. He doesn’t see much of his brothers because they all have such different lives now. There’s no bad feeling, it’s just that they have grown apart. It happens, particularly when you don’t even live in the same country.
It was fantastic that Louis and Jessica came, and Ozzy was thrilled as it was a great opportunity for them to spend much needed time together. For Jack it was a heaven-sent opportunity, and he took it. He was filming a documentary on his father called God Bless Ozzy Osbourne . Jack bankrolled it himself. He invested in his own equipment, cameras, hired a cameraman and a sound guy and followed Ozzy around the world for a couple of years. It debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, sold to Showtime and was the most-watched documentary on the network. It made him money and laid the foundation stone for a career behind the camera instead of in front of it.
Ozzy wasn’t a good dad to the children of his first marriage because he was absent so much of the time. It’s easier now that they’re adults with children themselves, and the relationship is better, but it’s still slightly distant because of all those lost
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