/ 9 December 2003

Legendary rock star in intensive care

Rock and television star Ozzy Osbourne is in intensive care after a quad bike accident at his English country home.

The long-haired, 55-year-old heavy metal star will always be remembered for his on-stage exploits in Des Moines, Iowa, when in a wild moment he bit the head off a live bat thrown on stage by a fan, to the mixed horror and delight of the audience.

Osbourne may have claimed since that he thought it was a toy but there were already rumours that in 1981 he had bitten the head off a live dove in front of record company executives.

Whatever the truth, the legend was in place and it will probably never leave him, however much he may protest in his own inimical four-letter fashion.

He has nurtured the bad-boy image over the years, incurring the wrath of the San Antonio city fathers in Texas when he urinated on the Alamo and was hounded out of town.

Osbourne has also been unsuccessfully sued in the United States by a number of parents who have alleged that his song Suicide Solution inspired their teenage sons to take their own lives. Osbourne says the song is actually about AC/DC singer Bon Scott, who died of alcohol poisoning.

Born in the grim surroundings of Birmingham, central England, Ozzy first found fame in the 1970s as lead singer of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose angry lyrics and sinister appearance made them cult heroes.

Their best-known song remains the driving Paranoid, still a favourite on FM radio and in clubs around the world.

Osbourne left the band and launched a moderately successful solo career, fuelled by the bat’s head legend, but at a price — he claims to be virtually deaf after all those years of loud music on stage.

In recent years he has found a new audience and become almost a national institution in his adoptive United States with the reality TV show The Osbournes, which follows the everyday life of Osbourne, his wife Sharon, daughter Kelly and son Jack.

Each episode is peppered with foul language and provides the perfect portrait of a mildly dysfunctional family.

So popular has Osbourne become that in 2002 he was invited to play in a pop concert at Buckingham Palace for the jubilee of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, alongside more sober stars like ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton and Shirley Bassey. — Sapa-AFP