‘He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time. Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis.’
The star was a titan of music who somehow survived controversies that would end the careers of many others, and weathered health problems that would leave most of us on our backs.
Whether it was biting the head off both a bat and a dove, snorting a line of ants or urinating on a US war memorial while wearing one of his wife Sharon’s dresses, Osbourne was defined by his antics both on and off stage.
The singer, who sold more than 100 million records, will forever be synonymous with the heavy metal band he formed in his home city of Birmingham in 1969.
With hits that included Iron Man, War Pigs and Paranoid, Black Sabbath’s pushing of occult themes proved both hugely popular and controversial, with a future pope even condemning Osbourne for his ‘subliminal satanic influence’.