Alice Oscura, Featured Writer
Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne is a tasteful insight into the ups and downs in the crazy life of iconic heavy metal rock star and reality television personality John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne. It was originally aired on A&E in September of last year. Interviews included are from The Prince of Darkness himself along with his wife Sharon Osbourne and children Aimee, Kelly and Jack.
Ozzy speaks briefly about his poverty-stricken childhood and the stigma of shame that it brought him, along with his own anxiety and insecurities of losing those closest to him. While growing up in Birmingham, England he was arrested for petty theft. Needless to say after spending an awakening six weeks in jail for this crime he knew that he was never meant to repeat it. Osbourne’s love of music was sparked by the revolutionary sounds of The Beatles. He would eventually take bold steps towards his new career by leaving the blue collar life behind and becoming the lead singer of one of the most popular heavy metal rock bands to date, Black Sabbath.
However, his success became tainted without proper direction and management which would eventually lead to a full-blown addiction to both drugs and alcohol. His addiction and the behaviour associated with it would destroy his first marriage to Thelma Riley and lead to him getting fired from Black Sabbath.
His saving grace came in the form of his future wife Sharon Arden and her father, renowned music manager Don Arden. After Ozzy was introduced to guitarist Randy Rhoads something clicked like magic between the two. They became good friends and worked together on the album that would send Osbourne’s solo career to dizzying new heights, “Blizzard of Ozz”. Unfortunately, Randy’s career was cut short by a horrific freak plane crash on March 19, 1982. Osbourne never got over his friend’s death and blamed himself for not being awake to stop Randy from getting on the ill-advised flight.
The biography also explores the loving but tumultuous marriage between Ozzy and Sharon. First of all, one has to be somewhat wacky and adventurous in order to marry someone like Ozzy. It is pretty clear to me that Sharon is no ordinary woman. Despite what many critics may say about her, I have a deep sense of respect and affection for her as a business woman and a wife/mother. Poor Sharon has been through hell during Ozzy’s addiction years, including one particularly terrifying incident when he almost strangled her during one of his drug abuse incidents. It was a moment of rude awakening for them both. Sharon did admit that the word divorce came up during the temporary period of separation when Ozzy was ordered by the court to go into rehab, but she also discussed how absolutely miserable she was without him. They had already become an integral part of each other and were like soulmates.
Sharon’s illness was also another topic touched on in the documentary. It was devastating for Ozzy when faced with the fact that he may lose his wife to colon cancer. Their children spoke very candidly about seeing this side of their father and seeing how much he truly loved their mother. Then during this period, as if they already didn’t have a rough go at it, Ozzy gets into an accident that sets him back with terrible injuries which would eventually lead to his recent diagnosis of Parkin 2, an early form of Parkinson’s disease.
All during this period The Osbournes reality show was being aired on television and it became one of the catalysts for the now popular genre. However, nobody does it like the Osbournes in my opinion.
It was extremely emotional to see Ozzy’s children speak about him with the utmost love and respect. Despite the crazy traumatic events of their childhood, they have managed to push through and become their own people whilst still being super supportive of their parents.
The biography felt extremely raw and real because you got the sense that they genuinely wanted to share these moments, both good and bad, with the public. Even if you are a supporter of them or not, one cannot deny the fact that Ozzy Osbourne has left his permanent mark on the music industry and has become an inspiration to a lot of other musicians like rapper Post Malone, who has done two music collaborations with him, and singer Marilyn Manson. Sadly, Ozzy has had to slow down on his daily life since the Parkin 2 diagnosis and with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but he seems to be coping well by spending lots of time with his family.
If you are a fan of The Prince of Darkness you are not going to want to miss out on this documentary. It is a true rags-to-riches story of a man afflicted with severe addiction who eventually rose above it all to become a well-loved and iconic rock star.
Dark Alice’s Score: 8.5 out of 10
For more Obsbournes you can check out my reviews of The Osbournes Want to Believe paranormal series here and The Osbournes: Night of Terror here. And for more great documentary content you can check out a collab review of Tiger King here.
Dark Alice has an old soul and a curious mind. I believe that anyone can be a hero and that the good guys should always win! I dislike cruelty to animals and think that they have far superior qualities to humans. My motto is there is no future without the past. I also have a weird penchant for Paranormal TV shows even though the slightest sound makes me jump. I enjoy writing reviews and throwing in fun facts to pique the readers’ curiosity. My ultimate goal in life would be to become a published writer one day. You can find me as Dark Alice Reviews on Facebook where you’ll get my reviews hot off the press. You can also find me on Instagram as alice_oscura and my Twitter handle is @lise_veliz2. For my extended bio you can click here.