JANUARY 29, 1996
Ozzy Osbourne has been on the show around twenty times. Usually he would come in with someone else, either his kids or his wife, Sharon. In fact, a lot of times Sharon, outspoken and brash and virtually unknown in those early appearances, was as good a guest as Ozzy. She would curse like a sailor and take crap from no one. Once she even had an on-air screamfest with the Insane Clown Posse. She came back at them so hard. (Sharon: “They called me a bitch, and I was just really upset because it’s really demeaning for my reputation in this industry. Because I’m not a bitch. I’m a ballbuster. And I’m going to rip your balls off and shove ’em in your mouth—figuratively speaking of course, gentlemen.”) I congratulated myself on discovering a gem. Sharon Osbourne: a radio gold mine.
At some point I said to Ozzy and Sharon, “You guys should do a show where they just follow you around with a camera. I would watch that because of the sheer craziness of you two.” So their reality show was basically an idea introduced in one of my interviews. One time they asked me to testify to that in court. Someone was suing them, claiming that The Osbournes was really their idea. I never had to testify, but I handed over the transcripts of that show and it proved their case. I loved how they interacted, and was selfishly glad when The Osbournes premiered on MTV. I never missed an episode.
This interview is special because it’s one of the only times Ozzy came in on his own. It was maybe the first time up until then that he came in sober. He’d been to rehab at the Betty Ford Center not long before, and it was sticking.
A lot of people have the wrong idea about Ozzy. They think of him as being out of it, a drugged-out zombie. As this interview shows, he’s incredibly wise, thoughtful, and funny. Over the years listeners have complained about how hard it is to understand Ozzy with his thick British accent. That’s a great advantage of this book: when that accent is stripped away, you realize his incredible wit and wisdom. Some of the greatest one-liners ever delivered on the show have come from Ozzy Osbourne.
Howard: Let me soak you in, man. Let me look at you.
Ozzy: Why, are you falling in love with me or something?
Howard: I’m not falling in love with you, take it easy. Look at how healthy you look! You know, now that I think about it, the first time I did interview you, your hands were shaking and everything. You were a mess. You were really messed up.
Ozzy: I was really on death’s door, man. I was drinking four bottles of Hennessy a day, two cases of beer, about four grams of coke, all the rest of this garbage.
Howard: So, what are you drinking now?
Ozzy: I’m drinking coffee. I’ve got this new stuff. You’ve got to try it. It’s called wheat, wheat—what is it called?
Howard: Oh, wheatgrass.
Ozzy: Wheatgrass. It’s like horse piss.
Howard: You’ve done a complete turnaround in your life. I said the other day, “Ozzy looks about twenty years younger.”
Ozzy: I’ve just quit smoking. Believe it or not, I’m a month without a cigarette. Out of all the things that I’ve put in my body, that—
Howard: It’s the hardest.
Ozzy: Let me tell you something, I was watching the TV—CNN—the other day, and they had some of the guys from the tobacco company. And they all stood up there under oath and said, “Tobacco is a nonaddictive substance.” Horseshit.
Howard: You can’t use the s-word, Ozzy.
Ozzy: Oh, I’m sorry.
Howard: No, you’re saying tobacco is an addictive substance.
Ozzy: It is the most addictive substance on the planet. Heroin, man. I was taking heroin and it was easier.
Howard: How long did it take you to kick heroin?
Ozzy: Well, I wasn’t really into it. I wasn’t shooting it. I would snort it from time to time. But I didn’t like throwing up. I mean, I don’t get that stuff, man. The first time I tried it was in Germany. I thought the guy gave me the wrong stuff, man. I was projectile—
Howard: You were vomiting.
Ozzy: The Exorcist pea soup was coming out of every orifice in my body for a month. I was going, “Man, the guy gave me some laxative or something.” Tell you one thing, though, it cured my athlete’s foot.
Howard: The first time you do it, you’re throwing up and you’re not enjoying it, so what makes you do it a second time?
Ozzy: Then I go to LA two years later and I’m staying at the Sunset Marquis, which at the time was the in place.
Howard: That’s where we met up with you, but you didn’t remember me.
Ozzy: Did we?
Howard: This is a really funny story. I’ve gotta take you back to this. I went to California. I had interviewed you a couple months before. Robin and I said, “Hey, let’s stay at the Sunset Marquis because we hear Ozzy hangs out there, and maybe we’ll run into him.” So I was sitting by the pool five minutes, all of a sudden you came in with your wife and your daughters and everyone. And it looked a little weird, ’cause you know how you look. Your kids looked really conservative. They were all wearing nice white dresses. Your wife was beautifully dressed. And you, you know . . . The whole picture didn’t fit. It looked bizarre.
Ozzy: You’ve gotta understand that the wife’s the boss, man. I mean, I’m walking around Manhattan the other day, and she’s like, “Ozzy, walk straight. Ozzy, don’t look that way.”
Howard: But you must like that.
Ozzy: No, it’s like a pain up my rear end. “Ozzy, you’ve gone overtime in the bathroom.” I’ll wake up in the morning, and she’s got her knees on my shoulders, squeezing my zits, going, “Just let me get it!”
Howard: In other words, Ozzy Osbourne has the same life that we all do.
Ozzy: We all do, man! Everybody’s the same. Some days you get up and you look at your wife and you think why the hell did I ever—
Howard: So why do you stay married to her? Obviously, you could be living the life of a bachelor where you would be having sex constantly with different women.
Ozzy: I’m not interested. It’s bad enough with the one. It’s as good as it’s going to get. It’s as good and it’s as bad. I mean, I could get the next Pamela Anderson with big knockers and all that, right? But you know it ain’t going to last.
Howard: While you’re doing that, it’s kind of fun, though, isn’t it?
Ozzy: It ain’t worth a three-second leg shudder to worry “Is my dick going to fall off?” for the rest of my life.
Howard: That’s true. You’re worried about AIDS and all that other stuff that you could pick up.
Robin Quivers [co-host]: And not only that, but you get to keep all your money.
Ozzy: My first wife cleaned me out, man.
Howard: Oh, did she? Really?
Ozzy: A hundred shopping trolleys, she was gone, man.
Howard: I didn’t realize you had a first wife.
Ozzy: She’s now got a job swimming up and down Loch Ness while the monster takes a break.
Howard: Did you get married at a very young age to your first wife?
Ozzy: About three. I thought she was my mother for the first twenty-five years.
Howard: What happened? You were a young rock-and-roll guy—
Ozzy: I was just slamming every chick, smoking all the dope, doing all the drugs. You’re young, you’re successful, you’ve got a million dollars in the bank, and you think your dick’s invincible. But then that big disease came: AIDS. And it was like [screams].
Howard: That slowed you down.
Ozzy: You go to the clap doctor now, and they all come out and go, “Yeah, I’ve got syphilis!”
Howard: Yeah, you’re happy. So, you’re very happily married. You’re very happy to be married.
Ozzy: Yeah. Sharon, she’s the other half of me.
Howard: So here’s what happened in California. All of a sudden you walked by the pool. And I went, “Wow, there’s Ozzy. He’s probably going to come over and say hello to us because we just interviewed him.” You blew right by us. I said, “Jesus Christ, this is really embarrassing. Maybe we should go over and say hello to him, but I don’t want to go over and say hello to Ozzy Osbourne and bother the guy. Maybe he’ll start yelling at us and punch me in the mouth. Who knows? Maybe he’s not into it.” I said to Robin, “I have a plan.” Jessica Hahn had just got in the news. You know, it was big news that she was with Jim Bakker.
Ozzy: I remember that idiot.
Howard: So anyway, I turned to Robin and said, “I have a wonderful plan. Ozzy’s not going to talk to us. I’ll call up Jessica Hahn. I’ll call her up, tell her to sit by the pool, tell her to wear next to nothing, and Ozzy will come over and talk to us.” So I called up Jessica Hahn, and in five minutes, she got over to the Sunset Marquis. As soon as she walked in, you got up and walked right over to us. You sat with us, totally ignored me and Robin, and talked to Jessica Hahn for ten minutes.
Ozzy: Really? I must have been stoned.
Howard: You were completely out of your mind.
Ozzy: People come up to me and go, “Hi, Oz!” And I go, “Hi . . .” And they’re like, “Do you remember me? You spent four months in my house.” And I go, “What?”
Howard: Did you black out all the time?
Ozzy: All the time. I’ve got kids that I don’t even know, man.
Howard: You know what’s weird? Because people will never understand this. Here you have a lot of money. You’ve got unbelievable success. I mean, what are the odds of anybody ever becoming a super rock star? You have everything in the world, and then you’re on heroin and on coke. And people go: “How could he do this? How come he’s not happy?”
Ozzy: But, you know, it’s not unhappy. It’s not being happy. It comes with the territory. You know: “Hey, man, would you like . . .” If you haven’t tried it before, you want to try everything.
Howard: You get into it.
Ozzy: You just want to try it, you know?
Howard: How did you get off everything? Did you do it yourself or did you go to a rehab?
Ozzy: I went to Betty Ford’s and to the AA. And to be honest, I learned. I got a few basic things from it. But the bottom line is that if you want to do anything in this world, you’ve got to really want it.
Howard: You’ve got to do it yourself.
Ozzy: No, you need help. You know, my wife put me in Betty Ford—and this is the God’s honest truth—hoping that they would teach me to drink like a gentleman. I go in there with a Giorgio Armani suit, I’ve got my tie, and I say, “Direct me to the cocktail bar.” They all look at me as if I’ve just landed from Mars.
Howard: You go to Betty Ford and ask for the cocktail bar?
Ozzy: That’s what I did, man! That’s the only way she could get me in the goddamned place. So I walk in and I’ve got pocketfuls of Valium, quaaludes, coke. And they go, “Empty your pockets.” And I go, “No, why?” “We’ve got to itemize it.” Valium, quaaludes, cocaine, syringes, bottle openers.
Howard: They must have thought you were insane.
Ozzy: The only way my wife could get me to go in was she said, “They’ll teach you to do it properly.” I thought I was doing it wrong because I kept waking up in weird and wild places.
Howard: Right. “Maybe I should drink like a gentleman. Just have a couple of beers.”
Ozzy: That’s what I went there for.
Howard: Take one or two ludes.
Ozzy: And then they go, “Uh-uh.”
Howard: You can’t have anything.
Ozzy: The doors are closed. And Betty Ford walks in and she’s like, “Whoa.”
Howard: Betty Ford actually showed up?
Ozzy: I spoke to her on several occasions.
Howard: Really?
Ozzy: Well, I think I did.✦
Howard: Did she start yelling at you?
Ozzy: No, no. She’s very quiet. She would come and inspect the place like a queen. “There’s a grain of coffee over there, a cigarette butt there. Give him fifty lashes.”
Howard: Did you try to make out with her or anything?
Ozzy: Make out with Betty Ford? I don’t even think Gerald Ford ever did.
Howard: Did you have a roommate?
Ozzy: I was sharing with a mortician.
Howard: A mortician?
Ozzy: This guy. And he was all nervous. You can’t have a room of your own. And I’m with this guy and he’s always crying. And I go, “Shut the f— up. Why are you crying?” I mean, this guy’s older than my dad, man. And my dad’s been dead fifty years. He goes, “Oh, I’m so depressed.” And I go, “Why are you depressed?” He says, “I work with dead bodies.” I says, “You’re in the right place, man.”
Howard: Would they sit you in a group? And have you tell your problems?
Ozzy: Oh yeah. But you know what? I’m not dumb, you know. You soon get the gist of it.
Howard: Right, you play along.
Ozzy: You just go, “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.”
Howard: Anything to get out of there. Because you really didn’t want to quit drugs at that point.
Ozzy: At the end of the day, I did want to quit. I just thought . . . I couldn’t stand living, and I was afraid of dying. And that’s, you know, you hear—like Kurt Cobain, who shot himself. That’s just a long-term solution to a short-term problem. I’ve got too much to live for, you know? But when you’re in that hole, when you’re in that hole . . . it’s a god-awful place.
Robin: How is it working sober?
Ozzy: To be honest with you, I do sometimes think, “Well, it would be a nice sunny day. I would sit there and have a beer.” But I know me better than anybody.
Howard: You probably had a messed-up childhood, right? Did anyone beat you when you were a kid? Or did your dad yell at you or something?
Ozzy: It was the thing. “Hi, Dad.” Smack.
Howard: See, that’s why you need the beer.
Ozzy: When I was a kid, my father and mother would fight all the time. I used to say to my father, “Where you going?” He used to say, “Off my goddamned head.” And I used to think there was a place called Off My Goddamned Head. I used to think to myself, “Wow, man, I can’t wait to be old enough to go to this place called Off My Goddamned Head.” Instead of rowing with my mom, he’s going to this place called Off My Goddamned Head and is coming back singing.
Howard: Sounds like a great place.
Ozzy: When I’m old enough, I get there. I’m fourteen with a pair of stiletto boots. So I could look tall enough to get a beer. I find this place, get a beer, and I go, “No, that’s not the stuff, man.” I imagined it to taste like nectar. It tastes like horse urine. I says, “No, man, you’ve given me the wrong stuff, man. The stuff my dad drinks.”
Howard: You know the reason you might have drank? When you’re in your business, you go, “Where the hell’s my next song gonna come from?” It’s a nerve-racking business.
Ozzy: Joking aside, it really is.
Howard: I’m not joking.
Ozzy: There’s only so many notes on a guitar, there’s only so many chords. So you think, well—
Howard: Where’s my next song gonna come from?
Ozzy: It’s all been done before. Nothing’s original.
Howard: I would drink. It makes me nuts, like even ratings and stuff. I have to sit here every day and I go, “Gee, I wonder if somebody’s listening to this.” I have no idea if they’re listening. Maybe I’ll smoke a doobie. It goes through my head. Mellow me out. You need to relax.
Ozzy: But then you end up in Betty Ford with all the Valiums, quaaludes, syringes. . . . See, everybody don’t think it’s for real, though, that I don’t get stoned anymore.
Howard: I believe you.
Ozzy: I got no desire to. I mean, I’m on Prozac.
Howard: Prozac is different.
Ozzy: Yeah, I don’t recommend that to anybody. Your wiener just goes up your—
Howard: You can’t get aroused.
Ozzy: Oh, Miss World could walk through and it’s like—
Howard: Really? No kidding.
Ozzy: No, it’s dead.
Howard: You got to get something to get your wiener up.
Ozzy: Yeah, I’ve got an elastic bandage tied to the end of the bed.
Howard: Why the Prozac, though? Why don’t you get completely drug-free?
Ozzy: Because I’m a psycho. If I wasn’t on Prozac, this studio wouldn’t be here, man. I would’ve come in with the flamethrowers. I’m nuts, man. I just go into this weird vibe, this weird thing. I look at the old footage and some of the old pictures, and I go, “Whoa. It’s like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.”
Howard: Apart from the Prozac, you are now drug-free.
Ozzy: Well, yeah. Coffee. But at the same time, I’m not one of those holier-than-thou people that say, “Because I done it, everybody else should do it.” Hey, if you’re out there and you’re having a good time, you like getting stoned, just get on with it.
Howard: When you see these turds who maybe used to put you down, and now all of a sudden you’re still lasting and everyone else—
Ozzy: That’s what I was just saying the other day. In the eighties it was the Mötley Crües, the Poisons, and all this. I’m in the middle of this thing going, “Where do I fit, man?” And I’m still plugging along.