We at MetalTalk are devastated to hear that Ozzy Osbourne has passed away, surrounded by family at the mansion he loved, and we often visited. I first met Ozzy way back in 1992 when my presenter, MTV’s Headbangers Ball, Vanessa Warwick and I travelled out to his Buckinghamshire mansion to film an interview for the show.
Obviously, I was a huge Black Sabbath fan, but to be sitting there in his home with a cup of PG Tips and gazing out at his maze was so surreal, as were the millions of crucifixes that adorned his stately pile.
Having grown up nearby in a Slough council estate, Ozzy got it. We had a long chat about coming from nothing. So poor he couldn’t afford shoes. And here we are looking at what he has achieved.
He was so happy. Sharon had just come home after doing the school run with Jack and Kelly, and life was good. He even sent me a note on his Ozzy Osbourne ‘With Compliments’ slip that I still have on my wall of rock to this very day.
From then on, we were asked to come along to cover some of Ozzy’s gigs. Sharon had always championed Vanessa and me, as there were no women working in Heavy Metal TV at that time. So we literally did get ‘Access All Areas’ with The Osbournes.
When MTV approached the family to appear in their own rocking reality TV series, I knew it would be TV Gold, and it was. Every viewer could totally relate to Ozzy.
From the shouts of “Sharon,” to the “bubbles. I can’t have bubbles, I’m the Prince of fucking Darkness.”
“Look, Kelly, it could be worse, I could be Sting,” Ozzy said when a teenage Kelly was having a go at him about being a rock star dad.
From throwing the leg of ham at the neighbours who were singing Kumbaya My Lord, to those natural Ozzy moments when he fell off the makeup chair. When he couldn’t work the remote control, it kept ending up on the cookery channel, and when he couldn’t operate his voice-activated car, the tales were many.
Even after the huge success of the series and the resurgence of his career, I treasure the moments when he took Vanessa and me on tour with him.
My favourite was Jones Beach, when we all met at a fancy pants New York City hotel and were whisked by a huge police entourage with full-on sirens and blues and twos to take us to his sold-out gig 30 miles away.
As I sat with him and my buddies Mike Inez and Mike Bordin, Zakk Wylde, Sharon and Vanessa, I thought dreams really do come true, apart from the fact that we got covered in mosquito bites and ended up in emergency treatment the next day.
One of my funniest memories was when I was producing a show called Kerrang! Meets Ozzy Osbourne. Rather than go out to the mansion, Sharon asked us if we could film at The Dorchester Hotel, which is their London haunt and is well posh.
I thought it would be fun to make the suite look like his lounge in his Gerrard’s Cross pile, so we hired a massive throne, put up loads of crucifixes, swathed the room in soft lighting and loads of burgundy velvet drapes.
Ozzy walks in and looks around, astonished, and says, “Fuck me, Harding. Have you burgled me?” We all pissed ourselves laughing.
I think that was Ozzy at his finest, the best interview we’ve ever done. He talked about everything from the bat biting to the devastating loss of Randy Rhoads, his thinking red wine was a soft drink, to his love of life.
We finished up and Ozzy asked if we’d like to stay on for a cup of tea, to which I replied hell to the yes. But I just need to get the throne down to the dock for the prop company to pick up.
So I put the throne on one of those hotel trolleys and got the lift down to the basement. I pushed it through to the delivery dock, and the door slammed behind me. I pushed the throne down to the front and went to go back out, but there was a door code. I had no idea what numbers to push, so I was locked in.
I got out my mobile phone to call the front desk, but there was no signal.
Jeez, these things always happen to me. So I sat down on Ozzy’s throne and just thought about life and how amazing Ozzy was. With the same sense of humour, I just laughed at all the memories we had together from Ozzy’s dwarf that travelled first class with him, much to the disdain of the business passengers, to lending him my Mac Smoulder makeup to do his guy liner.
I didn’t panic once as I felt Ozzy was with me, making me laugh.
I finally got rescued about two hours later, when Ozzy finally realised I was missing and had sent his assistant out to find me. He ended up having the last laugh – at me.
Having worked with so many rock stars who drink herbal tea, have their mortgage in place and eat vegan halloumi, Ozzy was the real deal. None of that nonsense for him.
We last saw him a couple of weeks back when he delivered the show of shows. His last big hurrah. As James Hetfield walked in backstage at Aston Villa, he looked around and said, “jeez, this is like Heavy Metal fucking bootcamp.”
But for every iconic rock musician on the planet to fly in to Birmingham to celebrate the Prince of Darkness says it all about the impact Ozzy and Black Sabbath have had on the world.
It was lovely to see Vanessa reunited with The Osbournes, and we had a feeling of a full circle finally closing.
His sense of humour, his smell, his smile and his use of the “fuck” word will remain forever in my heart.
God bless you, Ozzy Osbourne.
Our thoughts go out to all of Ozzy’s family. 
