Last Rites

Ozzy Osbourne's memoir picks up in his late sixties, as the former Black Sabbath frontman confronts a cascade of health crises that threaten to end his career and his life. While Osbourne interweaves reflections on his improbable rise from a working-class childhood in Aston, Birmingham, to global fame, the book's central narrative follows the years from 2018 to 2025, a period defined by injury, problematic surgery, progressive Parkinson's disease, and a stubborn refusal to give up. He frames the book as the story of Death "calling in his final debt," declaring that he told Death to "fuck off."

In late 2018, Osbourne was midway through No More Tours II, his farewell concert tour, performing to sold-out arenas with his touring band, including guitarist Zakk Wylde. He had been sober for roughly five years, but he was secretly abusing liquid Decadron (dexamethasone), a steroid prescribed in small doses for vocal strain, consuming entire bottles daily. The drug suppressed his immune system while causing hallucinations and violent outbursts. When bacterial staph infections developed in his right hand, his compromised system could not fight them. Emergency surgery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles forced cancellation of the remaining 2018 tour dates.

Osbourne recovered in time to perform at a New Year's Eve Ozzfest, but soaking himself with a snow cannon during the show contributed to flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia that cancelled the next round of dates. Then, in early February 2019, the real catastrophe struck. Getting up in the middle of the night, Osbourne stage-dived toward his bed in the dark, a lifelong habit, and missed, crashing to the floor and breaking his neck. His wife and manager, Sharon, found him crumpled and immobile.

At Cedars-Sinai, the overwhelmed emergency room, lacking his UK medical records from a 2003 quad bike accident that had previously broken his neck, sent him home with paracetamol and a referral. Days later, an MRI revealed no spinal fluid between five vertebrae below his skull: The fall had compressed his spine, and without surgery, one slip could leave him paralyzed. In their panic, Osbourne and Sharon ignored Wylde's repeated advice to consult a surgeon nicknamed "Dr Fix It" and consented to immediate surgery.

The operation took five hours instead of the expected two. The surgeon widened the spinal canal and installed two large metal plates secured with screws. Osbourne's condition deteriorated sharply. He spent weeks in intensive care on life support, developed blood clots, and was placed on 64 different medications daily. When he regained consciousness, his legs were nearly numb, his right arm was useless, and his neck flopped without a brace. Physical therapy proved agonizing: Walking to the end of a corridor took most of an afternoon. After discharge, Osbourne forced himself to walk laps around his block, but progress stalled. His Parkinson's specialist confirmed the disease was caused by a mutated gene called PARK2, inherited from both parents, making it impossible to distinguish surgical damage from the disease's progression.

Throughout the memoir, Osbourne reflects on his past. He recounts his childhood dyslexia and ADHD, and how joining a band at 19, straight out of prison, led to the formation of Black Sabbath with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward. He describes Iommi's factory accident, in which Iommi lost his fingertips and fashioned prosthetic replacements from a dish soap bottle, inadvertently creating the band's heavy sound. He details his firing from Sabbath for substance use and his rescue by Sharon, then the daughter of Sabbath's manager Don Arden, who offered to manage him. He recounts the brilliance of guitarist Randy Rhoads, who launched his solo career, and provides a wrenching account of the 1982 plane crash in Leesburg, Florida, that killed Rhoads and wardrobe assistant Rachel Youngblood when the tour bus driver, flying a small plane recklessly on no sleep and cocaine, clipped the bus on a low pass. Osbourne also confronts his most painful personal failures, including the night in 1989 when, in a psychotic state from alcohol and crushed pain pills, he attacked Sharon and was arrested for attempted murder. He reflects on Black Sabbath's reunion album 13 (2013), produced by Rick Rubin, which became their first number-one album in both the US and UK but excluded Ward due to a contractual dispute Osbourne deeply regrets.

Two developments pulled Osbourne from his depression. Sharon told him Birmingham had named a bridge after Black Sabbath, triggering a desire to reconnect with his old bandmates. When his health crisis became public through a January 2020 Good Morning America interview, Iommi, Butler, and Ward all reached out, and Osbourne and Ward spoke for the first time in nearly a decade. Meanwhile, Osbourne's daughter Kelly connected him with producer Andrew Watt for a collaboration with the singer Post Malone. Recording energized Osbourne so much that Kelly observed him smiling for the first time in six months. This led to two solo albums: Ordinary Man, featuring Elton John and Slash, and Patient Number 9, with contributions from Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, who played on the album shortly before his death.

The COVID-19 pandemic halted all touring and medical plans in March 2020. Osbourne, a high-risk patient with both Parkinson's and emphysema, isolated strictly. In 2021, he finally sought the second opinion he should have gotten years earlier. A specialist in Minneapolis proposed fusing his head rigidly in place with metal rods. Osbourne refused. Sharon then found Dr. Robert Bray, a neurological spine surgeon who determined that the original plates were too tight, tearing Osbourne's neck muscles with every movement, while loose screws produced bone debris trapped between vertebrae. When Bray revealed his nickname, "Dr Fix It," Osbourne and Sharon realized with shock that he was the exact surgeon Wylde had twice recommended.

Bray performed the first corrective surgery in September 2021 and a second in June 2022. Weeks later, Commonwealth Games organizers invited Osbourne to perform at the closing ceremony in Birmingham. On August 8, 2022, unable to stand for long, Osbourne rose on a mechanical platform through the stage floor at Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr, near his childhood home. He and Iommi opened with the riff of "Iron Man" before launching into "Paranoid" as fireworks exploded overhead on live BBC One television. The adrenaline was so great that Osbourne walked unaided afterward, having left his cane backstage.

On February 1, 2023, Osbourne officially cancelled No More Tours II, acknowledging on Instagram that he was "not physically capable" of touring. Bray performed a seventh and final surgery in September 2023. In late 2024, another vertebra disintegrated. Osbourne contracted pneumonia three times, endured a collapsed lung, and developed sepsis from bone cement used in an emergency procedure. His family believed he was dying. He recovered after two months of intravenous antibiotics.

On July 5, 2025, at Villa Park in Birmingham, Osbourne performed two sets before 42,000 fans and millions of livestream viewers at a concert called "Back to the Beginning": first with his solo band, then with all four original members of Black Sabbath, seated on a throne with skull armrests and bat wings. He broke down in tears during "Mama, I'm Coming Home," a song his late friend Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead had written for him. Ward characteristically removed his shirt. Proceeds benefited Birmingham Children's Hospital, Cure Parkinson's, and Acorns Children's Hospice.

Osbourne settles at Welders House, his estate in Buckinghamshire, with Sharon, his dogs, and a custom gold-plated walker topped with a bat wearing a crown. His health remains precarious, but his voice is intact, he has ideas for a new album, and he has made peace with his life. He concludes that performing on stage was always the greatest high, "the best drug I ever took."