Out of all these wild and twisted facts about Ozzy Osbourne, which one hits you as the most shocking? This list really has it all—from run-ins with animals to an incident where Ozzy allegedly attempted murder without any memory of it. While many fans began seeing him as the quirky rock grandpa later in life, his past is packed with moments that are equal parts bizarre, hilarious, and disturbing.
His Nose Was Apparently Indestructable
If we’re going by stories from Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee, Ozzy was totally unpredictable during their 1984 tour together. The two bands spent plenty of time on the tour bus partying hard with drinks and drugs—pretty much what you’d expect from iconic rock stars on the road.
In the middle of this wild ride, they decided to try and “out gross” one another. And then, Ozzy suddenly dropped to his knees and snorted a line of ants right off a popsicle stick. Yes, real ants. That actually happened.
One Night Ozzy Blacked Out And Tried To Kill His Wife
There was a time when Ozzy drank so heavily that blacking out was just a normal part of his life. He’d lose days at a time, waking up later with no idea what he’d done. He once admitted in an interview that one of his greatest fears was waking up and realizing he had seriously hurt someone—or worse. And disturbingly enough, that nightmare scenario nearly became real. The Black Sabbath legend described what happened:
“I woke up in this little single cell with human [feces] up the walls — and I thought, what … have I done now? Has one of my practical jokes backfired? So I asked a police officer. I said: ‘What am I here for?’ I hadn’t got a … clue. It’s the most horrific feeling. He read me a piece of paper, and said, ‘You’re charged with attempting to [slay] Mrs. Sharon Osbourne.’ I can’t tell you how I felt. I just went numb.”
You Couldn’t Get Between Ozzy And A Drink
Ozzy lived the wild rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to the fullest, and that included drinking way too much. His family, especially Sharon, tried just about everything to stop him from getting his hands on alcohol.
At one point, Sharon even took all of Ozzy’s clothes and locked them away in a hotel room, thinking he wouldn’t go out for a drink if he had nothing to wear. But Ozzy didn’t let that stop him—he just threw on one of Sharon’s dresses and confidently walked into the bar anyway.
While Unclothed, He Accosted A Burglar
If someone had plans to break into Ozzy Osbourne’s house late at night, they probably weren’t prepared to run into a nude rock legend. You see, Ozzy often slept unclothed—something any intruder would quickly learn the hard way.
Sharon once shared a wild story during an interview about a nighttime burglary where Ozzy startled the intruder—Blizzard of Oz style: “About eight years ago… in the middle of the night, a guy broke in, he came into the bedroom while I was sleeping. (He was) by the side of my bed, took my two wedding bands and my engagement ring… Ozzy woke up to go to the bathroom and saw him in my dressing room. And so Ozzy’s [unclothed] and Ozzy picks the guy up from behind, but he’s [unclothed]. He lifts the guy up and Ozzy goes, ‘He could sue me for [forcing myself on him]!’ So he let him go and the guy jumps out of the window and takes all the jewelry.”
Police Thought Ozzy Had Been Abducted, But He Was Just On A Binge
Back in 1978, when Black Sabbath was touring with Van Halen, Ozzy and David Lee Roth got caught up in one of their intense drug binges. It went on for so long that Ozzy ended up completely vanishing. People close to the tour started to panic. One of them recalled the situation: “After a bus ride to Nashville, Ozzy passed out for 24 hours in the wrong hotel room and in effect was missing. The police thought he’d been [taken].”
David Lee Roth even confirmed this in his autobiography. He mentioned that Black Sabbath almost considered replacing Ozzy on stage with Roth himself. But that idea quickly fell apart since Roth didn’t know the lyrics to Sabbath’s songs. So, in the end, the entire tour just had to pause while everyone waited for Ozzy to come back to his senses.
Ozzy Trashed A Hotel Room With A Perished Shark’s Blood
If you thought Ozzy biting bat heads was wild, just wait until you hear what he got up to in the 1970s. By the time the 1980s rolled around and he was urinating near The Alamo, things had already been out of control. But back in the ’70s, according to Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, Ozzy took things to another level by completely destroying his hotel room—using an actual shark.
“With drugs always you get bored, so you must do something to one another. Like Ozzy hauling a shark through a window, dismembering it and soaking our room in blood.”
He Painted Tommy Lee’s Hotel Walls With His Own Feces
Ozzy’s relationship with Mötley Crüe was either fueled by admiration or fueled by something far more chaotic. In one of the most disturbing tales from that era, drummer Tommy Lee remembered being invited into Ozzy’s hotel room—where the chaos began almost instantly. Without hesitation, Ozzy dropped his pants and defecated right on the floor.
“He starts smearing [feces] all over the walls,” Lee remembered. “He’s painting with it! And I thought, ‘This is some next level [stuff]. I’m not ready for this!’ I’m cool with just taking a [poop] in the toilet.”
British Airways Used His Yard As A Trash Target
When director and photographer Dean Karr—best known for directing the Dave Matthews Band video for “Crash Into Me”—visited Ozzy’s estate in England, he found something odd and kind of hilarious happening in the massive yard.
He explained during an interview: “They have the biggest plot of land; it’s like five football fields of endless manicured grass with Greek statues all over. So Jack and I were cutting across the grass on the quad and I stopped him because there were little three-inch plastic wrappers everywhere. I asked Jack what was up and he said, ‘Oh hey, British Airways pulls the bilge over dad’s house once a week, and it just rains down these peanut wrappers.”
He Briefly Died Twice In A 2004 ATV Accident
In 2004, the world almost lost Ozzy Osbourne in a way no one expected—from an ATV accident. He flipped the vehicle while riding and ended up in a coma for eight days. That’s right—eight days in a coma, barely clinging to life. Thankfully, his bodyguard acted quickly and managed to keep him alive.
Looking back on the scary moment, Ozzy told the Sunday Mirror: “If it wasn’t for Sam I probably wouldn’t be here. He had to bring me back to life twice.”
Ozzy Essentially Bought A Hotel Room After Letting Off Fireworks In It
How much damage can fireworks in a hotel room really do? Well, in Ozzy’s case, apparently over $200,000 worth. According to Tony Iommi, Ozzy went a little too far one night while on tour and ended up paying a massive price for the chaos he caused.
Iommi recalled: “We were all woken by a huge bang and a whoosh! Smoke started seeping under my door so I opened it and saw Ozzy just going [wild]. He was letting all the fireworks off in the corridor.” But things didn’t end there. They got worse fast. “Alarms were going and the next thing I knew the police had surrounded him with guns. He was arrested and taken away. The eventual bill was more than $200,000.”
The Man Had An Insatiable Drive For Hooking Up
Among Ozzy’s many over-the-top adventures, this particular story from one of Sabbath’s early tours stands out. It happened at a Holiday Inn that seemed oddly magical for Ozzy—and maybe a little too welcoming.
“So we’re in this Holiday Inn and I’ve just finished talking to [his then wife] on the phone when there’s a knock at the door. I open it and there’s this beautiful chick standing there in a little dress. ‘Ozzy?’ she goes. ‘The gig was awesome, can we talk?’ Off comes her dress, down go my trousers and after five minutes… off she went. Five minutes later there’s another knock on the door. I’m thinking, she probably left something in the room. So I get up to answer it but it’s a different chick. ‘Ozzy?’ she goes. ‘The gig was awesome, can we talk?’ These Holiday Inns are magic, I thought. Then there was another knock at the door. You can guess what happened next.”
He Didn’t Get His Driver’s License Until He Was 60
Ozzy didn’t get around to getting his driver’s license until much later in life—60 years old, to be exact. The reason? He said he just couldn’t stay sober long enough to make it through the test. It wasn’t just a one-time thing either. His attempts went back decades, with one failure after another.
“The first test was about 1974, then ’75, ’76, ’77, ’78. I’ve lost count how many times. I remember one time I was doing the three-point turn and I passed out because I’d been to the doctor’s earlier and got some Valium for my nerves. At the end they’d say ‘You’ve failed,’ and I’d be staggering around the car park. Some [examiners] would say, ‘I’m not even … getting in the car with you.’ Would you?”
He Really Did Bite The Head Off A Dove
This might just be the most well-known story in the long list of Ozzy’s outrageous moments. It started with a plan, thanks to Sharon, who was both his manager and wife. She sent Ozzy into a meeting with a couple of white doves tucked in his pocket. The idea was to release them in a peaceful gesture after signing a contract. That’s not exactly how things played out.
Instead, Ozzy took one of the birds and bit its head off right then and there. Later, he described the bizarre moment by saying: “The dove’s head landed on the PR chick’s lap in a splatter of blood. To be honest with you, I was so pissed, it just tasted of Cointreau. Well, Cointreau and feathers. And a bit of beak.”
Ozzy Almost Burned The House Down While Making A Sandwich
Even though Ozzy is wealthy enough to hire a chef for every meal, he still liked making simple things like bacon sandwiches himself. But his DIY cooking nearly led to disaster. One evening, while frying bacon, things went out of control—and he nearly burned the entire house down.
Sharon took to Twitter to talk about the close call: “I’m in London, @OfficialOzzy is in LA making a bacon sandwich last night and the fire brigade ended up at our house!!”
He Accidentally Sent A Text To Robert Plant About A Cat
To give people an idea of how terrible Ozzy is with technology, Jack Osbourne shared a hilarious moment during an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s show. He said that Ozzy once sent a random message to none other than Robert Plant—yes, the Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. The text simply said: “I can’t find the cat.”
Robert Plant, being the laid-back rock icon he is, replied in the most perfect way: “You can’t find the cat?” Sure, this story might not top the wildest ones out there, but come on—how many people can say they’ve accidentally texted a rock god about their cat? That’s Ozzy’s world for you.