[17][18] Osbourne left school at the age of 15 and was employed as a construction site labourer, trainee plumber, apprentice toolmaker, car factory horn-tuner, and slaughterhouse worker.

[23] Black Sabbath noticed how people enjoyed being frightened during their appearances, which inspired their decision to play a heavy blues style of music laced with gloomy sounds and lyrics.

Built around Tony Iommi's guitar riffs, Geezer Butler's lyrics, Bill Ward's dark tempo drumbeats, and topped by Osbourne's eerie vocals, their debut album Black Sabbath and Paranoid were commercially successful and also gained considerable radio airplay.

[30] Decades later, AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia called the album a "masterpiece, essential to any heavy metal collection", while also claiming the band displayed "a newfound sense of finesse and maturity".

[13] Following Black Sabbath's formation, Iommi reportedly "punched out" Osbourne several times over the years when the singer's drunken antics became too much to take.

The record company eventually titled the group's debut album Blizzard of Ozz, credited simply to Osbourne, thus commencing his solo career.

The left wing of the aircraft clipped the bus, causing the plane to graze a tree and crash into the garage of a nearby mansion, killing Rhoads, Aycock, and Youngblood.

The tour was cancelled for two weeks while Osbourne, Sharon, and Aldridge returned to Los Angeles to take stock while Sarzo remained in Florida with family.

In 1988, Osbourne appeared in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years and told the director Penelope Spheeris that "sobriety fucking sucks".

[67] The line-up on Ozzmosis was Wylde, Butler (who had just quit Black Sabbath again), Steve Vai, and Hardline drummer Deen Castronovo, who later joined Journey.

The tour maintained Butler and Castronovo and saw Sinclair return, but a major line-up change was the introduction of former David Lee Roth guitarist Joe Holmes.

On 8 December 2003, Osbourne was rushed into emergency surgery at Slough's Wexham Park Hospital when he had an accident with his quad bike on his estate in Jordans, Buckinghamshire.

[78] Osbourne's band for this album included Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell,[79] bassist Chris Wyse[79] and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin.

The song would peak on the Billboard Hot 100 charts at number 8, making it Osbourne's first US Top 10 single in 30 years since he was featured on Lita Ford's "Close My Eyes Forever".

Osbourne effectively retired from touring, citing his accident in 2019 which resulted in the singer suffering spinal damage, while affirming his plan to continue smaller-scale live performances as his health permitted.

[134] In February 2019, Osbourne's merchandising partner announced that Ozzy would have his own branded online slots game as part of the NetEnt Rocks music-themed portfolio.

[135] It was announced on 11 November 2011 during a news conference at the Whisky a Go Go club on West Hollywood's Sunset Strip that the original Black Sabbath lineup of Ozzy, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward would reunite for a world tour and new album, to be produced by Rick Rubin.

[156] On New Year's Eve 1983, Canadian youth James Jollimore killed a woman and her two sons in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after listening to the "Bark at the Moon" song.

[159] In lawsuits filed in 2000 and 2002 which were dismissed by the courts in 2003, former band members Bob Daisley, Lee Kerslake, and Phil Soussan stated that Osbourne was delinquent in paying them royalties and had denied them due credit on albums they played on.

[13] His drug and alcohol use, coupled with his frequent absences while touring with Black Sabbath, took their toll on his family life; his children later complained that he was not a good father.

Then-President George W. Bush noted Osbourne's presence by joking, "The thing about Ozzy is, he's made a lot of big hit recordings – 'Party with the Animals', 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath', 'Facing Hell', 'Black Skies' and 'Bloodbath in Paradise'.

The issue was described as a "severe upper-respiratory infection" following a bout with the flu which his doctor feared could develop into pneumonia, given the physicality of the live performances and an extensive travel schedule throughout Europe in harsh winter conditions.

[46] Longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde has attributed Osbourne's longevity in spite of decades of substance misuse to "a very special kind of fortitude that's bigger than King Kong and Godzilla combined... seriously, he's hard as nails, man!

[189] In his memoir Off the Rails, former bassist Rudy Sarzo detailed the frustrations felt by him and his bandmates as they coped with life on the road with the vocalist, who was in a state of near-constant inebriation and was often so hungover that he would refuse to perform.

Many shows on the American leg of the 1981-82 Diary of a Madman tour were simply cancelled, and the members of his band quickly began to tire of the unpredictability, coupled with the often violent mood swings he was prone to when either drunk or high.

[191] Osbourne had been on a long drinking binge and earlier that same day had drunkenly fired his entire band, including Randy Rhoads, after they had informed him that they would not participate in a planned live album of Black Sabbath songs.

[192] The most notorious incident came in August 1989, when Sharon claimed that Ozzy had tried to strangle her after returning home from the Moscow Music Peace Festival, in a haze of alcohol and drugs.

[203] In April 2013, Osbourne revealed through Facebook that he had resumed smoking, drinking and doing drugs for the past year and a half, stating he "was in a very dark place" but said he had been sober again since early March.

[214] In 2010 Osbourne won the "Literary Achievement" honour for his memoir, I Am Ozzy, at the Guys Choice Awards at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City, California.

In May 2015, Osbourne received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors at a ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London.