Kicked out of the band for his heavy substance use in the late 1970s, Osbourne struggled with addiction while living life on the road. “Money would be the alcohol and the drugs,” he said in Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne, “and I behaved badly.” Nevertheless, Osbourne eventually bounced back, going on to launch a successful solo career with hits such as 1980’s “Crazy Train.”
It was during this time that he earned the moniker the Prince of Darkness, thanks to his haunting vocals, all-black outfits, and striking presence as a performer. Indeed, one of his most notorious stage moments came in 1982, when Osbourne bit the head off of a live bat (thinking it was a rubber toy) at a concert in Des Moines. “Immediately, something felt wrong—very wrong,” he later reflected.
In the early 2000s, Osbourne was introduced to a whole new audience when he starred in the reality series The Osbournes with his wife, Sharon, and their children Kelly and Jack. (Osbourne also had four other children: Aimee, his eldest daughter with Sharon, and three children with his first wife, Thelma Riley—daughter Jessica and sons Louis and Elliot Kingsley.)
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