OZZY OSBOURNE Reflected On His Last Performance In Upcoming Memoir: "I’m Gonna Miss Doing It, Going On Stage. It’s The Only World I’ve Known For 57 Years."

The Times released a portion of Ozzy Osbourne's final autobiography, Last Rites, this past Thursday (2nd October), ahead of the book's release this coming Tuesday (7th October). Ozzy Osbourne announced the memoir back in July, just a few days after the metal cultural event of the century, Back To The Beginning, took place in Birmingham.

Reported as detailing Ozzy's final years as he battled with consistent health issues alongside his Parkinson's diagnosis, the memoir also looks at Sharon and Ozzy's turbulent but enduring marriage, the death of friends, as well as Ozzy's preparation for Back To The Beginning.

Ozzy's preparation for his last ever performance was impeded by a variety of health issues that not only hindered his mobility, but his life.

Ozzy Osbourne wrote: "We were supposed to leave LA for Welders House, our place in Buckinghamshire, in early December 2024, giving me a good seven months to prepare for my big send-off at Villa Park in July. Instead my back went again. Then I got pneumonia, which is bad enough for a normal person, never mind someone with Parkinson’s. It kicked off my emphysema, causing one of my lungs to go down. My doctor flat-out refused to operate on my back. He said I was too weak, that the recovery could kill me. But I didn’t want to hear it. Neither did Sharon. So we went and got a second opinion, then a third, until eventually a team at Cedars-Sinai hospital said they’d give it a shot."

Ozzy then jokes about the fact that his "dodgy vertebra" was filled with "human cement stuff," "I mean, I’ve got so many plates and bolts inside me already, why not pour a slab of concrete in there too?"

But after the surgery Ozzy ended up getting sepsis, and in his own words, "I mean, at my age, with Parkinson’s and blood clots and all the other shit that’s going on, I had about as much chance of surviving a major sepsis infection as I did of winning the next season of Love Island."

After months of antibiotics, battles with pneumonia, and doctors visits, the Osbourne family made their way to Ozzy's hometown of Birmingham, where Ozzy ended up in the hospital again due to his blood pressure. There for eight days, more and more bands were being added to the Back To The Beginning line-up, and Ozzy began to doubt himself and his capabilities for the upcoming final show.

As he started debating the possibilities of filming a video to be shown, Sharon Osbourne wasn't having it and knew he was able to at least show his face at the performance: "Eventually Sharon said, “Look, there’ll be no back-up plan. No video. No prerecorded anything. If you can’t sing on the night, just talk to the crowd and thank them. All you need to do is get up there and be Ozzy.”"

And once he was reunited with the rest of Black Sabbath, his muscle memory kicked in, and it wasn't long before he was feeling being surrounded by his former bandmates instilled a bit more confidence in Back To The Beginning being a successful performance for Ozzy: "Rehearsals with Sabbath started about three weeks before the show. We went down to this rural studio owned by one of the guys in the Prodigy. No one knows where it is, so it’s very quiet.

It was great to see the guys again. It’s f***ing incredible we’re all still here — how many bands can say that after 57 years? — but of course we’ve all got our own shit going on. I can’t walk. Bill’s got a bad heart. Tony’s got this thing with his shoulder. The healthiest of us is Geezer — maybe it’s ’cos he’s a vegetarian. It took us a while to blow the cobwebs off, start playing like our old selves again. But we got there eventually. And we were having fun, joking around like we were still kids in Aston."

When the day of Ozzy's final performance approached, taking place in Villa Park, only a quarter of a mile down the street from where Ozzy grew up, the nerves kicked in but quickly subsided when he was on stage again: "Coming on stage all I could think was, is my voice really up for this? But as soon as the curtain went up I forgot about my nerves. Suddenly I was looking out over 42,000 faces, with another 5.8 million watching online. That was when the emotion really hit me. I’d never really taken it on board that so many people liked me — or even knew who I was. It was overwhelming, man, it really was."

His voice was meticulous for a man with Parkinson's as Ozzy moved around his throne, his legs bouncing and hands clapping as much as his body would let him, despite being "pissed off" that his legs weren't strong enough and his balance wasn't good enough for him to bounce around the stage as he used to.

"Back to the Beginning was the best medicine I’ve had since all my medical shit started back in 2019. It was a magical night. It couldn’t have been better."

The end of the excerpt finishes off by Ozzy Osbourne reflecting on the night itself and the power of live performance in his life: "What I’ve realised is that the one place where I’m free of all my demons is on a stage. At Back to the Beginning, sitting on that throne, I felt at home, I felt at peace… I felt comfortable. I’m gonna miss doing it, going on stage. It’s the only world I’ve known for 57 years. There’s nothing better than a good gig. The roar of a crowd, man, it’s so contagious, so addictive. That’s the magic, right there. It’s funny, I spent my whole life trying to get high from every substance known to man. But looking back now, I realise I was just trying to get back the feeling of when I was up there on stage, doing my job.

The packed arena. The thump of the bass drum you can feel in your stomach. Forty or fifty thousand voices singing back your words. All along, that’s what I was chasing. It was the best drug I ever took."

Ozzy Osbourne's final memoir can be purchased here, and you can find the full excerpt on The Times website here.