Early Life
John Michael Osbourne grew up in the Aston area of Birmingham and worked a series of manual jobs before helping form Black Sabbath in the late 1960s.
Career
Black Sabbath's self-titled debut and Paranoid (both 1970) helped define heavy metal. Osbourne was dismissed from the band in 1979 and launched a solo career with Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981). He later founded the touring festival Ozzfest with his wife, Sharon, and became a household name in the 2000s through the MTV reality series The Osbournes.
Legacy
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Black Sabbath in 2006 and as a solo artist in 2024. Osbourne died in July 2025, weeks after Black Sabbath's farewell concert, Back to the Beginning, in his home city of Birmingham.
Sources and further reading
Last updated: 2026-09-24