Kelly Osbourne has paid tribute to her father Ozzy, saying that she has “lost the best friend [she] ever had”.
The Black Sabbath frontman and iconic soloist died on Tuesday (July 22), aged 76. It came shortly after he took to the stage for his final-ever live shows at Sabbath’s huge ‘Back To The Beginning’ event in Birmingham on July 5.
In a statement, Osbourne’s family wrote: “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love.
“We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.”
Now, Osbourne’s daughter Kelly has shared a brief message on Instagram Stories following the death of her father.
“I feel unhappy I am so sad. I lost the best friend I ever had,” she wrote on the platform, followed by a broken heart emoji.
Kelly got engaged to her partner, Slipknot’s Sid Wilson, backstage at Black Sabbath’s last concert earlier this month. During the proposal, Ozzy joked: “Fuck off! You’re not marrying my daughter.”
Following Ozzy’s last gig recently, Kelly posted a series of photos from the event and praised her father’s performances.
“To say that yesterday was magic was an understatement!” she wrote. “I can’t even wright [sic] this without tears streaming down my face! Thank you to everyone who came to support my dad.”
Kelly continued: “Thank you to the fans who without we are nothing! My dad got his moment in the sun! He was able to say thank you and good bye in the most beautiful way!”
In 2003, Ozzy and Kelly teamed up to release a cover of Black Sabbath’s 1972 ballad ‘Changes’. The collaboration went to Number One on the UK singles chart. They also appeared together on the hit MTV reality show The Osbournes in the ’00s.
More recently, Ozzy featured on The Osbournes Podcast with Kelly alongside his wife, Sharon, and son, Jack. The family also looked back on footage from The Osbournes on the series The Basement Tapes.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that air ambulance paramedics worked for two hours to save Ozzy before his death at his Buckinghamshire home.
Tributes have since poured in from across the music world, including posts from Osbourne’s former bandmates Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler. “So glad we got to do it one last time, back in Aston,” the latter wrote, adding: “Love you.”
Other major artists to have paid their respects include Elton John, Yungblud, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Jack White and many more. Additionally, the likes of Coldplay, Alice Cooper, Ghost, Gojira and Drake have dedicated performances to Osbourne, as fans shared footage and memories from the artist’s final live appearances.
Jake E. Lee, who played guitar with Ozzy in the ‘80s, has shared the final message he received from the late singer.
Elsewhere, social media users have been flooding platforms with humorous clips of the Prince Of Darkness in The Osbournes. Meanwhile, gamers have been remembering his iconic advert for PlayStation’s virtual reality headset, the PSVR2.
Fans are pushing to rename Birmingham Airport and a stage at Download Festival in honour of Ozzy, too.
A more bizarre tribute to Osbourne saw The Alamo Cenotaph recall the time he urinated on the monument in the early ’80s while wearing Sharon’s dress.
‘Back To The Beginning’ was live-streamed globally, with a cinema release scheduled for next year. Proceeds from the concert were split equally among Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acom Children’s Hospice.
In other news, Osbourne’s final memoir, Last Rites, is set to be published this autumn. The book will tell the “shocking, bitterly hilarious, never-before-told story of Ozzy’s descent into hell”, with the Prince Of Darkness detailing the health issues he’d faced in recent years.
In 2020, he publicly shared his Parkinson’s diagnosis, and he also underwent numerous operations as a result of a fall in 2019, which aggravated a previous injury to his spine.
