Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne

I think there's a wild man in everybody.

I'm a split personality.

Ozzy Osbourne and John Osbourne is two different people.

John Osbourne is talking to you now,

but if you wanna be Ozzy Osbourne,

you know, he's like, takes over.

When I was a kid, I was afraid of everything.

It was just like, you just crawl into your fear hole.

You know, you don't need to cry for the bully,

and so when you do find a bit of booze or dope or

or whatever, you go , I found it.

I mean, I could never get there again.

Alcohol and dope and... and I've been a class clown anyway,

so it sums it all up, you know.

I use the talents of making people feel somewhat entertained

when I was goofing around.

To take it onstage with my music,

I suppose it's the same kind of a thing.

I don't know what music would be like

if it weren't for the influence of Ozzy.

Ozzy changed everything.

Well, I mean, you can't say anyone's immortal,

but I think that Ozzy in that time was, um...

I think Ozzy's music is timeless.

It makes me cry and gives me the chills.

It's just perfect.

Dad is a kid from the streets who... worked in factories.

He's very much this working class blue collar guy.

The working class thing is key

because you grew up with nothing,

and you do everything you can every day

so you don't go back to nothing.

It's all about escaping your reality to something better.

He left one of the biggest rock bands in the world

and became bigger, a credible artist on his own,

finding great new talent,

and then made it huge on TV.

Nobody had done that.

He is the most irresistible madman

you will ever meet in your life.

He is the real Iron Man.

The reason why I do what I do is because it's what

everybody wants to do, but they ain't got the guts to.

And all I am is honest.

- Roll. - Camera.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Ozzy Osbourne,

the Prince of Darkness.

O-Okay?

All right. That's cool.

There ain't many people who have such a longevity as I have.

I feel honored that people still wanna see me, you know?

When you feel that audience jumping,

it's like a better feeling than an orgasm.

The party's on, man.

Thank you. God bless you all, man.

My father always said I'd do something big one day.

He says to me, "You're either gonna do something very special

or you're gonna go to prison." He was right, you know?

I had a dream, and it came true.

I mean, I live a good life.

My name is John Michael Osbourne.

Not many people call me "John."

It's either "Oz" or "Ozzy."

I think if I walked down the street now

and somebody went, "John!" I wouldn't stop.

Although I am John.

I leave Ozzy onstage. I'll come off as John.

I was born in Birmingham, England, 1948.

The only thing that was around then was factories.

A lot of Birmingham was bombed during the second World War.

Actually, the place to play was called "the bomb site."

That was where you played, not realizing that it was

a place that had been bombed during World War II.

You know, imagination would run wild.

Oh, it's changed a lot.

It's changed an awful lot since I lived here.

- Wow. - The bedroom I had back then

was no bigger than two single beds side by side.

I lived in here for a while, and, uh, yeah.

There was no inside toilets.

It was a bucket to pee in at the end of the bed.

We had an outside toilet where you go to go for a dump.

You... You didn't have toilet paper.

You had newspaper.

You didn't have soap or water, which was a big stigma for me.

I had a lot of shame when I was a kid,

because I always felt dirty. I always felt unclean.

I felt like a peasant, you know?

There were six kids.

My three older sisters were Jean, Iris, and Gillian.

I also had two younger brothers, Paul and Tony.

My father was a toolmaker.

He never would miss a day from work.

Come rain, come shine,

if he was sick, and... and I wanna be like that.

I loved him.

When my dad came home after working all night in a factory,

my mother Lilian would start her shift.

I was petrified most of the time

because I was a very nervous guy.

Fear of impending doom ruled my life.

I convinced myself if I stepped on cracks,

something really bad would happen when I got home,

like my mother would be dead or something like that.

- - When my dad was sleeping

through the day,

I would be freaking out thinking he was dead.

I'd have to poke him to make sure

he was still breathing. I can tell you,

he wasn't too pleased about that.

Where did you guys spend most of your time?

In the street 'cause it was too crowded in the house.

He didn't have a very happy school life.

He was always penalized for... probably because he was so slow.

I hated school.

I spent more time smoking cigarettes

in the boys' room than being in class.

I wasn't good at school.

Well, we didn't realize he was dyslexic.

We just thought perhaps he was, like, slow to learn.

There was a lot of shame for me,

because if you had that learning disability,

they would put you in a corner with a cone on your head,

and they'd call you the class dunce,

and the whole class laughed at you,

which made me go further into me.

I hated it.

Ozzy!

- What's going on, Ozzy?! - Hi!

All right. I was the class clown.

I would go to the biggest guy in the class, make him laugh,

and he would be my mate so no one would hassle me

because I've got this big guy with me.

Most comedians I know, offstage,

they're very unhappy people,

and that's kind of true to my life.

I'm making you laugh to make me feel safe around you.

At 16, I was on the streets.

When John left school, he sort of went

from one little job to another.

I didn't want to work in a day job.

I couldn't stand getting up for a job in the morning.

I could never hold a 9-to-5 job down, ever.

I'd go from a plumber to a builder.

One of my jobs was working in a slaughterhouse.

I remember gagging all day.

But eventually, you get used to the smell.

I said to this guy, "How long have you been doing this?"

He goes, "35 years. I'm retiring,

and they're gonna give me a gold watch."

I remember turning to him. I said...

I had to at least try and have a little bit of fun

with my life while I was young.

John used to go out

and have a drink, get in fights, and that was it.

From what I saw of John,

he was always in and out of trouble.

You know, Dad was always telling him off.

That's the shop that I broke into.

That was Mrs. Clark's shop I broke into.

Yeah, I broke into a shop at the back of my house.

A lot of the kids turned to crime,

and I did for a time,

but I wasn't really good at it, you know.

I wasn't a career criminal.

I kinda wanted to get caught in a way

to be accepted by the rest of the bad guys in the area.

I didn't wanna go to jail, but that's where I ended up.

When you're in a place full of bad people,

it's a bit of an education.

One month in jail was long enough.

I had no idea what my life was about to explode into.

I had no idea.

I gotta go for a piss.

Let me tell you something. After six weeks in prison

I knew I didn't wanna go back,

and I just didn't wanna work in a factory.

The only thing I had a passion for was music.

Music was a very integral part of the family.

There was always music with the record player,

or the radio, the piano.

By the time I was about 14,

I had discovered music from the Beatles.

The Fab Four, when the Beatles happened,

it changed my life.

[song ending, audience shrieking]

It gave me the seed to wanna do it myself.