I’ve been joking for years that Sharon Osborne (Ozzy Osbourne’s wife) had actually replaced Ozzy with a high tech robot, ‘The Ozzitron 2000’. It was my way of explaining away Ozzy’s jerky movements on stage, his hunched shuffling at home on his show The Osbournes and the fact that you could barely understand a word he said when he was talking. Well, today we found out that it may have been much more than just Ozzy’s hard rocking lifestyle that has left him in this state. This morning Ozzy opened up on Good Morning America to announce that he actually has a form of Parkinson’s Disease. Watching the interview was tough, it was like watching the early Michael J. Fox interviews where partway through a sentence, you can see it becomes a struggle. As always, Ozzy had Sharon by his side to help clarify and guide the interview, but it was tough. I don’t think anyone who grew up with Ozzy’s exploits ever expected him to make it this far, and we’ve definitely seen some people we thought would outlive Ozzy pass on well before. It’s a testament to his fortitude and his drive that he is still around today.
So, no more jokes about the Ozzitron 2000 from me, I’m hoping that Ozzy has many more years of entertaining his fans and enjoying his family before he has to actually hang up the bats for good.
The title of the documentary from 2011 says it all: God Bless Ozzy Osbourne.
Check out the full article, and watch the interview from Good Morning America here.
Also, Ozzy has a new album coming out February 21st, with a host of guest stars on it. My youngest son and I have been listening to this one on repeat quite a bit. It features Elton John(!) on vocals and piano. It’s the title track for his new album, called Ordinary Man and you can check it out below:
