More than a month after Black Sabbath rocker and music legend Ozzy Osbourne‘s death, his son, Jack Osbourne, is opening up about how he learned the heartbreaking news. On Wednesday, Jack took to YouTube to share a video titled “A personal note before moving forward on the loss of my father,” where he opened up about how he’s been coping since Ozzy died on July 22 at the age of 76.
“It’s been about six weeks since my dad passed, and before getting back into work and regular podcasting, I just felt like I needed to say something,” Jack wrote. “This isn’t a heavy episode, it’s not some deep emotional dive, it’s just me sharing where my head’s been and giving a bit of context before I move forward.”
In the 16 minute video, Jack shared what was happening at the time of Ozzy’s death. The week before, Jack had unexpected quality time with the whole family when his kids were ill and forced him to cancel a vacation to Portugal. Instead, they’d stayed in England after Ozzy’s final Black Sabbath performance, and Jack admitted that he’s “never been so grateful for my kids to have the stomach flu as I am today.”
He’d been back in Los Angeles for about a week when his dad died in London, and Jack had been asleep when he was woken up by someone who came to his house to tell him the news.
“I woke up in Los Angeles to a knock on my house door at around 3.45 in the morning,” he said. “Someone who has worked for my family for probably 30 years was knocking on my door, and when I looked through my window and I saw it was him, I just knew something bad had happened. I was informed that my father had passed.”
He said he reacted with “just sadness and pain,” along with a multitude of other feelings — including “a level of like, ‘okay, he’s not suffering anymore. He’s not struggling.'”
Even though Ozzy was sick and had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2020, Jack admitted that his death took his family by surprise.
“No one expected it to happen as quickly as it did and when it did,” he said. “It was not anything that was on our radar.”
Now, Jack is allowing all of the love and support he’s been showered with to help pull him through.
“That’s something that has been really unique about this experience is, as overwhelming as it can be, with the outpour of love and people reaching out, it’s also been really validating, because I know my dad was a special guy,” he said. “He meant a lot to a lot of people. He was loved so much. A lot of people are going to miss him.”
