From his Black Sabbath firing to the time he bit the head off a dove, here’s a full accounting of the Prince of Darkness’ arrests, lawsuits and everything in between.
Ozzy Osbourne en el Rosemont Horizon el 4 de marzo de 1984 en Rosemont, Illinois.
Paul Natkin/Getty Images
For all of Ozzy Osbourne‘s accomplishments — helping to invent the heavy metal genre with Black Sabbath, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, landing nine solo albums in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 — his storied career is also full of arrests, lawsuits, firings and bannings. Some of these are very funny (public urination), some suggest severe alcohol addiction (public drunkenness in Memphis) and some are disturbingly violent (attempting to choke his wife to death).
Osbourne, who died Tuesday (July 22) at age 76, was infamously debauched and went through several career phases of constant inebriation. Much of this stuff was his own fault, but he also became an unwitting scapegoat for families and lawyers who wrongly blamed his songs for the tragic behaviors of teenagers. Osbourne’s wife and business manager, Sharon Osbourne, was both an indulgent partner in crime for decades and a victim herself when he brutally attacked her for no apparent reason other than that he was out of his mind on alcohol and substances. It’s funny to watch this old clip of Osbourne’s misbehavior, but as he suggested in the video itself, it’s disturbing, too.
“Most of the people that I drank with are dead. And the ones that aren’t, that still continue to drink, are going to be dead soon,” a sober Ozzy once said in an interview. “It’s not a happy ending.”
Below, check out a timeline of the Prince of Darkness’ lifelong career of committing and being accused of things.
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1965: TV Theft
After stealing a television and attempting to climb over a wall with it, teen-age John Osbourne was arrested and wound up in a British prison for six weeks. (Black Sabbath formed three years later.)
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1973: Fired by the Band
Black Sabbath fired Osbourne due to his prolific drug and alcohol abuse. (They have reunited numerous times since then, beginning in 1997.)
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1981: Biting the Head Off a Dove
Before releasing his first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, Osbourne’s wife and business manager, Sharon, suggested he tuck three doves in his pocket to get attention before meeting with executives for his label’s distribution company, CBS Columbia. Nervous, Osbourne guzzled half a bottle of whiskey before the meeting, during which he released two of the doves and bit the head off the third. The “horrified executives heaved,” according to the 2013 book Sharon Osbourne: Unauthorized, Uncensored — Understood, then arranged for Ozzy and Sharon to be escorted from the building and banned from ever coming back.
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1982: Urinating on the Alamo
Osbourne urinated on The Alamo Cenotaph, a 60-foot San Antonio war memorial. He was arrested and banned from the city for a decade, then apologized to its mayor. After his death on Tuesday, The Alamo’s Instagram page saluted Ozzy for his “humility” and said, “Redemption and reconciliation eventually became part of his history as well.”
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1983: Bat Bite Blowback
Because of community outrage over Osbourne’s behavior — letters to the editor of a local newspaper alleged he bit the head off a dead bat during a concert in Iowa (true) and sawed a live sheep’s head in half (false) — the Brown County, Wisc., arena committee voted to cancel an upcoming local concert. But because Osbourne had a contract to perform, the committee backtracked a week later. Due to chest pains, Ozzy never played the date.
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1985: Public Drunkenness Arrest
Police arrested Osbourne for public drunkenness on Beale Street in Memphis. The report described him as “staggering drunk.” Charges were later dropped, but not before Osbourne appeared in an iconic mug shot wearing a St. Louis Blues hockey T-shirt.
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1987: ‘Suicide Solution’ Lawsuit
After a teenager killed himself due to alleged inciting lyrics in Osbourne’s solo song “Suicide Solution,” his parents sued the singer. Ozzy insisted the song was about how alcohol led to the death of his friend, AC/DC‘s Bon Scott. The lawsuit, which falsely alleged “masked” lyrics during a 28-second instrumental passage in the song, was dismissed.
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1989: Choking His Wife
Declaring “we’ve come to a decision that you’ve got to die,” Osbourne choked his wife Sharon Osbourne nearly to death. Police charged him with attempted murder, but Sharon later dropped the charges, and he wound up in a treatment facility for six months.
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2025: Photographer Sues
At the time of his death, and after a prolonged drought of legal issues, Osbourne faced a lawsuit from photographer Neil Zlozower for posting unauthorized photos of himself on social media.